Skip to main contentBiographyRitchie is an English painter and sculptor working in New York City since 1988. Ritchie studied art at the Camberwell School of Art in London (BFA, 1986). Ritchie taught himself history, art, science, mythology and religion, among other subjectsf rom discarded textbooks gleaned from nearby New York University, history, art, science, mythology and religion, among other subjects. This self-selecting mode of study directly led to his development as an artist. Ritchie’s first solo show at Basilico Fine Arts in 1995, ‘Working Model’, presented the origins of what would become an exceedingly elastic system for making art, namely an organizational chart of forty-nine fictional characters who occupy various space–time conditions and represent fundamental scientific laws and structures.
Ritchie’s omnivorous approach to comprehending and visualizing information continued to offer unorthodox ways to explore such ideas as the laws of thermodynamics, Judeo-Christian religion, string theory, Gnostic principles, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, quantum physics, Mayan cosmology, gambling odds and ceremonial magic. All of these are universal systems or systems that purport to be so. Since that first exhibition with its chart, Ritchie has used his rambling and rambunctious system to generate a series of exhibitions that could be considered episodes in an ongoing story. But for Ritchie, the system also describes a way of making art and specifically a way to work representationally in an area of art that seemed exhausted. Ritchie’s work can be situated in a cosmologically minded mode of art making, in which artists construct worlds in and about which to make art. Such approaches encompass the complexities of universal and human history and attempt to present them via visual language
Transforming a vast information network into objects, Ritchie makes paintings, sculpture, lenticular light boxes, websites, short fiction, interactive games, prints, animated video and expansive wall drawings. Though Ritchie employs an ever-expanding list of media, his works in their origins can always be classified as drawing, the most foundational of art media. As such, comparisons to Ritchie’s subject matter—the manifold creation myths of the universe—are clearly drawn. Just as all art begins with drawing, so too does the universe emerge from the Big Bang. As the universe increases in complexity from its flashpoint, so too does Ritchie’s artwork. But everything returns to the drawn line and how line becomes drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture and ultimately the universe.
(SOURCE: Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2088860, 12/8/16)
Matthew Ritchie
British, born 1964
Ritchie’s omnivorous approach to comprehending and visualizing information continued to offer unorthodox ways to explore such ideas as the laws of thermodynamics, Judeo-Christian religion, string theory, Gnostic principles, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, quantum physics, Mayan cosmology, gambling odds and ceremonial magic. All of these are universal systems or systems that purport to be so. Since that first exhibition with its chart, Ritchie has used his rambling and rambunctious system to generate a series of exhibitions that could be considered episodes in an ongoing story. But for Ritchie, the system also describes a way of making art and specifically a way to work representationally in an area of art that seemed exhausted. Ritchie’s work can be situated in a cosmologically minded mode of art making, in which artists construct worlds in and about which to make art. Such approaches encompass the complexities of universal and human history and attempt to present them via visual language
Transforming a vast information network into objects, Ritchie makes paintings, sculpture, lenticular light boxes, websites, short fiction, interactive games, prints, animated video and expansive wall drawings. Though Ritchie employs an ever-expanding list of media, his works in their origins can always be classified as drawing, the most foundational of art media. As such, comparisons to Ritchie’s subject matter—the manifold creation myths of the universe—are clearly drawn. Just as all art begins with drawing, so too does the universe emerge from the Big Bang. As the universe increases in complexity from its flashpoint, so too does Ritchie’s artwork. But everything returns to the drawn line and how line becomes drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture and ultimately the universe.
(SOURCE: Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2088860, 12/8/16)
Person TypeIndividual
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