 This is Education Matters on Think Tech, Hawaii, and I'm your host, Carol Monly, with my special guest, mixed media sculptor and artist, Chris Ritzen, who combines nature and science to create the most exciting artwork. Some of Chris' work is currently on exhibit at the Honolulu Biennial 2017, the contemporary visual arts festival running now through May 8th at the site of the Old Sports Authority on Ward and at other venues. Chris described his work as creating a dialogue with the environment to imagine new ways of interacting with nature. His work is not just visually interesting and stimulating, but adds a whole other dimension to art by engaging the mind and the heart in examining a multitude of relationships. So welcome, Chris. Thank you. So Chris, how long have you been an artist? I guess officially, maybe like nine or ten years, but pretty much been something I've been involved in my whole life. But I know you studied in college, you studied both science and philosophy. Yeah, initially I went to Reed College in Portland, I was really geared towards philosophy and theoretical sort of things, but for one reason or another I came back to Hawaii. I went to UH and switched my interests a lot, got into aquaculture, came back to work on a shrimp farm and I went to UH and started studying to do that. So a biotechnology, right? Yeah, yeah, real basic, but definitely interested in agriculture in a way it relates to environmental issues at that point. And then? Yeah, pretty quickly I thought the role I should be filling or the role that's best for me was working with ideas and paradigms and not just creating products but creating ideas around those environmental issues I was engaged with. And how did art then, as a way of expressing these ideas, how did that become the medium? I guess art allows you to look at a subject and investigate it in ways that other academic processes didn't really allow for, so the work I do, I try to engage it with an actual process in nature, in the environment, in the world that has an impact in a way that an essay couldn't. Right, so it's interesting because your background, your education background really is the perfect background to help you put together all these different forms of art as we've talked, as the title of our show indicates art, science, and nature into your art form. So let's show some images because these are really interesting, we'll give our public. So what is this first image? This is a detailed shot of an installation I have at the, on a little biennial this year. Right, it looks like there's a pair of glasses and a bottle. So this detail is inside of an aquarium, you're looking at a bunch of garbage I collected off of the reefs outside of urban Honolulu, Waikiki, Honolulu Harbor area, and this garbage is selected because it's covered in this really interesting algae, Coraline algae, whole multitude of species in this colony, but it is this sort of crusty purple stuff you see growing on the garbage. So this is the natural state once it's been dumped into the ocean, I mean it's a part. So some of these bottles are from the 70s, there's an old Coke bottle there, there's a Heineken bottle in the back that's probably only a few years old, but this stuff is really voracious in the reef and it plays a really important role. As it encrusts these things, it ultimately will cement them together. So as the reef crumbles apart, as corals die, it's glued back together by this stuff and it's kind of referred to as the cement of the reef. So let's show the next slide. Okay, now this is actually the installation, the larger, those pieces are in these. Yeah, this is on display for about another week here, and this is an aquarium system designed to cultivate that algae. I see, so we're looking at, for our podcast listeners, we're looking at a picture inside our large room with two aquariums, and they're connected? Yes, they're all connected. Each aquarium has slightly different wave parameters in it to simulate different sort of environments, and the two are connected by a third aquarium underneath it, which houses a series of filtration units and a CO2 unit, and this is designed to alter the water in a way that is, what, alter the water in a way that it could be affected in the future, having to do with environmental climate change, specifically CO2. Carbon dioxide and air is dissolved into the water here, and we create a more acidic. There's a heater to make it slightly warmer. So, have you seen the, I'm not sure, do you call it debris, the last slide that we saw with the glasses and the cold bottle? Has it evolved, changed much over the course of the festival? Yeah, well, the first thing that happens is a lot of it dies off in the system. This algae is really susceptible to, specifically the sort of changes higher carbon dioxide levels will have in the water. So, certain ones died off very quickly, and then after a couple months, other ones started to come back, and so I'm really interested in the ones that are surviving here, and as they reproduce, they start to grow on those panels that are submerged in the tank. So, it's been a very slow process. I was originally looking at a couple of years to realize this project, but I think there's been a lot that's happened in the past couple of months that are pretty interesting. So that if anybody went to, and like I attended the opening of the show, which was about two months ago, right, and went back this week, the actual exhibit would look different because of the growth and the dying off of this technology. Yeah, well, you should bring your glasses. Very small changes right now. It's very small change, and that's sort of the reality of working with these organisms is that they are very slow, but what is more important to me is a sort of performance of doing this act that is creating an archival object in the end. And that was my original interest, is because once these panels are removed, the algae will be archival, it will last forever, so long as it's properly cared for, it won't decay in any way. It will turn into a white calcium, it looks like lichen, ultimately. So what is the plan for it? So after the close of the art festival on May 8th, you will take them out of the aquarium? Yes. And what will you do with them, display them? Yeah, they'll probably be preserved and displayed. Depending on what sort of system I set up back in my studio, I may save clones from the individuals that did really well, save for maybe another installation I'm doing with them. But I think this one's run its course here. I think they will be preserved as documents of the performance and the installation. I see. So this is really interesting to me because how do you classify it? It's not a painting, it's not a sculpture, it's an art object, you said? Yeah, well, it's an installation creating an object. The work itself is this performance I'm doing in the space, which is setting up the aquarium and allowing this chemical interplay to happen and the algae is to grow in relation to it. It is producing an art object, it is producing within it a discreet object which can be viewed like a painting. But ultimately it is a time-based installation. And performance with my interaction with it. So as I was telling our audience, this is really unique because I had never been really exposed to this kind of art. Let's show the second set of images. Okay, and now we're looking at, what sort of looks like a traditional panel, a gold oblong panel? What is that, Chris? This is a, well, this is made out of sawdust and the micellia of a mushroom. A mushroom? A mushroom, yeah, so this is a mushroom painting. So it's on a gold background, or is that the wood? That's the walls it's against, the Honolubianial, all the rooms are done with just raw wood. But the square? Yeah, so I acquire the sawdust from reforestation efforts up in our spot in Handless. We cut down these invasive trees, I grind them up, and I sterilize the sawdust. And I inoculate it with the mushroom micellia. Micellia is the root structure of the mushroom. It's something you usually never see. If you think of mushrooms as an apple tree, perhaps. The entire tree is underground. The apple is the mushroom, you see. So the micellia travels through the sawdust and binds it all together. So is this something micellia you get from the outside? Yeah, well, I collect them locally. I find fungus in the forest. There's a really broad variety of fungus introduced from all over the world. Take it home, and I clone it in agar. So in your studio, you're cloning live matter? Yeah, I have a. It's almost like a biology lab. It is, it's a very DIY sort of biology lab. I do most of my work in Tupperware. I sterilize my Petri dishes with canning jars. I use all very accessible objects. And most of that's been made available through the internet and through people who are taking science out of the laboratory and into their homes and working with it. It's a really interesting growing process that we've only been using since maybe the early 80s for the longest time. Mushrooms are really hard to cultivate. People did them on logs. But this method was found and developed. And commercially, anyone who's grown mushrooms, they have this block at the end after they've fruited. And it's very obviously a really valuable object and resource we can use for building and design. But I'm really interested as it applies to producing a sort of environmentally sustainable art object. Right. Well, let's show the next slide, because now we can see how that particular panel is part of a much bigger installation. So we're looking here now at a slide of an entire room which is dedicated to Chris's work, this particular work at the Biennial. And you want to describe it to her? Yeah, so there is a series of mushroom paintings in here. How many are there on the walls? I believe there's, let's see, 4, 8, 13 of them altogether. On all four walls? Yeah. And they're all the same sort of wood and the same sort of mushroom, but they all have pretty drastically different patterns on them. And this is what's so interesting to me is that as the mushroom grows and interacts with tiny other bacteria and yeasts and other fungus in the air and creates these really brilliant patterns and ultimately creates its own composition. So I'm not involved in the way these come out and the patterns and the painting of them in any way. You don't know, it's up to nature. No clue, yeah. All I can do is initiate it and let it do its thing. So when did this particular project started? How long have you been working on? This one took about three months. Three months, and then what will happen to this installation after the show? I'll probably go into storage, but all of these works are, themselves, they are archival. Often, I will. When you say archival, what do you mean? It means that we can preserve them. They won't rot away in any way. Generally, we use a term for art supplies, like a piece of paper. Certain papers won't last, aren't designed to last, but these objects are in their entire design made to last. So most artists produce art and with the hope that eventually it is purchased and acquired and placed in some collection and viewed by people who can appreciate it beyond the artist. So are you, is that a goal of yours? Do you look at selling your pieces like this? Yes, well, I think that's always the challenge how the artist integrates with the market. And the way you integrate with the market speaks a lot to how you are working with value and with capitalism. These are attempts to create biological objects that can be sold that are preservable. But that's not necessarily my ambition, and that's been a nice thing to pursue with installation art. Experiences like the Honolulu Biennial, where the work isn't even for sale, let's talk about other issues that aren't necessarily involved in the market. I think I have struggled really finding biological generative things that are archival and you can produce as an object to sell. And that has been the biggest challenge. But in doing that, I think it contributes a lot to the concept. Right, OK. Well, on that interesting note, we're going to take a short break. We'll be right back to show some more of Chris Ritzen's artwork, and we'll be right back. Thanks. Welcome back. This is Caramon Lee on Education Matters with my guest media artist, Chris Ritzen, who has brought some really interesting pieces to our attention. A type of installation art that actually I've never seen before that is being exhibited right now at the Biennial. He is one of a handful of Pacific artists who have been identified and are being exhibited. And so congratulations on that, Chris. But actually, your work is all over the country and the world, I know you've exhibited many places. Yeah, I've had the chance to send some of my stuff around. The internet's really helped with that. I used to work with video a lot. You were in San Francisco for a while, too. Yeah, I went to New York. Yes, yes, both. I went to art school in San Francisco, ultimately, and stayed there for a little bit. And I think I was really involved in video art then, animation work. So it's really evolved. So you did media, video, and real sculpture? Video and more traditional sculpture before moving back here. Then coming back to Hawaii, I grew up here my whole life. But coming back, there are different issues that are much more relevant and pertinent to be covering here. I think for me, it was about the environment. The environment and nature, right? I know you live in Tainless, where you have a bountiful backyard, a forest. Yeah, I'm very fortunate to spend my time here. Wonderful raw materials. Yes. Well, let's look at a couple of more images of Chris's work. Now, what are we looking at here, Chris? This is a very interesting... So this is a series I was doing a few years ago. They're made from an element called bismuth. It's probably familiar with it. It's a key ingredient in Pepto-Bismol. Ah, but it looks like crystal. Yeah, so I acquire it in its raw form. It's like a silver metal. It kind of looks like lead. And in a pretty controlled environment, I melt it down. It melts at a fairly low temperature. And I cool it. As I cool it, it re-crystallizes. And this is its atomic structure, this sort of lattice cube within a cube. And multicolored. Yeah. Yellow, green, purple. Yeah, as I pull it out of the molten metal that forms instantly. It's actually a rust on the crystal. It's a really thin layer of rust. And it happens to be this dichromatic, beautiful, colorful thing. And then you place it on top of a... As you said, we were talking as a chachki, right? Yeah, well, I... Okay, so these porcelain figures are acquired or found mostly at secondhand stores, things like that. They're very traditional objects you would have on your mantle piece. Or something like that. The crystals actually grown off of them. So they're submerged into the molten metal and act as a catalyst, which the crystal starts because of the temperature change of sticking that in. It starts to grow off the form. Yeah, we have another image of that one, Rob. Yes, and here, and this is one of a sculpture. The last one was an elephant, it looked like, and this is a... Yeah, well, the last one was actually, it was a figure, it was one of the magi from the... Let's see, the nativity scene, the whole series from the nativity scene. This, I believe, is more of a sort of Greco-Roman sculpture. Of a woman, it's all in white. But the crystal growth is on top of the head and the arms. Yes. Now, this particular series, I've seen at the Honolulu Museum of Art, so that was what, 2014? That was 2012. 2012? Yeah, that was the year in the Artists of Hawaii. It was a sort of overview of a handful of local artists. They do it every other year. And you were selected as one of those artists? Yeah, it was a really interesting show. I showed two different types of work. I showed those and some other paperwork. And, you know, that stuff had been really popular. That got a lot of play on the internet. And the last two pictures were commissioned by a photography company, VSCO, out of Oakland. I think a lot of these objects have been very successful in sale, but for me, they're really about the photographs of them. I see. And what do you do with the photographs? Do you have a website? Oh, yeah. Well, they're on my website, certainly. ChrisRudson.com. ChrisRudson.com. Very good. Please check it out. But that particular last series with the, and what's the name? Bismuth. Bismuth, on top of the piece of Chachke, was actually award-winning piece, right? Yeah, those were, got some awards at the museum show. And yeah, it was a successful show, I think. It was acquired by? The Twigsmith Foundation bought them. I think they donated them back to the museum. Yeah, so it's in the permanent collection. Somewhere. That's a big honor. Somewhere in there. So that shows you that the recognizing is interesting. Yeah, well, it's good to see a lot of more interest in contemporary art in Hawaii. I think since I moved back, it's been a really exciting time. And I came back, I felt like, just of five years ago or so, and there's very few opportunities. Aware of very few artists here, but very quickly, I've seen a lot of people become very interested in it, and all these people come out of the woodworks, and it's just such an interesting place to be working. I'm so happy. Are there a lot of ours doing what you're doing in this kind of installation art? I mean, maybe not so many in Hawaii. I think in Hawaii, most of us are exposed to the sort of La Jaina galleries with dolphins and waterfalls. Obviously, there's a wealth of artists making beautiful crafts in Hawaii, but the thing is there haven't been a lot of venues, I think, for people to be doing this sort of work. You need space. You need funding. I mean, space is always available, but you need funding. I think this is pretty, it is most of the norm, contemporary art in the mainland is a lot more theory-based, a lot more concept-based, performance-based sort of stuff than we see in Hawaii, but there are quite a few people working doing really compelling stuff, I think. Yeah, I find it, it's really stretching the mind. It's not just a visual opportunity to enjoy something. It's really forcing you to think, and as you use the nature and science and are putting it together. So how has that affected your projects going forward? What's the next step in terms of development of your art? So we've seen some of the earlier works, and we're gonna see one more piece. Actually, let's hold the thought and see the very last image. I love this piece, and this is actually a three-dimensional piece. Yeah, this is made out of an old movie poster. These are some of the earliest ones I did like these. This whole series was made out of paper objects, printed matter. And what is it? Let's describe it. Let's see, this was a movie poster. I don't remember what celebrity it was, but their face has been folded. It's a sort of folding called kirigami. It's not quite origami. The difference is that you can cut and you can glue. So I find and I modify patterns and sort of superimpose them onto these found images. So where it was once a woman's face, is that right? I think that one's a woman, yeah. I see the lips, and now it's a ferocious-looking animal. Yeah, I think this is some sort of fox-bear something. I can't remember what this one was. But yeah, I was using anything from movie posters to magazines. When I came back to Hawaii, I did a pretty extensive edition using the free media and Waikiki. As you walk around, there's those kiosks. Full of magazines. Full of magazines. Glossy pictures. Glossy pictures depicting people at the beach and lots of bodies. High-quality paper, right? High-quality paper, yeah. Free. It's a really nice art resource, but I was doing things like collecting the real estate ads, cutting out thousands of real estate people and making coral reefs out of them. I did a lot of work within Hawaii regarding sort of creation narratives and ideas about nature, reanimating them through these cut and fold kirigami techniques. And they were stop-motion videos. Uh-huh. I remember your video. Yeah, digital composites, but stop-motion. Are you doing any more work in videos? No, I haven't done any work like that in a while. And how about sculpture, like the one we just saw? No, I haven't touched the metal stuff. I've decided I need better safety facilities to be melting metal in my garage. Are there collectors for your, like, the sculpture? Yeah, the business stuff had been pretty popular. Have they? I had a few collectors with that stuff, but it's been a hard sell with the mushroom paintings. They've only come out once. They're not technically for sale, but... But for you, it doesn't seem that's your goal as much as it is to explore that relationship. Yeah, well, I still think it's interesting producing an artistic object because it really bridges this gap between people who don't have a background in art theory. It can't really understand the context for a lot of work. But, you know, I think looking at something reconsidering what the object is, reconsidering, you know, this painting's actually made out of acrylic paint, you know? That's the plastic this painting's gonna last. Even the byproducts of this painting, the frame of this painting, there's so many things we just don't account for in the materiality of objects. And for me, the materials really are the message of the work. The materials, right? And just before we showed the last image they asked you, what is the next step in terms of your artwork that you're working on now or that you see yourself going toward? Well, right now I've been expanding the mushroom work. I am... How? Mostly in size, drastically in size. This first edition was sort of a test. I hadn't really done it. So the panels before, the current panels on exhibit are probably what, 12 by 10 inches or eight inches? Yeah, maybe they're about 12 by 18, I think. So yeah, I hope to be expanding dramatically. What kind of response have you been getting from the public, from critics, from the mainland, from scientists? I think people in Hawaii really appreciate that there is an environmental relationship to this stuff that somebody is taking account and integrating that sort of things. You know, it fits in Hawaii a lot more though. It is hard to... And a lot of this stuff isn't designed to be taken out because of agricultural quarantine and things like that. It is meant to be site-specific and it is meant to be involvement with this environment. And appreciate it here. Yeah, but thanks to the digital revolution here we can share it with anybody. Right, well, we're ready to wind up. I'm gonna give you one opportunity to remind people where they can see the exhibit before it closes. Great, this is last week. The hub is open at the Old Sports Authority down on Ward Avenue. It's open from 12 to about 7 p.m. And this Saturday there's a closing party. That will be fun, but if you can, please go down. My work is alongside some incredibly talented artists and I'm really fortunate to be in the space. Great, well, thanks again to my guest artist, Chris Ritzen, who has shared the absolutely unique art with us. And this is art that crosses with nature and science and stimulates us to new levels. I look forward to following your already successful career in growing recognition, Chris. So do step by the biennial and check out Chris's work. And I also want to thank our wonderful floor manager, Ray and our production engineer, Rob. So on behalf of Think Tech and everyone who's contributed to these productions, Mahalo, if you want to see the show again, please go to thinktechawaii.com or youtube.com slash thinktechawaii. Aloha.