Continuing through December 10, 2011
“Monstrance” is Matthew Ritchie’s L.A. debut, consisting of a series of paintings, a few sculptures, and floor and wall outlines that serve as elaborate frames for video projections. Ritchie’s systematic, quasi-spiritual oeuvre is ever-present here, and with the low-lighting in the galleries, a heightened ethereal quality makes the viewer nothing if not more ripe for conversion; to what remains a mystery. The paintings describe, more than depict, hybridized winged figures, veiled in their own internal language of abstraction. Glowing lines mark the mapping of constellations. Ritchie has been so committed to his own system(s) of visual language for so long that there’s no way it can’t come off as a convincingly cohesive vision. Just how much one is able to glean, or read, into the iconography depends on how inspired you are to invest in its thoroughly systematic back-story.
Published courtesy of ArtSceneCal ©2011