Art

Matthew Ritchie
Until Jun 28
This event has finished
White Cube Hoxton Square, 48 Hoxton Sq, N1 6PB
Rating:
By Helen Sumpter

Posted: Mon Jun 2
To someone who once spent several hours in a pub having the concept of the fourth dimension explained in the simplest terms with the use of beer mats (I’m still none the wiser), Matthew Ritchie’s subject matter can seem an overly complex exploration of life, the universe and everything – from quantum mechanics, probability and chance to game theory and the nature of good and evil – all presented as a slick multi-media installation of sound and visuals.

For this show, ‘Ghost Operator’, Ritchie has transformed the lower gallery with drawings, paintings, sculpture and video, including a glowing, 32-panel lightbox painting of primordial, amoeba-like shapes that covers the back wall and ceiling. On the floor, kaleidoscopic visuals are projected on to one section of the broken metal skeleton of a rocket; the Big Bang and ‘Apocalypse Now’ rolled into one. Upstairs it gets interactive where the audio to a three-screen film can be changed by feeding Tarot cards into the mouth of an eroded sculpture of an astronaut’s head.

This might sound overblown, but part of Ritchie’s schtick is reflecting that we live in an age of information overload. However, while we can all choose to engage with the science and ideas, another response to so much information is to zone it all out. Interestingly what then emerges is just how adept Ritchie is at exploring how a drawing can extend into a painting, and that painting into sculpture, architecture or film. Maybe some understanding of the fourth dimension did sink in after all.