Mary Grace Ritter
BA, Photography
Statement
As someone who lives with anxiety, I use photography as a form of control. I make decisions about what exists within and outside of the frame, crafting the world as I see it and how I want it to be seen. This act of control provides some comfort, making the inherent chaos and unpredictability of the world playful instead of scary. While some decisions feel stressful and burdensome, the choices made while photographing become a type of game.
Still lifes and hand-made scenes become the ultimate form of control. In this way I’m not just showing others how I view the world we all live in but I am creating my own. Through the use of magazine cutouts and household objects my work has a sense of familiarity even in an unfamiliar scene.
Bio
Mary Grace Ritter is a 22-year-old artist currently based in Chicago, Illinois and she was born and raised in St.Louis, Missouri. Her fine art work plays with scale and color utilizing collage materials such as magazine cutouts and found objects. She is also a photojournalist and worked as the Arts & Entertainment editor for The Loyola Phoenix. Ritter’s works have been published both locally in The Phoenix and internationally in German magazine Musikexpress.