Chelsea Ritter-Soronen
Chelsea Ritter-Soronen is a multi-disciplinary visual artist, small business owner and professional public arts consultant. She is the Owner and Principal Artist of Chalk Riot, an all-women mural production house specializing in artwork on the ground, established in 2013. Her multi-faceted background in theater production and design informs her explorations in public space and its multiple perspectives and storylines. Chelsea’s work as a public art consultant is guided by a passion for responsible, strategic, and attractive integration of vertical and horizontal works into the built environment. She is an advocate for equitable, enjoyable design of public spaces, and believes artists should be at government tables more often, and currently a graduate student with the University of Washington’s Sustainable Transportation Design program.
Outside of her work at Chalk Riot, her personal murals illustrate vibrant floral stories of human growth, often including plants with surreal and personified elements. Formally trained by scenic artists and informally trained by graffiti artists, Chelsea's murals often combine trompe l'oeil elements with modern playful twists. She hopes that someone passing by the same mural every day will never have the same viewing experience twice, and as such, weaves intricate details throughout.
As an organizer and artist, Chelsea is committed to art as a glue that unites forces of positive social change. She is currently a 2024-25 American Delegate to the United States Japan Leadership Program, a cross-sector diplomacy program intended for fostering “fellowship, global peace, prosperity, stability, and sustainability in the 21st century” between young professionals in both countries. In 2023, she completed a fellowship with Gather, representing the United States in a cohort of sixteen artists with social practices from twelve different countries. From 2019-2020, she served as a Resident Teaching Artist at the Moonshot Studio of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a public arts studio committed to arts accessibility and education for all. For ten years prior, she co-created an arts education curriculum with Greenpeace International, intended for environmental activists on the frontlines of the climate crisis for strengthening their campaigns with replicable, collaborative, evocative art.
A midwesterner at heart, Chelsea was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She then went on to live in St. Louis, Missouri and Napa, California before moving to her current home in the country’s capital city of Washington, D.C.
photo by Nathan Mitchell Photography