In 1998, a chance opportunity generated a photographic journey for photo-artist, Hedy Ritterman. She was invited to stay on the 36th floor of New York’s historic Sherry Netherlands Building and there her guarded gaze materialized. The gothic gryphon integral to the building’s design (not to be confused with gargoyles) became the whimsical muse that captured Ritterman’s imagination. According to legend these mythical creatures with the wings of an eagle and the head and claws of a lion guarded the treasures and riches of ancient peoples high in their eyries.
Three further visits to her gryphon muse inspired Hedy to photograph images that reflected the synergies of her personal life with that of NYC post 9/11. Guarded is a resultant body of work that addresses the challenges of big-city living. Private filmic vignettes are juxtaposed with large dynamic images of a proverbial contemporary metropolis. Ritterman, who is a trained psychologist, charges these images with a probing sensitivity using the fenestrations (the arrangement of windows and other openings) in buildings and cars as symbolic portals that allow, or disallow, viewing. Feelings of vulnerability, dislocation and claustrophobia mingle with the seductiveness that both photography and New York City engender.

Hedy Ritterman is a practising Melbourne artist. She has completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at Monash University, Faculty of Art and Design in 2005 and has won numerous awards including overall winner of Linden Postcard Show 2003 and has been a finalist in major photographic awards.