Matthew Ritchie

Matthew Ritchie was born in the suburbs of London, England in 1964. Ritchie received a BFA from London’s Camberwell School of Art which he attended between 1983 and 1986. He also spent a year enrolled at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1982. His first solo installation, “Working Model,” was shown at New York’s Basilico Fine Arts in 1995. Ritchie lives and works in New York City. The Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York City, currently represents his work.

In the beginning of his career Ritchie had been considered a painter. His work since 2000 show him as an accomplished draftsman who uses the computer effectively to transfer and enlarge his designs to cover the walls, floors and ceilings of his exhibition spaces with lacey black designs. Later, using the same projection technique, he devised cut-out "arabesques" which he assembles into free-standing, three-dimensional structures.

This process of constructing his installations is shown in a revealing PBS-art21-video which I recommend seeing first.

The visual appeal of Ritchie's installations is undeniable, whether he exhibits them indoors at the Architecture Bienale in Venice or outdoors in front of Istanbul's skyline. Unfortunately Ritchie makes grand claims to their "universal meaning" which distract from their delightful simplicity. By comparison with Diana Al-Hadid's Baroque sculptures - which she likewise gives mysterious (feminine) titles to - Richie's architectural sculptures maybe puzzling, but in the end are un-intriguing and for that reason highly popular.

All images were obtained from Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York

A auto-biographical statement by Matthew Ritchie is found on the artist's website

Ritchie's paintings are constructed on a computer. They are reflecting the crystalline structures of his sculptures and their size has become smaller.

In past two years Ritchie has expanded his installations to incorporate them into musical performances of works by composer Hector Parra and physicist Lisa Randall.