Chelsea, New York
Charles Ritchie
Drawings from a Room
Kathryn Markel Fine ArtsKathryn Markel Fine Arts is pleased to present Drawings from a Room, an exhibition of new works on paper by Charles Ritchie. This is his first solo exhibition with the gallery. Charles Ritchie’s intimate watercolor and ink drawings are the result of sustained attention to his immediate surroundings: details of his neighbors' homes and yards, and vignettes of his lived-in rooms. For more than forty years, his suburban Maryland neighborhood has been his muse, though light remains his essential subject. Many of these drawings take shape over the course of many years. Ritchie explains,"My inspirations come in a flash and I hope to convey that initial excitement. When I begin to work, I am often dependent on the ephemeral: a slant of light, a certain season, a subject in a temporary state. When the state passes, I often put the work aside until it reappears. However, by the time the drawing is finished, the site may be vastly different than when I started; trees have come down, houses have new additions, etc. The exhibited work is an abstracted accumulation of many different experiences and events." Ritchie’s drawings move beyond what a camera can offer. His respect for detail is patient and precise. The ordinariness of the everyday becomes suffused with tenderness. Vast amounts of information is contained in these small works, and their intimate scale invites the viewer to look closely, to explore the details of spaces familiar and transformed. It is Ritchie’s careful attention, and then our own, that transforms the ordinary into something of wonder. Charles Ritchie has exhibited his watercolor and ink drawings in public and private galleries throughout the United States and Asia. His works are in such prestigious collections as the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Boston Public Library, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, and the Yale University Art Gallery. The work is in many private collections such as the Cartin Collection and the Louis-Dreyfus Collection.