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Steve Ritter

@steveritterlife

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Life model, art performer, traveller, listener
London / south Essex
steveritterlife.com
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What a great evening of dynamic poses from the brilliant @steveritterlife who has arms and legs that go on for ever. He creates fabulous shapes for everyone in the room to enjoy. @themoonandnude @victoriastakes #lifecollage #papercollageart #tornpaper by @steveritterlife
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4 days ago
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It's always a pleasure having @steveritterlife pose for us! taken in Chancery Lane by @steveritterlife
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4 days ago
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Back home, back posing, beginning with Wednesday at @lenu_lifedrawing 🌈 . Just a few artworks from just a few artists at what was billed as a 'long pose' life drawing session, but in practice was a clothed portrait sitting. It suited me fine, what with Wednesday being the day that temperatures first tumbled autumnwards. 🍂 . This was my only modelling job of the past week. I have four more lined-up in the next fortnight, after which I go jollying-off on another week away. 💫 . All my remaining bookings for 2026 are life model bookings rather than portrait; though it would be better for my well-being to have a run on portrait work instead. The reason? A few hours ago I was, for the first time, diagosed as having a condition I believe is most likely the result of life modelling. In the past 6-8 months, I've had increasing pains and diminishing mobility at my left shoulder. The cause is, I'm now told, "inflamed and thickened tendons", and I will likely require steroid injections and physio to get me fully flexible again. In the meantime, my poses may be slightly lopsided! 🤪 . This is in addition to on-going pain in my right heel that hasn't been diagnosed, though I would bet a shilling or two on also being caused by prolonged standing with an uneven weight distribution. 😬 . Then again, maybe I'm just a poor old devil who is simply beginning to fall apart as nature generally intends at my time of life. 😁 . To hell with it, there's life -- and life modelling -- in this old dog yet! 🌭😄🌟 . Apologies to artists I'm unable to tag or credit. 🙏 . More at steveritterlife.com . Next modelling: . Monday 12 October for @themoonandnude at The Victoria Stakes, Muswell Hill 6:45pm to 8:45pm See you there? 👀 . by @steveritterlife
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6 days ago
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Scenes from the Balkans, pt.7 🇲🇪 . Day 29 of 29. I'm back in the UK. My last days were in the capital of Montenegro, Podgorica; arguably Europe's most underwhelming capital (I've visited them all except Moscow) but there's serenity and enlightenment to be found anywhere. 💫 . To anybody irked by all my unbidden Balkans posts interrupting their dopamine-dredging doom-scrolls, I'm sorry. I too am regularly afflicted by Instagram's uncanny knack for showing me things I least want to see. But for 4 weeks this stuff has been my real life (as opposed to curated content), so these are my final photos of it. 📷 . Podgorica: . 1. Partisan Fighter Monument, Gorica Park – 'gora' means 'mountain', 'gorica' means 'small mountain or hill', 'pod' means 'under', so 'Podgorica' means 'under the hill', and this is on that hill. Fascinating! . 2. Street scene in 'Novi Grad' district ('new town', post-WWII) – like me, looking tired and dated and probably never pretty in its prime . 3. Pomegranates and minaret in 'Stara Varoš' ('old town'), which has narrower residential streets but, like me, is no more wildly alluring . 4. Folk song about the merits of romancing on a well-lit street versus a dark street . 5. View from my apartment to the Clock Tower, the city's most celebrated structure (which is telling) . 6. Me, beneath the same celebrated structure . 7. 'Rocky landscape' (1990) by Nikica Raičević – I'm always interested to see artists' representations of their native landscapes; sadly this photo doesn't do justice to the painting's colours . 8. A pocket of cafe culture . 9. A riot of colour in the modern Temple of Christ's Resurrection... . 10. ...where the devil is in the detail . 11. Finally finished the awesome 'Infinite Jest' . 12. Art at Petrovic Mansion . 13. WTF...? . 14. Ah, it's the Millennium Bridge over River Morača, also visible from my apartment . 15. 'Genesis of the White Basket' (1971) by Radovan Pejović Riječki . 16. Campanula Montenegrina, uncommon native of Gorica Park . 17. Nikola Tesla monument . Virpazar: . 18. Bridge over a waterway to... . 19. ...Lake Skadar (or Shkodër), largest lake in southern Europe . 20. Farewell to the Balkans with a tasty treat! . by @steveritterlife
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12 days ago
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Scenes from the Balkans, pt.6 🇲🇪 . Day 26 of 29. Montenegro. Left Budva, arrived in Podgorica. Just three nights here then home. 💫 . Photos. 📷 . Budva: . 1. How I've been feeling for most of this leg of the trip to be honest, but anyway... . 2. Street scene . 3. What I would give for a long peaceful sleep, let alone with this level of serenity in the middle of a busy public square . 4. This is the city; the enchanting old part is in the foreground, a new hideousness behind – 20 years ago this was up among my favourite places on the planet but now, as cranes drag umpteen appalling developments simultaneously skywards in an ugly Benidorm-style makeover, it's sadly doubtful I will ever come back . 5. Art by Nikola Karadeglić (@dzoni_zasto) at Moderna Galerija Jovo Ivanović . 6. Square of Palms . 7. Art by Jelena Papović (@_jelena_papovic_) at her studio, Iva Mikovića 8, 85310 Budva . 8. Old city gate (one of several) . 9. Weird scenes at Podmaine Monastery . 10. Crossing to Sveti Nikola island – in yet another dumbing-down, now known as 'Hawaii' . Bay of Kotor: . 11. Beautiful morning sky... nature still delivers 🙏 . 12. Mouth of the bay from Herceg Novi . 13. Kanli Kula fortress at Herceg Novi . 14. Island of the Dead, by the gateway of what is said to be the only fjord in southern Europe . 15. Kotor cat . 16. Kotor crepuscular . Sveti Stefan: . 17. It's the most photographed bit of Montenegro, apparently now open for visits if you stump up 35 euros – for years it was strictly an exclusive haunt for the rich and famous (Beckhams, etc.) . Ostrog: . 18. Ostrog Monastary, where at long last the penny dropped for me that 'Basil' is merely the Anglicised form of the name 'Vasili' (not that I dedicate a huge amount of brain-space to such matters) . 19. Pigeons in flight ('I wanna see you tonight'🎵) . 20. Always to the horizon... 👀 . by @steveritterlife
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15 days ago
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Cultural dispatch no.15: 'Between:Us' at Beecroft Art Gallery (@beecroftartgallery), Southend-on-Sea, UK. 🇬🇧 . 'Between:Us' brings together works by the artists Victoria Sills, Peter Haugh and Jonathan Rust (@victoriasills, @peterhaughart, [...]) – I've written their names in that order because every third work in this set is by each of those artists ordered thus, and I have chosen that order as most likely get the casual doom-scroller to stop and pay attention. 🙏 . My first act ought to be apologising to the artists for sub-optimal standards in these representations of their work. A combination of my ancient phone camera, the Beecroft's lighting, and my ham-fisted photography has rendered these discoloured and distorted and reflection-splodged... but that's all the more reason for you – yes, you – to go and see the exhibition in person, if you haven't already. 🌟 . The bringing together of these three artists is a far-from-obvious tactical move but, as the works provided by each are so focused and distinctive, it adds extra layers of thought-provokingness as to what they share with each other, what gaps they fill for each other, and what they magnify for each other. Certainly there's a whole lot of obfuscation, alienation, obsession, concealment, muting and mutating going on, but not all at once or in every image. Meandering my way around the works at the PV, I found myself straying to the precipice of grave over-thinking (below which is the profound abyss of pretentiousness), got nowhere satisfactory with it, discarded all those over-thunks and proceeded instead with simply feeling (internally rather than with hands)... which felt so much better. 😊 . I shan't elaborate further as I am merely a cringing amateur at this art appreciation malarkey, but I did enjoy this exhibition, and that's probably enough in itself. I suspect all the fellow Essex inhabitants among my 'followers' have already seen this show at least once, so my exhortation again is mainly to London-based folk: treat yourself to an autumnal day by the seaside and check out the art. It's good here too. 🌈 . p.s. I'm still in Montenegro but thinking of home. 💫 . #culturaldispatch #betweenus . by @steveritterlife
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17 days ago
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Scenes from the Balkans, pt.5 🇧🇦🇲🇪 . Day 21 of 29. I'm headed to Budva, Montenegro where I'll stay for 5 nights. Like Mostar (my last base in Bosnia and Herzegovina) it is a place I'd visited more than 20 years ago, and like Mostar I expect to find harsh economic realities and the pursuit of tourists' euros have largely smothered its soul. Again, yes, I myself am a tourist and, yes, we're all eating each other while billionaires buy bigger yachts. 😑 . I shan't go on as, aside from fleeting algorithmic scanning for the mildly dystopian purposes of AI profiling refinement, it's odds-on this won't get read. So, just a few words about the pretty pictures... 📷 . Mostar: 1. Partisan Memorial Cemetery – the living dead 2. More Partisan Memorial Cemetery 3. This is the city 4. Stari Most (Old Bridge), blown-up in 1993, rebuilt in 2004 5. It still impresses me that the rebuilt steps were created to appear as though worn-down by 450-ish years of footfall 6. My impressed face atop the bridge 7. 'Portret Slikara Ede Murtića' (undated) by Đuro Seder, at Galerija Biskupijskoga centra 8. 'Nude in a Landscape' (1923) by Suzanne Valadon, at The Hub for Fine Art 9. Utterly wonderful Kajtaz House – a room therein . Počitelj: 10. River Neretva, south of Mostar 11. Watching at the watchtower . Blagaj: 12. Ubiquitous shot of Blagaj Tekija by the spring of River Buna . Kravice waterfalls: 13. Beautiful because, with tedious patience, I waited till all the literally-hundreds of visitors to this badly overdeveloped site were out of shot . Međugorje: 14. Major semi-official Catholic pilgrimage site – this is what you have to pilgrim up 15. Scene of the first alleged apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1981 – it's a hardcore devotee scene in extraordinary geography where the effect alone of millions of pilgrims across 45 years has bestowed an intense spiritual vibe 16. Even the Statue of the Risen Christ has his legs beseeched golden . Mostar: 17. Incongruous Bruce Lee in Park Zrinjevac 18. Post-war 19. Street art by Artez, 2026 20. Surprisingly unsubtle huge divine feminine at the Catholic Church of St Peter and Paul . by @steveritterlife
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21 days ago
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Art from almost exactly a month ago by @cosylifedrawing 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 . This is the last of the modelling posts I had been holding back to punctuate my travel content. I'm still in the Balkans, currently lounging in a Mostar apartment sipping dubious Bosnian wine. 🍷🍷 . Everything about this 1-month-old evening of life drawing was great, except it brought home to me that I really do need to let a doctor check-out my left shoulder. Steadily throughout this year it has been seizing-up and getting more painful, but last month's session was the first where I found one or two of my simple routine poses had become quite nauseatingly uncomfortable. Hopefully the trouble can be fixed but till then I need to remember not to rush into poses and be careful not to make matters worse; I can work around it. Oh, the joys of getting older... 🙄 . Speaking of joys, there's a dog in the yard of next door's apartment that absolutely will not cease yapping at the slightest provocation. As my dad used to put it: "it's like someone planing formica." But come night-time, this place turns so silent and so dark it's like being in a total sensory deprivation environment. Which is perfect. 💫 . Sleep remains enigmatically patchy but has been better here than previous places. Tomorrow I hope to rise well-rested, wash what remains of my hair, then get a bus to Međugorje, second-most visited site in world for Catholic miracle-seekers (of which I am not one). Because, why not? 😁 . Apologies to artists I'm unable to tag or credit. 🙏 . More at steveritterlife.com . Next modelling: . Wed 7 Oct Fairkytes Arts Centre, Hornchurch 7:30pm to 9:30pm for @lenu_lifedrawing . Mon 12 Oct The Victoria Stakes, Muswell Hill 6:45pm to 8:45pm for @themoonandnude . See you there? 👀 . #lifedrawing #lifemodel #figuremodel #figuredrawing #fıgurativeart by @steveritterlife
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23 days ago
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Scenes from the Balkans, pt.4 🇧🇦 . Day 15 of 29. Halfway! Tomorrow I relocate from Banja Luka to Mostar. 🚍 . How is it I'm here? Almost exactly one year ago I'd worked through what was arguably the worst 12 months of my life and had just about found myself on my feet again, only for a denouement to put me right back on my ass again, settling the argument emphatically. So, after rumination I decided to get away in epic fashion. I dreamt-up a road trip by bus from London to Athens via Versailles, Bern, Vaduz. Banja Luka, Lake Prespa, Meteora and Delphi. All places on my must-do list. ✅ But... . I'm a details guy, not spontaneous. As I tweaked and tightened my plan, eventually it focused only on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia and Greece; more time in each, less on the road. With further refinement it became just Bosnia and Herzegovina, plus Montenegro. A big change from London to Athens! But it's the trip I'm on. 💫 . I've left behind practical problems at home that I struggle to deal with, I have health worries with me here, and I have no idea which plot-twist is next fated for my future. These things all take turns to rise intermittently in my mind and cause pangs of concern. I feel weak for what I've not resolved and a coward for procrastinating. 😔 . Yet the yearn to travel is strong. Maybe I'm running away but it feels more like reaching ever-outwards; compulsive yo-yoing around the globe, harvesting scraps of knowledge, glimmers of understanding. As Hank Williams sang: "There's somethin' o'er the hill that I gotta see" 👀 . Pics/Vids... 📷 . Banja Luka: 1. En plein air 2. Fortress by River Vrbas 3. Senior sports 4. Street scene 5. Jesus loves you 6. This is the city 7. Mina Lazarević (right) with Nataša Radovanović at Banski Dvor . Krupa na Vrbasu: 8. Autumn 9. Waterfalls . Prijedor: 10. Mural "Vrt" in a city of murals 11. Nude at Museum of Kozara 12. Milivoje Unković art, Galerija Sreten Stojanović (@galerijasreten96) 13. Temjanika 💛 14. River Sana 15. Train home . Banja Luka: 16. Hike to Banj Brdo 17. Banj Brdo WWII monument 18. Hot springs by River Vrbas 19. Coffee time 20. Abstract from Fedešin Art Shop (@fedesinart) . by @steveritterlife
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a month ago
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Scenes from the Balkans, pt.3 🇧🇦🇭🇷 . Day 11 of 29. I am currently on a bus from Brčko to Banja Luka where I'll be based for the next 5 nights before moving on to Mostar. My idea was to stay in four regional centres: . • Sarajevo, largest city of Bosnia (and largest city and capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina); • Mostar, largest city of Herzegovina; • Banja Luka, largest city of Republika Srpska (as per the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement); • Brčko, largest and practically self-governing free city of the tiny Brčko District – a 'condominium' of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, formed in 1999 to 'reflect the multi-ethnic nature of Brčko' but in reality a buffer twixt the two halves of Republika Srpska. 🙏 . So... it's complicated here. 🤯 . But superficially Brčko seems simple and pleasant. Had I not read the above, I wouldn't have guessed from being here. Alas, all artistic culture has been kept firmly behind locked doors during my stay so I've partaken liberally of the outdoor café culture instead. 🌞 . From Brčko, I have sallied into Srebrenik for a hike to its formidable fortress ruins; and to Tuzla, where at last I succeeded in visiting some galleries. Brčko is also on the border with Croatia, separated only by the River Sava, so I wandered over the bridge – two more passport stamps – for coffee in the small town of Gunja. ☕ . In short, it's going well. 💫 Pics... 📷 . Brčko: 1. ❤ 2. View from my apartment 3. Street scene 4. 'Fountain of Youth' 5. Café culture 6. River Sava Srebrenik: 7. Fortress 8. Now where was I? 9. Looking up 10. Panorama Café Tuzla: 11. Pannonian Lakes – Europe's only salt lakes 12. Powerful pose 13. 'Prosjakinja' (beggar woman) by Đorđe Mihajlović of Tuzla (1875-1919) – first academically trained painter from the lands of Bosnia and Herzegovina – at the Museum of Eastern Bosnia 14. 'Yellow Dress' (2024) by Tina Kontogli of Greece (tina_kontogli); my favourite artwork in this year's 'INTERBIFEP' at Tuzla's wonderful International Portrait Gallery (@centarzakulturutuzla) 15. At Caffe Bar Sloboda Croatia: 16. Borderline 17. Bridge view 18. Street scene 19. This tome goes everywhere with me 20. Nature . by @steveritterlife
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a month ago
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Hey, it's me! Captured in portraits by Hesketh Hubbard Art Society at @mallgalleries. 🌟 . I'm actually still in Brčko, northeast Bosnia, but I've been sitting on a couple of arty posts to share, just as a way of breaking up the travel stuff... because that's why you're here, right? 😁 . So many superb works in this set from an evening with @hesketh_hubbard back in mid-August. Not simply in terms of accurate likenesses (some are staggering) but stylistically; strength or delicacy, vibrancy or a subdued palette. It's so pleasing to work with groups wherein everybody sits/stands shoulder-to-shoulder, focused solely on their own manner of self-expression with scant concern for the preferences or judgements of others. 👍 . Oh, and that first image was deliberately arranged to look like police mugshots. 😄 . Including today (Mon 14 Sep) I have 3 more weeks around the Balkans. Seems impossible that I have been here only 8 nights so far as it's been pretty full-on travelling at times... including yesterday's game of buying bus tickets online then waiting eagerly to discover whether the route even exists (answers: 'kind-of' and 'who knows?' 🙄) . Shortly I shall shower, dress, bag my passport and some euros, then attempt to wander across a long bridge over the river Sava (at the front of my flat) into Croatia. I'll probably only pause for a coffee in Gunja before strolling back, but it still passes for international peregination. 🌍 Back to the art, images in this set include: No.2 - @__zoe_c No.4 - @0scar_drawing_archive No.6 - [at]kangaroo5383 No.7 - @desmond.sloane No.9 - @george_mullen_pix No.12 - @pauline_cushnie_art No.13 - @yulia.burge.art Apologies to those I'm unable to tag or credit. 🙏 . Next modelling: . Wednesday 7 October for @lenu_lifedrawing at Fairkytes Arts Centre, Hornchurch 7:30pm to 9:30pm See you there? 👀 . by @steveritterlife
2
a month ago
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Scenes from the Balkans, pt.2 🇧🇦🇷🇸 . Day 6 of 29. After a 4h50 bus ride from Sarajevo I've arrived in Brčko (pronounced 'Birch-co'), but this photo dump is from my last few days of trips from Sarajevo. 👀 . The first five were taken in Serbia: three during a rattle on the Šargan Eight narrow-gauge railway, and two at 'Drvengrad', which started as a movie set but is now a wooden tourist village. Not sure why George W Bush and Ivo Andrić are together inside the Drvengrad city ​​prison for 'Humanism and the Renaissance', but there they are. 😄 . More sombre was a visit to 'Srebrenica Genocide Museum' and 'Srebrenica–Potočari Memorial and Cemetery for the Victims of the 1995 Genocide'. Horrors of the Bosnian war (92-95) are still fresh. I've had a greater sense of simmering unresolved ethnic tensions here in Bosnia than I did last year in Rwanda (genocide 1994). ☁️ . Most people I've spoken with were not born at the time of conflict, but my guide to Srebrenica was a soldier from the outset at the age of 17. His fight was both for his people and against hate when his older brother was killed. His mother saved him with the words: "hate what they did but not who they are, otherwise you will become like them and I will lose you too." 🙏 . So much to take in. Too much, really, but I've seen the place first-hand (like all scenes of atrocity, it's now immaculate) and will read more at home. . On a lighter note, my final evening in Sarajevo was at the glorious Restaurant Karuzo. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ . I first dined there in 2024 and I'm calling it now: it's my favourite restaurant in all the 100+ countries I have visited. Image 18 is its staggeringly low-key exterior; 19 is my rainbow trout fillet with potato and mushrooms (preceded by a celery and pear soup, accompanied by a superb Tamjanika wine, chased by a walnut brandy liqueur and an apple brandy on the house); image 20 is Saša Obućina, chef supreme! 👌 . Images: 1-3. Šargan Eight 4-5. Drvengrad 6-7. Dobrun Monastery 8. Sarajevo mural 9-13. Srebrenica (inc. graffiti left by Dutch 'peacekeepers') 14. 'The Bridge over the Drina' at Višegrad 15. River Drina 16. Andrićgrad at Višegrad 17. Me and Ivo Andrić 18-20. Restaurant Karuzo . by @steveritterlife
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a month ago
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