The Cells in Our Lives The Universal Cell by Matthew Ritchie is a stately and involving piece. Standing at roughly 12 feet high, and about 15 feet wide, this piece is quite bigger than the average person. It is usually an industrial black color, with four arching walls. The shape of the architecture is dome-like, truly encasing those who enter. Connecting three of the four walls, is a large shelf at about waist level. With only one entrance, one must circle around the large figure to enter. The metal walls encompassing the center are decorated with abstract lines, showing gaps, and connections between them. The figure itself is relatively simple, but the figuration of metal makes the viewer overwhelmed by the connecting metal. As they enter, it looks, almost swamp-like in the sense of the spider-webbing metal as it comes to one point. …show more content…
This artwork is large for a reason. The viewer should look at this in one of two ways. The first significant piece of content is seeing the “Universal Cell” as a prison. The figure itself represents the universe as a prison. The chaos and complexity of the universe are surrounding the viewer, as they become encircled by their own “cell”. People are constantly absorbed in their own world, and stress. The Universal Cell is a way of recognizing your cell, and what is going on in your life. Another way of observing the piece is as a cell in the biological sense. The artist attempts to take something so small, and insignificant and blow it up. This draws attention to how important it really is, and shows that we all need this in our lives our we would not exist. The cell, no matter how the observer sees it, is very