Rita Maas

About

American, b. 1956   —   Rita Maas’ work, grounded in photography, blends the disciplines of drawing and printmaking to playfully construct conceptual based imagery. Working within predetermined systems she embraces elements of chance and disorder, allowing her materials and processes to speak for themselves. The work often takes on reductive forms as she explores the gap between representational and abstract depiction. How we read, filter and retain information while examining the space where slippage and illegibility occur are persistent themes of her practice. Inspired by the early modernist artists who experimented in the darkroom making photograms and chemograms, she turns her focus on the digital darkroom to experiment with the materials of inkjet printing. Her work for the past eight years plays with reclaimed ink from the inkjet printing process. Many of the used ink cartridges are gifted to her by fellow artists, bringing a communal aspect to the work. 
Born in New York, Maas received her BFA in Photographic Studies from the School of Visual Arts. She later earned her MFA in Visual Arts at Lesley University College of Art and Design. Maas has acted as Visiting Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology and served as Visiting Artist and Adjunct Professor at College of Staten Island, CUNY. Her work has been widely exhibited and has won several awards. Yasmeen Siddiqui has selected works from “Salutations” to be included in “Cladogram: 2nd KMA International Juried Biennial” at the Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY in summer 2021. Her series "Today I Got Up" was recently named a Finalist in The Print Center's 95th Annual by David Campany and Larissa Goldston and is included in the exhibit “Fit to Print” at The Print Center curated by Dr. Ksenia Nouril and Lisa Blas. In 2019 Maas’ work has was featured in a three-person exhibit at Filter Photo in Chicago IL, “Imprints & Abstractions” (2019) as well as in the annual FRESH exhibit at Klomp Ching Gallery in Brooklyn, NY (2019). The INFOCUS Sidney Zuber Photography Award awarded her an Honorable Mention in 2017 has been cited as “One of the Ten Most Exciting Photographers I Learned about Last Year” by curator Rebecca Senf. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Art Houston, The Creative Center of Photography in Tucson AZ and The Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA. 

Maas currently lives and works in the Lower Hudson Valley, NY