Cameron Wilson Ritcher

Cameron is a swiftly emerging artist who graduated from James Madison University in May 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Studio Art. He accepted the school’s award for a graduating senior with a concentration in painting, among numerous other awards and scholarships. Cameron's notable clients include Crate and Barrel, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The JMU School of Integrated Science and Technology, Della Watkins, Director of the Columbia Museum of Art, and Braden Holtby, former Goalie of the Washington Capitals.

“Often, the greatest innovations come not from abundance but from scarcity,” Cameron says. “We can recall examples of this in almost any aspect of our culture: architecture, music, food. Some of the most inventive culinary strategies were originally conceived out of economic or agricultural dearth. 

“I like to play a game in the studio where the only rule is that I cannot buy new materials. Instead, I try to convince myself that there is already a good painting somewhere in my studio, in the heaps of scraps from previous works and housing renovations and rusted buckets of salvaged house paint. While my marks maintain a child-like innocence, the weathered materials evoke nostalgia. When combined with the structural organization of the pieces, this suggests an urban, industrial history, and yet does not impose any concrete narrative on the viewer. The process of painting, cropping, and re-assembling allows me to synthesize disparate ideas— in order to create works that are simultaneously spontaneous and available to the accident— yet are entirely within my control.

“The icons and shapes in my work often reference board games. Games, like art, serve no functional purpose, and yet are central to culture and a life of substance. The visual languages developed in board games and other forms of play throughout time and geographical location are at the core of any society’s striving for meaning-making. 

“Of course, it is only responsible for me to think of what impact my work may have on the world. I know, at my core, that I was designed for a very specific job: making paintings, simply for the sake of making paintings. I feel an intense and spiritual excitement and curiosity while making my work. Maybe it is a glimpse of heaven. My hope is that the viewer would feel at least a fraction of that.” 

He currently works from his home studio in Richmond, VA, where he lives with his wife, Emily, and their cat, Louie.

See inside Cameron's studio and learn about his creative process here.