Acrylic artist Theresa Ritter moved to Alaska in 2021. Since then, she's observed a large brown bear clam on the beach and enjoyed the northern lights beam in the sky.
Those experiences served as the basis for a few of her roughly 30 acrylic pieces on view in the Kenai Chamber of Commerce's conference room. They’re all based on nature photographs she’s taken.
Ritter says when she’s outdoors, she photographs any scene she thinks will make a good painting.
“Last year, I challenged myself," Ritter said. "I wanted to do a show at some point this year, so I just went through all my photos, and I printed off the ones I love the best. I've worked from getting them onto canvas, sketched out and painted.”
Among the acrylic bears and colorful aurora borealis paintings is a piece titled “October Sky.” Like the name suggests, the colorful arrangement depicts a sky in the month of October.
“I was working at the Kenai Art Center. I had walked out. It was an October evening, and the sunset was amazing, and I took a ton of photos of it,” Ritter said.
Ritter has considered herself a painter for a while. She’s had work on view in other venues, but she says this is her first solo show. She hopes her work sparks good memories of enjoying Alaska and inspires people to explore more of the state.
“We have so many awesome places here that we walk by all the time, but we may not necessarily look at it, so just taking a second to take a look around us and kind of savor it a little bit,” Ritter said.
Ritter’s work will be on view at the chamber through the end of the month.
