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Mark Ryden Biography

Mark Ryden (born January 20, 1963) is an American painter, part of the Lowbrow (or Pop Surrealist) art movement. He was dubbed "the god-father of pop surrealism" by Interview Magazine. Artnet named Ryden and his wife, the painter Marion Peck, the King and Queen of Pop Surrealism and one of the ten most important art couples in Los Angeles. Ryden's aesthetic is developed from subtle amalgams of many sources, from Ingres, David and other French classicists to Little Golden Books. Ryden also draws his inspiration from anything that will evoke mystery: old toys, anatomical models, stuffed animals, skeletons and religious ephemera found in flea markets.

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Mark Ryden Quotes

Each painting seems to have a very specific size it wants to be. I have even started a painting or two over just because I didn't like the feeling of the particular image at a particular size. The Parlor needed to be large because I wanted it to feel like a full-size room you could step into. Unfortunately for me, I paint the same way on an eight-foot canvas as I do on a five-inch miniature. I still use very tiny brushes and noodle every square inch. It took me nearly a year to paint The Parlor.

Feelings, Painting, Canvas, Like, Feeling, Took

People have the idea that an image must stand for something else, that the real meaning needs to be described with language. Instead it is the image itself that is the meaning.

Art, Real, Ideas, Language, Idea

The vast amount of time it takes to make my paintings is very challenging. I have so many exciting ideas I would love to bring to a final painting, but my time-consuming technique limits the number of ideas that get to become a painting.

Challenges, Painting, Exciting, Love, Paintings, Bring

I believe that beyond the arena of art, the world would be a much better place if centered around a feminine perspective. The world has been really messed up by greedy white men who only work towards an agenda of personal wealth and power. It is this patriarchy of the past couple thousand years that causes so much strife. If the world was female-centered and if the dominant spirituality was based on the feminine and the earth, then human beings would know much more joy, peace, and harmony.

Art, Based, Believe, Causes, Couple, Patriarchy

Beyond Brookledge may be the most incredible weekend of entertainment I've experienced in my life.

Entertainment, Incredible, May, Weekend

There is a definite moment when a work congeals and crystallizes. Once I am finished with a painting, I am happy to send it off into the world so I can get to work on the next one.

Congeals, Crystallizes, Definite, Moments, Painting, World

I often look around me and think about this specific place in time, and what things will endure and become objects of nostalgia for the future. Pokémon? Urban Vinyl figures? Superheroes? Vampires? iPhones? It will be the things that resonate with the collective consciousness of this current time.

Thinking, Superhero, Vampire, Objects, Become, Resonate

My painting technique has not changed that much over time, although perhaps I am painting tighter and with more detail, in spite of a desire to loosen up and paint more expressively. One thing that has changed is my daily routine. I used to paint quite late into the night. It was a time I felt the creative spirits most active. As I have aged, my circadian rhythm has changed. I like to paint early in the day when I can avoid falling into the soul-sucking email world. Early dawn feels very similar to late night.

Creative, Fall, Felt, Night, Tighter, Time

Blood is very powerful. While meat is the substance that keeps our living souls in this physical reality, blood keeps our meat alive. Blood is liquid life. When blood escapes our bodies we are alarmed to the very core of our brains. It is life leaking out of us. It is frightening and makes red a profoundly intense color.

Alarmed, Core, Keeps, Life, Powerful, Reality

I liked painting, very early on, even more than drawing. I used poster paint on posterboard. I would copy images that I liked from magazines and books and combine them to make a "collage" kind of painting. In some ways, this is similar to how I work today.

Book, Today, Painting, Drawing, Combine

The present moment is all we will ever have. Only the forms change. Someone living in the actual 1890s would have the same feelings of what's modern and what's old-fashioned that we do now and that people will have 100 years from now. The forms change but the feelings are the same.

Actual, Feelings, Moments, People

Inspiration is the most valuable commodity for an artist; it is for me anyway. I can't move forward in any way if I don't feel a strong spark of excitement or creativity. Sometimes it is very difficult to get things flowing. It's important to be in a peaceful state of mind, and then I invite the spirits to come into the studio. I don't stare into a blank canvas or paper. I look through my various collections of books, toys, statues, photographs and other things, and something will trigger an idea. My studio is packed full of things that inspire me.

Book, Commodity, Moving, Spirits, Strong, Toys

I believe if you follow your heart and do what you love, success will follow. If you enchant yourself, others will be too.

Inspirational, Success, Believe, Love, Heart, Enchant

I find it so much easier to be creatively free at night. Daytime is for sleeping. Nighttime is the best time for making art. The later at night it gets the further into another world you go.

Art, Creatively, Creativity, Gets, Nighttime, Time

It is the masculine dynamic that has caused our society to place money and corporate profit above human beings. It has allowed the earth to be viewed only as a commodity to be exploited. The feminine perspective sees things differently. She sees the earth and all its inhabitants as entities to be revered and cared for. She sees individual human beings as more important than the relentless advance of capitalism and competition. It is my hope, perhaps indirectly expressed in my work, that the divine feminine is reawakening.

Perspective, Competition, Important, Feminine, Money, Individual