artist statement

The Jewish tradition is one of survival, celebration, storytelling, and nostalgia. We’re taught to remember history as though we’ve personally experienced everything that has ever happened to the Jewish people and so inheriting memories  - remembering places I’ve never been and people I’ve never held - has always been a common practice for me. It’s strange to be a part and product of an ancient collective identity and also to be my own brand new, original little entity of a person all at once.

I work in a number of mediums and methods - painting, printmaking, installation art, writing, and curating - in effort to articulate the swirly thoughts in my head legibly and in pursuance of a visual language that feels unique and authentic to the contemporary western Jewish experience. Currently, I am interested in the duelling notions of collective and personal identity, materializations of nostalgia, and the weird place right at the border between remembering and forgetting (if such a place even exists).

Self-reflection, in both processes of creating my art and viewing it, is a crucial element of my practice.

©Halley Ritter 2022 // all work on this website subject to copyright