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