by Hanah Mishin

Matthew Ritchie's latest exhibition, Line Shot at Andrea Rosen Gallery is nothing less than pure production.  The installation at Andrea Rosen is meant to define the video projection as the thesis of the exhibition.  I am uninterested in video work, as a whole, and feel that this particular projection does not belong in a gallery setting.  The content is strong, and the collaboration, with scientists and composers, is powerful but perhaps my affinity for Matthew Ritchie's two-dimensional work inhibits my ability to enjoy the animation.  That being said, I must admit to two biases before continuing.  The first is that I am an unabashed admirer of Ritchie's work, and the second is that I am a painter. 

Matthew Ritchie's recent exhibitions have become exceedingly more multi-media centric and sculpturally involved than concerned with painting. I have followed the progression of Ritchie's work and I have seen how elements of his sculptures have begun infiltrating and transforming his two dimensional work.  Until this show, his paintings have always been exemplary fine art on their own. His sculptures, however have always read as supportive material for his paintings, for they lacked the complexity and superiority that his older paintings command.  His sculptures are predictable in their pseudo-organic state.  They are made of fabricated machined metal, and though they reveal something of Ritchie's hand and gesture, they instead evoke the sterility and uniformity of mass production. 

In this recent show, however the rigidness of his sculptures has almost  completely eradicated what I have always admired about Ritchie's paintings; introspective, quirky and almost nerdy narratives.  Now, his paintings require that the viewer be informed of the sculptures and media for that narrative to be revealed. His two-dimensional work has adopted the sterility and man-made Nature feel of his sculpture.
His paintings now resemble graffiti inspired textiles mimicking predictable patterns in Nature.  Hidden underneath the sprayed paint and speckled surface lies minute vestiges of what Matthew Ritchie's paintings once were. 

Richie's subject matter is vast and complex, and surely it must be limiting to fulfill his comprehension of the universe within a two-dimensional surface, but isn't that the trouble and the beauty of painting?
The limitations of the edge and the paint are not limiting, per-Se, but can express vast ideas across a multitude of subjects, it is merely that they must be read differently; slowly, contemplated by both creator and viewer.   His previous paintings exposed the beauty of this problem of painting in a superior fashion, and compelled his viewers to contemplate as the fantastic and intellectual narrative unfolded. Ritchie's sculptures have merit in their own right, but at the cost of the intimacy and uniqueness of Ritchie's paintings?