Rita Says is a London based artist who uses performance, sculpture, projection and sound. She is the Director of the Jerico Orchestra, and has shown work at The Berlin Art Fair, The Victoria and Albert Museum , A&D Gallery, and The Hundred Years Gallery. She was a resident Artist at Shunt Lounge, and has worked extensively with both Serena Bobowski (Vogue Festival 2012 and V&A) and Anna Frisch (Irreverent Sideshows) on numerous performance projects. Rita has had a long and fruitful involvement with the Hundred Years Gallery, previous exhibitions at the gallery include “Into The Ordinary” 2012 and “Rita Says: New Work” 2013.
“ I am a Duchamp fan.. ..I believe that the work is completed by the viewer. Chance, collaboration, and the use of readymade elements are all fundamental aspects of my practise. William Burroughs is also very big influence, any artist who consciously tries to break down the traditional idea of selfexpression in favour of a decentered approach is very cool”.
The ongoing series Natural History references the “blot” landscapes of the 18th Century drawing master Alexander Cozens, and is an attempt to suggest both internal and external landscapes. These intimate works are intended as tools to aid contemplation and to increase the viewer’s awareness of the mind’s tendency to interpret random patterns as recognizable forms.
All were made using the following 3 procedures:
1. 25 identically sized sheets of paper were soaked in a bucket of water and then arranged in a grid on the floor.
2. Black ink was splashed with a 5 inch house painters brush onto each sheet with closed eyes.
3. Each separate sheet was then turned ink side down and rubbed on the floor, turned back up and allowed to dry.
The “image” created by the process has been allowed to remain unaltered. The odd pictorial quality of these works is (in the artist’s opinion) entirely due to the generally accepted conventions of European landscape depiction and not to any deliberate mimetic act.
