Ross Ritchie

Ross Ritchie has been at the forefront of many artistic developments, and is one of New Zealand's leading post-modern artist. 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.

Ritchie's paintings are worked so as to emphasise the paint surface. Although there is some play on illusionism and sometimes ambiguous interactions of surface and depth, the spatial sensation in most of the works tends to be shallow. The brushwork, firm yet light, supple, sketchy in a restrained manner, suggests Ritchie's interest in Jasper Johns's art. It is the antithesis of the gestural, "over the top" handling of the stereotypical expressionist painter, so often favored in New Zealand."

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.

Excerpt Leonard Bell Art New Zealand 55, 1990

 

Art New Zealand
Number 162 / Winter 2017
Inside the Engine Room: A conversation with Edward Hanfling
Read here.

Seeing in the Dark
By Amy Stewart. Read here.

Contemporary New Zealand Art 4
By Elizabeth Caughey and John Gow
Read here.

NZ Herald
Pop-art pioneer going strong
By Linda Herrick. Read here.

Art New Zealand
The Paintings of Ross Ritchie
By Gordon H Brown. Read here.