PAMELA RITCHIE
Pamela Ritchie: Water life and Patterns of Erosion
Artist Statement and Bio
Most of my life has been in Nova Scotia, Canada. I have also lived near a fjord in Norway, and on the west coast of Newfoundland. In all these places—as well as others I have spent time in—I have been fortunate to have experienced fascinating marine life and landscapes.
These pieces are inspired by life and landscapes near the ocean. They employ imagery of erosion, marine life, and processes of transmutation.
While creating them, I began to think of them as lost memories of a landscape imagined as a child—a time when we were free to roam as far as our bicycles would take us. We created a kingdom behind the branches of a weeping willow, while the nearby Tantramar Marsh became a magical flatland of endless novelty.
Today, those Tantramar Tidal Salt Marshes and their immediate landscape are endangered by increasing wind and water erosion, due to climate change.
Even though we have tended to overlook those impacts, the resulting patterns of erosion are now becoming inescapably evident.
Through observation, drawing, abstraction and reimagining, I have created fine art jewellery that celebrates the beauty of the ocean—while also highlighting changes to nearby land brought about by the inexorable effect of drops of water and persistent wind over time.
These latest works incorporate carving into materials not usually associated with traditional brooches, thus allowing for more visual depth, while remaining light in weight.
The results are sometimes visually whimsical—even mythological—while they also celebrate the resistance of the natural world, in the face of man-made challenges.
Winner of the prestigious 2017 Governor General’s Saidye Bronfman Award in Visual and Media Arts, Pamela Ritchie’s jewellery explores linkages between past and present craft practices; contemporary ideas of science, culture and environment; and the language of materials.
Ritchie’s work has been exhibited in over one hundred solo and group shows spanning three decades, throughout North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe, and has regularly been featured in books, catalogues, and periodicals.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Canadian Museum of History, the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum (Norway), and the Nova Scotia Art Bank are among the major institutional collectors of her work.
As an advocate for Canadian jewellery, she has lectured in Canada, England, USA, and Korea, and has also served as the Canadian consultant for exhibitions and publications here and abroad. She is now Professor Emerita of Jewellery Design at NSCAD University.
Pamela’s work celebrates the concentrating effect of detail, and the paradox that an abundance of ideas, form, and pattern can be encapsulated in small poetic objects. Her art practice is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Artist Statement and Bio
Most of my life has been in Nova Scotia, Canada. I have also lived near a fjord in Norway, and on the west coast of Newfoundland. In all these places—as well as others I have spent time in—I have been fortunate to have experienced fascinating marine life and landscapes.
These pieces are inspired by life and landscapes near the ocean. They employ imagery of erosion, marine life, and processes of transmutation.
While creating them, I began to think of them as lost memories of a landscape imagined as a child—a time when we were free to roam as far as our bicycles would take us. We created a kingdom behind the branches of a weeping willow, while the nearby Tantramar Marsh became a magical flatland of endless novelty.
Today, those Tantramar Tidal Salt Marshes and their immediate landscape are endangered by increasing wind and water erosion, due to climate change.
Even though we have tended to overlook those impacts, the resulting patterns of erosion are now becoming inescapably evident.
Through observation, drawing, abstraction and reimagining, I have created fine art jewellery that celebrates the beauty of the ocean—while also highlighting changes to nearby land brought about by the inexorable effect of drops of water and persistent wind over time.
These latest works incorporate carving into materials not usually associated with traditional brooches, thus allowing for more visual depth, while remaining light in weight.
The results are sometimes visually whimsical—even mythological—while they also celebrate the resistance of the natural world, in the face of man-made challenges.
Winner of the prestigious 2017 Governor General’s Saidye Bronfman Award in Visual and Media Arts, Pamela Ritchie’s jewellery explores linkages between past and present craft practices; contemporary ideas of science, culture and environment; and the language of materials.
Ritchie’s work has been exhibited in over one hundred solo and group shows spanning three decades, throughout North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe, and has regularly been featured in books, catalogues, and periodicals.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Canadian Museum of History, the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum (Norway), and the Nova Scotia Art Bank are among the major institutional collectors of her work.
As an advocate for Canadian jewellery, she has lectured in Canada, England, USA, and Korea, and has also served as the Canadian consultant for exhibitions and publications here and abroad. She is now Professor Emerita of Jewellery Design at NSCAD University.
Pamela’s work celebrates the concentrating effect of detail, and the paradox that an abundance of ideas, form, and pattern can be encapsulated in small poetic objects. Her art practice is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.