Rita Blitt, “Wind Aria”
When I first read the title of Rita Blitt’s exhibition, “Earth Symphony,” visions of Wassily Kandinsky’s (1866-1944) symphonic improvisations and compositions wandered through my mind. But when I witnessed Blitt’s artworks in person, it was a remarkably different symphony than that of her modernist counterpart. Energetic gestures and amorphous globules invite the viewer to experience peaceful, organic growth and winding movement.
Many of the works that caught my eye contain surprisingly little linework and underscore bubbling and bleeding movement on the canvas, as in “Glorious Eruption.” Others, like “Music Gives Flight to the Imagination II” offer a striking example of how the remnant of a zestful, painted dance appears on Blitt’s paper canvas. From thick, wide rivers of acrylic to delicate drips, the line work narrates an emotional journey.
Blitt shared with me in an interview that she feels more indebted to the Abstract Expressionist style and her “life-long dance with line,” encouraging her viewers not only to hear a symphony, as was Kandinsky’s goal, but to dance one in the painted medium.
When Blitt first witnessed Abstract Expressionism in 1949, she was attending the University of Illinois working toward a fine arts degree. Shocked and curious about the exposure to new techniques and possibilities, she began painting from a place of interiority. “I like to think of my work as totally honest,” she said.
According to art critic and curator Robert McDonald, when Blitt taught painting workshops she asked her students to follow three simple rules: “Pretend you are the only person in the room; work quickly, letting the lines flow, drawing with one or two hands at once; and let the lines come from deep within you, feeling each line while you work.”
Her 1986 sculpture “Inspiration” is the only three-dimensional work featured in “Earth Symphony,” but it beautifully demonstrates Blitt’s dedication to freeform shape and the materialization of her emotional and physical energy. The piece is a smaller scale version of her most widely recognized sculpture located at the intersection of College Boulevard and Mission Road in Leawood, Kansas.
Blitt’s career has proven productive in new media as well. Since 1975 she has transformed dozens of her drawings, paintings, and performances into short films, some of them award-winning and earning her more than 130 invitations to film festivals at the height of her career.
Blitt, now age 94, is in the process of gifting much of her oeuvre to not only museums across the country, but also to such non-profit institutions as hospitals, public schools and colleges in Kansas City and beyond. Her work is currently part of a dozen museum permanent collections, and her public sculptures have found homes in seven countries. In Kansas City alone, viewers can also find her work in the permanent collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Wonderscope Children’s Museum.
“Earth Symphony: Rita Blitt” continues at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, 2012 Baltimore Ave., through Feb. 27. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday- Saturday. For more information, 816.474.1919 or www.leedy-voulkos.com.
