Mark Ryden
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Mark Ryden (b. January 20, 1963 in Medford, Oregon) is an American
painter.
Mark is the son of
Barbara and Keith Ryden, born in Medford, Oregon but was raised in
Southern California, in cities like Escondido. Ryden studied
Illustration and graduated from the Art Center College of Design in
Pasadena, in 1987. His solo debut show entitled "The Meat Show" was in
Pasadena, California in 1998. He currently lives and works in Eagle
Rock, California, in a studio that he shares with his partner, artist
Marion Peck. He is divorced and has two children Rosie and Jasper.
Ryden's work combines a saccharine cartoon-like sensibility - much like
the doe-eyed Margaret Keane creatures of the 1960s - with a detailed
fullness and a creepy combination of numerology, little girls, meat,
Catholic and Buddhist symbolism, and carnivalesque Americana. Toys are a
big component of his art. [1] His work ranges from large highly-polished
oil paintings to small black-and-white works on paper. Like modern
illustrators Sir John Tenniel and Edward Gorey, Ryden is influenced by
the fantastic art of Alice in Wonderland and early Renaissance
landscapes. Ryden's work has
gained greater prominence within the public domain thanks to so-called
lowbrow art publications such as Juxtapoz in which his work features
regularly. In fact Ryden has collaborated with other lowbrow artists
such as Gary Baseman and Tim Biskup, in addition to composers Stan
Ridgway (Wall of Voodoo) and Pietra Wexstun, ( the CD soundtrack to
"Blood - Miniature Paintings of Sorrow and Fear").
Mark Ryden's paintings instantly trigger a warped deja vu. His works
recall a parallel universe of 1950s Golden Books and the whimsy of Lewis
Carroll. His cheery bunnies, rendered in the glowing hues of children's
books, are more likely to be carving slabs of meat rather than
frolicking in the forest. Ryden's work mingles superb technique with
outre images to create a world of strange and disturbing beauty. At once
intriguing and unsettling, baffling and enchanting, Ryden's works are
subtle amalgams of many sources and influences as wide-ranging as
Psychedelic and Vienna School artists, Neon Park and Ernst Fuchs, to
classical French formalists Ingres and David. In November of 2001 Ryden
his debut New York exhibition with the Earl McGrath Gallery which then
traveled on to the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, CA. Mark Ryden
was born on January 20, 1963 in Medford, Oregon, but grew up in Southern
California. He received a B.F.A. in 1987 from Art Center in Pasadena,
California. He currently resides in Eagle Rock, California.Over the past
decade, the marriage of accessibility and craftsmanship has catapulted
Ryden beyond his roots and to the attention of museums, critics and
serious collectors. Ryden’s work has been exhibited in museums and
galleries worldwide, including a recent museum retrospective
“Wondertoonel” at the Frye Museum of Art in Seattle and Pasadena Museum
of California Art. Ryden's current
exhibit, "The Tree Show," opened to acclaim at the Michael Kohn gallery
in Los Angeles on March 10, 2007 -- and features a selection of oil
paintings and sculptures. A separate chamber, containing many of Ryden's
detailed studies for each of the paintings and exquisitely carved
frames, is also made available. The largest of the paintings, "The Tree
of Life," sold for $800,000 before the exhibit opened. According to
Gallery currators, one later addition, an oil painting featuring a
ghostly girl in a wooded location, has been acquired by Los Angeles
Museum of Contemporary Art.Mark Ryden has two
sisters and two brothers, one a fellow artist named Keyth, (the spelling
from Keith was changed in 1969, for reasons relating to numerology and
to distinguish himself from his father's first name) who professionally
goes by the name KRK Ryden.
Ryden was one of the
guests to attend the wedding of Jessicka and Christian Hejnal of
Scarling. on October 13, 2007 in Los Angeles. His wedding gift was a
miniature portrait of the couple was a faithful adaptation of Jan Van
Eyck's "Arnolfini Portrait" that was reproduced on the invitations.
