Boo Ritson paints people, but not on canvas or on board – she literally coats people with paint. Presented as photographs, Ritson’s portraits are a double masquerade: her subjects coated in sticky disguise, and the documentary image a surrogate representation of the tangible painterly, sculptural, and performative qualities of work. By using photography Ritson capitalises on the associations of snapshot memory and filmic narrative, with each of her characters playing out readily recognisable stereotypes. You like this painting technique, then you must see work of Alexa Meade on subject “Literally Live Pictures.”

The Skier

Boo Ritson has an unusual way of creating her portraits. Instead of painting a sitter who poses passively from afar, Ritson actively involves her models in the creation of her work, by painting directly on their skin and clothes and photographing the results. Her images are a mixture of her own narratives with recognisable motifs of Americana, including an abundance of greasy fast food that oozes paint trails of ketchup and mustard.

The Trucker

the Sunbather

Elena

Hitman

Nina

The Gas Station Server

The Pin-Up

Blue swimmer

Cowgirl

Girlfriend

Godfather

Slot player

About Boo Ritson (artist)

Boo Ritson was born in 1969. She studied Fine Art at the University of Buckinghamshire, before going on to complete her M.A in Fine Art at the Royal College of Art in 2005.
She is best known for the works which depict characters and still lives drawn from her own imagined narratives which until recently recalled iconic images from American pop culture. For each piece she literally paints her subject in a thick emulsion and then photographs the sitter or object whilst the paint is wet. The resulting tableau sit somewhere between painting, sculpture, performance and photography.
Ritson has exhibited extensively in the UK and in 2008 held her first solo exhibition at Bravin Lee in New York. Her work is included in several international collections including the Saatchi Collection, Zabludowicz Collection, The Speyer Family Collection, New York, Chadha Art Collection, Netherlands- as well as prominent collections in France, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Italy and Germany. For more info abaut this artist visit here homepage here.