Rita Shumaker

Drawing | Painting | Ceramics | Fabrics

Artist Statement

There is an iconographic approach to content in my studio work. Images,metaphoric and conjunctive, are rooted in primary experience. In an alternating rhythm, perceptions from the natural world and the intuitive intellect are woven together in a tapestry of biomorphic forms and mythic themes. Veiled color and repetition create pulsating surfaces and a heightened sense of movement.

My artistic intent is to create an iconography expressive of the deep feminine, to develop a contemporary vocabulary for the energy patterns associated with the ancient rites and rituals of the Goddess cultures and to give these ancient icons modern dress. In the more recent work there has developed an increasing emphasis on interval, space, and silence. It is as if this particular language can only be spoken in an in-between realm, in secret, or in cipher.

I will speak to you in stone language
(answer with a green syllable)
I will speak to you in snow language
(answer with a fan of bees)
I will speak to you in water language
(answer with a canoe of lightning)
I will speak to you in blood language
(answer with a tower of birds)

- Octavio Paz

Perspective. (c) Rita Shumaker. All rights reserved. No part of this image may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the artist.

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