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. Pokรฉmon? Urban Vinyl figures? Superheroes? Vampires? iPhones? It will be the things that resonate with the collective consciousness of this current time.
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 RydenBlood 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.
Mark RydenBeyond Brookledge may be the most incredible weekend of entertainment I've experienced in my life.
Mark RydenEach 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.
Mark Ryden