Painting by Matthew Ritchie
“The Living Will”
2004
Oil and marker on canvas
88 x 99 inches

An idea that bears repeating – aim for a compelling, unorthodox originality…

Painting by Matthew Ritchie
“Self-Portrait in 2064″
2003
Oil and marker on canvas
80 x 100 inches

That quote is from an interview with Matthew Ritchie.

Better yet, I found this wonderful post by Vera Mitchell about Matthew Ritchie:

His work takes a basic line and takes it farther in meaning, in space, and in motion. He enlarges the line design to get a reaction from the viewer. He makes a drawing three dimensional and becomes a transcriber to a gesture and retains the one idea to free it and make it live in the world. He is interested in filtering out all the noise of life and focusing in on what is important. I never thought about it this way, he says that if one thing has a story, then the millions of things we see everyday have a separate story, and if we tried to see them all at once then nothing is seen or noticed. We tune it out. What he is trying to do is try to see a bit more deeply into things. Not just what is on the surface.

Read the rest of it at: Vera Mitchell’s blog.

Or check out more of Matthew Ritchie’s work at his website.

Class notes from Poetic Non-Representational Acrylic Painting with Andrew Long, Fall 2007

The object in the painting – is it being an object vs. being a facsimile of the object? Does it have a history, a great hook, and richness, a fullness, or is it empty?

What’s the difference between this abstract piece of art and wallpaper?

Matthew Ritchie — “You mostly wait around for things to leak.” -MR, from this Boston Globe article.

Check out Guerra Paints in NY or Nova Paints in CA for large bottle of pre-mixed binder & highly concentrated paints to mix.

To increase interest, drama, contrast, come in with a pure black, white or deeper shade of color to really pop things up in high relief. Try india ink.

Mediums – retarder will make paint work more like oils. Acrylic flow release will break apart the paint. Use GAC100 + water (50-50) to use atomizer.

Use a belt sander with 30-50 grit sandpaper to carve down into the history of your paint. Try a dremel tool.

Jeff Koons has 80 assistants!

Mia Pearlman
MAELSTROM
2008
Paper, India ink, aluminum, monofilament, wire
12′ Dia x 11′ H
Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY

See and read more about the work of Mia Pearlman.