Matthew Ritchie

(British, born 1964)

Matthew Ritchie is a contemporary British artist whose work explores the visual expression of systems. Utilizing installation, painting, performance, sculpture, and film, Ritchie attempts to describe the intangible links between information and collective thought. “The way my work works is: I’ve tried to build a model that can incorporate as much as it possibly can,” he has explained. “It’s like this constantly expanding information structure that can just keep (theoretically) soaking up everything—but inside a way of seeing, so it doesn’t just become this barrage.” Born in 1964 in London, United Kingdom, he received his BFA from Camberwell College of Arts in 1986. Relocating to New York in 1989, he had his first solo exhibition in 1995, where he presented Working Model, at Basilico Fine Arts. In the decades that followed, Ritchie has continued his investigation into the visual language of symbols, much like his contemporary Julie Mehretu. The artist has collaborated with specialists in various fields, including scientists, computer programmers, and architects to realize large-scale installation works such as The Morning Line (2008). Ritchie resides in New York, NY. Today, his works are included in the collections of the Goetz Collection in Munich, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, among others.