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.
Mark RydenThe 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.
Mark RydenThere 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.
Mark RydenThe 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.
Mark RydenI 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.
Mark RydenI 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. Pokรฉmon? Urban Vinyl figures? Superheroes? Vampires? iPhones? It will be the things that resonate with the collective consciousness of this current time.
Mark RydenMy 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.
Mark Ryden