Ross Ritchie: Circus @ Whitespace

Ritchie's show runs until until 24 December.

Ross Ritchie has been at the forefront of many artistic developments and is one of New Zealand’s leading post-modern artists. He is a figurative artist in the sense that his works have always denoted or referred to things, animate and inanimate, and the phenomena of the physical world.

Like many painters, Ross Ritchie is a highly competent craftsman who uses his command over technique, not for purposes of virtuoso display, but to control and assist the subject of a painting. The cleverness of the ‘slick’ painter is not allowed to come between the spectator and the subject, no matter what form of expression this may take. Subject and technique are part of the painting’s total entity, not separate issues. Just the same, his natural dexterity as a painter can at times act as a shield protecting the quiet introspective core that Ritchie seeks to maintain in his work. Initially the underlying issue of ‘artistic integrity’ barely concerned him, but within a few years it became an important factor in his consciousness. Excerpt Art NZ, Gordon H . Brown.

Ross Ritchie has works in many private, corporate, museum and public collections, including Auckland Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.

WHITESPACE, 20 Monmouth Street, T: 09 361 6331, www.whitespace.co.nz