Low Down Articles
Artist Profiles - Rick Ritza
Article 55 of 73
From the book Artists of the Gatineau Hill by Catherine Joyce. This article first appeared in the "Artist Profiles" column in the April 18, 2007 issue of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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Mysterious World
How do you enter the world of the artist who has created a symbolic universe of such deep concern that its language demands the core of you? William Blake springs to mind in the pantheon of poet-artists. The work of visual artist and sculptor Rick Ritza of Wakefield is equally mysterious, layered with private perceptions that speak of public peril on a grand scale. There is a story here but it requires a stillness of being to absorb and appreciate its complexity.
Rick Ritza shies away from explanation or interpretation, preferring his work to speak for itself. At home and in his studio he stands surrounded by a life time of creation, going back to his youth at the High School of Commerce in Ottawa, where he studied for four years in the Visual Arts program. Two years at Sheridan, further study at Algonquin, and at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, then years as a commercial artist crafting work of such stark, clear detail that he was in high demand, Rick has never given up his private pursuit of a visual commentary on the state of the world. These days, apart from his professional work as a sign design-maker, he is dedicated to his painting and sculpture.
Certain images recur in the way certain words recur in poets of prophetic vision, a currency of obsession that rings out in every poem/painting.
The crows are here, shadow crows and their real-life replicas: "They are the highest bird on the evolutionary scale. They live in social communities where they baby-sit each other's young. And yet they are misunderstood and reviled as scavengers. Who in this world is not a scavenger?"
The puppet masks are here, morphed through countless incarnations in an evolutionary trail that leads from Neanderthals to Mer-baby mutants - fallout from the technological 'progress' of man.
The robot creatures are here with their mirrored eyes watching you, as if Big Brother had finally become a household god.
The dead trees are here, collateral damage from acid rain. And the garbage people scrabbling out of their ash cans, their skin burning with a phosphorescent light.
The spectral hierophants are here, those archetypal sentinels, male and female, animus and anima, who move between realms, witnessing the impending implosion of the world.
An apocalyptic vision that has its seeds in the belief that human kind is not prepared emotionally for the technological power we have unleashed - this is the challenge that Rick Ritza offers us. In his recent Portal series with its talismanic interplay of levels of being and of awareness, the crow's eye view contrasts with the sightless mask of paralyzed humanity. One might well ask - will we wake up before it is too late?
This is a very personal world, emblematic in its clean lines and stark archetypal imagery; the mind and heart of the artist made visible. The passage of time with its mysteries, the emotionally laden implications of Man's blind evolution - such art is eloquent, for all who would see and hear.
Like Blake before him, Rick Ritza is daily consumed by his vision. Questions of the marketplace do not figure. "My work is about emotion. I paint what I feel and what I see. I am driven to do it. There is no other way to express myself. This is what I am."