“Driven by an overriding desire to explore photography in its many permutations, Ritterman is easeful in shifting between reportage through to abstraction, from the meaning inherent in the image to the meaning inherent in the photograph as object.” Naomi Cass, Director, Centre for Contemporary Photography 2012
Themes of love & loss, memory & memorialisation, rituals & identity underpin Hedy’s projects.
Her large scale, site-specific installations, using assemblage, soundscapes, photography and the architectural spaces themselves, have been exhibited at Jewish Museum Australia, VIC, Museum of Australian Democracy, ACT, local council and commercial galleries, public and domestic spaces.
With university studies in Psychology, Design, Photography and Fine Arts, Hedy has merged these learnings with her work/life experiences, to create artworks that bridge the personal and the universal. She often uses orphaned objects left behind after death, discarded or obsolete, as archaeological relics, transforming them into intriguing photographs and installations. In the often-playful process of transformation, Hedy explores connections from found things & visions, mining the chance encounters for their poetic possibilities.
Hedy has won the prestigious Human Justice Award in the 63rd Blake Prize, The Linden Postcard Prize and the CCP Kodak Still Life Award. Many other photographic works have been shortlisted for numerous prizes including the Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Prize (QLD), Olive Cotton Award (NSW), and National Photographic Purchase Award (NSW).
Hedy is co-founder of the not-for-profit art collective, The Contemporary Collective (TCC), that provides an independent platform for artists to critically engage with issues of cultural significance. She is also director of HedsPaceProjects, a production entity that facilitates art in alternative spaces.
Her work is held in The Cunningham Dax Collection, Royal Melbourne Hospital Collection as well as numerous local and overseas corporate and private collections.