I think it’s important as an artist not to think about where your place is in all that. I think it just freezes you up — I try not to think about it at all. If you start to evaluate: Am I doing something fashionable, am I doing something that fits in with the times, am I doing something new that hasn’t been done before — it will just freeze up the creative process. I’m so lucky that people respond to my art, but if I think about that it’s hard to, ah, make any art.
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Mark Ryden (LA Weekly, March 2007).
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The Apology (with original frame), by Mark Ryden. (oil on canvas, 2006). Photo by bohemea on Flickr.
Laurie Hassold and Mark Ryden - Reading the Bones. Art Shack 2010. (Photo: Steve Yennie).
Elephant Demon, by Mark Ryden. (Oil and Mixed Media on board, 1991).
Incarnation (detail), by Mark Ryden (Oil on panel, 2009).
Kids with Meat postcard, by Mark Ryden. (Photo by reactor88 on Flickr).
I usually see something that will spark an idea, and usually the idea is pretty complete, but kinda blurry, the details are not real clear. So, I try to discover what the details are supposed to be. It feels to me that there is a “right” answer, like the painting already exists and I’m just there to figure it out. There does seem to be this “right or wrong” definitive answer to a lot of the details.
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Mark Ryden (Trace Magazine, may 2007).
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Good Children, by Mark Ryden.
Rigor Mortis’ Freaks EP (1989) album cover. Artwork by Mark Ryden.
Miniature painting by Mark Ryden dispalyed at the XXSmall exposition at the The Hague Municipal Museum.
The whole YHWH family. (© Porterhouse Fine Art Editions).
Turkey Baby, by Mark Ryden. (Graphite on vintage paper). By JeanineAnderson on Flickr.
I think an important part of experiencing art is for a person to figure out what is going on for themselves. Everyone has different ideas and interpretations, and that is the way it should be.
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Mark Ryden (Art Prostitute magazine, Issue No, 08, 2006).
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Dodecaedri Parva (detail), by Mark Ryden (2011).
