Contributing Artists - Rita DeWitt

Title: "The Maze with Four Courts"

Artist's Bio:

Rita DeWitt is an artist whose means are photographic and digital. DeWitt utilizes technology such as panoramic cameras, pinhole cameras, "normal" cameras, color copiers, desktop computers, workstations, and high-end digital photographic imaging systems. She refuses categorization other than "artist".

DeWitt's work has appeared in "Rita DeWitt and Bart Parker," a traveling exhibition from Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY. When shown at the Museum of Photography, Riverside, California, the exhibition broke the museum's attendance record. Her work has been shown in more than 215 exhibitions nationally and internationally since 1977, including over 30 solo exhibitions.

DeWitt was born in Kentucky. She grew up in Alabama, earning Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees from The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. She began teaching in 1972 and taught at the University of Southern Mississippi from 1977 to 1989. In the years 1987-1989, she was Visiting Associate Professor of Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. DeWitt taught at the Rhode Island School of Design during 1989-1990, 1992-1994, and again in 1995-1996. She was the Harnish Visiting Professor of Art at Smith College from 1990 through 1992. During 1994-1995, she was the SLEMCO-LEQSF Endowed Professor of Art at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette.

DeWitt currently teaches 3D computer animation at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island.

Artist's Statement:

Like other "Spirited Ruins" sites, the Maze contains artifacts which activate upon the presence of a visitor. Motion and sound are the responses.

The Levitating Reflecting Pool in central position holds a changing image from an undetermined location. The Four Courts which surround the Pool have been temporarily designated with descriptive names. The Sculpture Court contains ten interactive sculptures. The Game Court features a board game between the "earth pieces" and the "fire pieces". The Treasure Box Court encloses a large carved "sarcophagus" with various forms. Amlodhi's Court is so named because of its obvious structure representing mythic cosmological elements, apparently intended to display a world view.

Technical Description:

This piece (excluding Mark Nadeau's Levitating Reflecting Pool) exists entirely in virtual space.