Amy Ritter

I am influenced by working class people, their stories, workplaces, homes, and bodies; specifically those living in mobile homes. Tangentially I’m curious about my queer female body at work, as another building material, a symbol of invisible labor, stemming from a haunting feeling of a history and class that I can’t escape. My work is situated in sculpture, site-specificity, queer-identity and social practice. For the past 5 years I’ve documented mobile home parks (over 25 sites) and interviewed residents; compiled research on the mobile home industry and culture; and created and exhibited work influenced by these rudimentary archives I’ve built and my personal history growing up in a double-wide trailer in eastern Pennsylvania. I’m continuing to visit mobile home parks throughout the east coast and rust belt, systematically archiving with overarching research questions around the American Dream, specifically the myth of social mobility and the stigma and shame around places we call home.

Amy Ritter_SCAFFOLD_Xerox photographic images_2019_ Largest figure is 14 FT tall & smallest figure is 5 Ft 5 IN tall_ Porch Gallery in Upstate NY_ This project was part of a solo exhibition I had in upstate NY called FAÇADE | SCAFFOLD. I created a human scaffolding using the body as building material to talk about class hierarchy and social mobility.

Amy Ritter grew up in Eastern, PA in the rural town of Orefield. Her work is an exploration of her relationship to her physical self vis-à-vis mobile homes and their interior landscapes. It stages her memories of her experience of growing up in a mobile home community—a place she left but still feels connected to. Through her ongoing work of archiving these homes and neighborhoods she also creates immersive installations and site-specific public sculptures. She received her MFA from The Ohio State University (2014) and a BFA from Tyler School of Art (2009) and attended Skowhegan in 2016. Ritter has had solo exhibitions at Loyola University; The Arlington Arts Center; Fleisher Art Memorial; the Sculpture Center; and Gravy Gallery. She was the recipient of Smack Mellon’s Hot Picks List; Finalist for a Creative time grant, 2021; and has received numerous residencies and fellowships including Vermont Studio Center, Fine Arts Work Center; MiXER at D’ Clinic, Hungary; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), Trestle Gallery, Yaddo; and currently an Engaging Artist Fellow through More Art. This summer she will be in residence at The Atlantic Arts Center in Florida as an Associate Artist and recently installed a new public sculpture at sculpture at Franconia Sculpture Park.