Painting: The Artwork of Mark Ryden (America)

Sometimes it is hard to tell whether the paintings of Mark Ryden are meant to be an innocent portrayal of a child’s dream-like fantasy, or the morbid exposition of innocence among disturbing figures and landscapes. It is likely both.

The purposeful conjoining of the two dichotomous image-worlds may be what is most intriguing about Ryden. He puts them together with such tenacity that the viewer is almost always taken aback. At first, we are drawn in by the sheer clarity and realism of the oil-painted children and teddy-bears, almost cuter than new-born kittens. Then we look closer. Our eyes move across the canvas to take in the dense scene of flush pastures and wide-eyed little boys and girls. At this point, we are already impressed. But then we see it: Abe Lincoln’s severed head in a girl’s bed, or cut raw meat, or blood pouring from the eyes of 12-year-olds. Our eyebrows rise, we make that signature “hmm” sound accompanying our confusion, and are then left with a stirring feeling that says, “Maybe I shouldn’t be looking at this.”

Ryden began getting notoriety for his works in 1994 with the “Side Show” exhibition held at The Tamara Bone Gallery in Los Angeles. Since then, Ryden’s solo-shows have continued with “The Meat Show” and “The Tree Show.” He also has his own book featuring a collection of various works. It is no surprise that Ryden has gained some public appeal. He does what every artist should strive to do, and that is to produce inside someone the most basic and unconscious of emotions: elation or disgust.

Salvador Dali had the melting clocks and elephants with legs one hundred tall. MC Escher had pencil-drawn dimensional paradoxes that tricked the eye. But what makes Ryden so unique?For one: everything. Nowhere on a canvas does Ryden spare on symbolic reference or recurring imagery, usually Abe Lincoln either present lurking somewhere in the background or in full view, interacting with the children in at times bizarre ways. Still, one wonders if the children being so meticulously portrayed are children at all, and instead, monsters disguised as innocent, the remnants of the twisted fairy land that is Ryden's mind at work. If you look long and hard enough, you suddenly disappear, and enter snuggly in the inner realm of the artist.

To the squeamish who might find these works a tad too provocative, I can only leave you with the words of Elizabeth Comber (Han Suyin): "Moralists have no place in art gallery." In art, it is never a question of moral integrity, but more importantly, a complete disregard for it. Take integrity and leave it to burn, and strive to reinvent. Take Mark Ryden as an example.