Matthew Ritchie was born in Great Britain in the year 1964. In this clip from art21, we visit Ritchie before a show. Ritchie is known for his bold style mixing oil paints and marker.Ritchie works out of London.
For his collegiate studies Ritchie attended the Camberwell School of Art in London. In addition he attended Boston University for one year. His first major exhibition was in 1990. This brought national attention to the contemporary artist and paved a pathway to a succesful art career.
When looking at Ritchies work it close to the abstract artist Julie Mehretu. The conceptual side reminds me of Matthew Barney. Since conceptual art is best explained by the artist and here Barney explains some ideas behind his work.
Ritchie concentrates more on drawing than painting in his art. First drawing images freehand and then scanning then into a computer. Once in the computer Ritchie can shrink or enlarge his images according to their placement in the final work. Similar to the way Mehretu uses architecture plans for cities in some works and then includes abstract shapes on top. As themes for his art he enjoys exploring ideas of religion, science, and philosophy.
For his sculpture work Ritchie uses sheet metal.
From the Saint Louis Museum of Art Ritchie talks about his art work.
The artist was part of a unique show given by the San Francisco Museum of Art. The show featured artists whose forms of art that could be found only online. Another work had the viewer visit a certain website, once on the site you would meet people well known figures from history. Another theme explored by the artist was gambling. Ritchie was looking to explore the human desire to be a winner. In his game each player that took a card played a unique and important role in the evolution of the universe.
Ritchie has been included in high profile exhibitions at the Dallas Museum, Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Price range info: Oils range from $50,000 to $230,000 These works are fairly large and most times include drawings done in black marker. No price range available for installations. Lithographs and watercolors range from $3,000 to $10,000.
Ritchie is married to an actress who has appeared mainly in independent movies. Her name is Garland Hunter.
Another sculptor who makes a similar round shape in her work similar to Ritchie is Bonnie Collura. With her dynamic composition Collura’s figures seem very animated and lively. Collura was born in 1970 and is also great at sculpting clothing, fabric, and the different folds each contain. Here is an example of Collura’s sculpting style.
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