Rita Leduc is an interdisciplinary artist living in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her practice uses visual, conceptual, and practical investigations to uncover pathways of potential within systems and relationships. With subjects that include environmental, human, and organizational ecosystems, she observes and participates in relationships to assemble an indefinitely-accruing, multi-dimensional understanding of the ever-expanding whole.
Rita’s visual art begins with fieldwork, typically at a location that hosts transcontextual research. Back in the studio, she translates collected “data” into a site-specific lexicon of colors, shapes, textures, and marks. With this lexicon, she creates dialogical drawing, collage, installation, and mixed media works that augment previous encounters and evolve her relationship to place. Over time, this relationship and its encompassing system expands into interconnected people and communities.
Rita is currently Artist-in-Residence at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest where she collaborates on Ecology Extended with Dr. Rich Blundell, Dr. Lindsey Rustad, and the forest itself. Outputs have cultivated conversations about tipping points, baselines, consciousness, chaos, constraints, fecundity, and resilience. Ecology Extended’s intention is to extend these ideas from the forest, through science and art, and into culture.
Additional ongoing engagements include GROUNDWORK, an interdisciplinary research platform, Art-Sci at FSMLs, Oika, and The Third Thing Project.
Websites:
Instagram: @ritaleduc and @groundworkretreat
