Bunnies and Bees
New York City, NY & Santa Ana, CA: Porterhouse Fine Art Editions, 2001. First Edition. Paperback. Signed by in black ink on the first page by the artist, Mark Ryden. [52]pp. Quarto [30.5cm]; perfect-bound in illustrated wraps, with only very insignificant traces of soiling to the wraps. Small bump and resulting crease at the bottom right corner of the cover and first few pages. Internally clean and sharp. Very Good +. Item #71412
An exhibition catalog that was produced for shows at the Earl McGrath Gallery in New York City in 2001, and for the Grant Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California in 2002. Nice reproductions of the Pop/Surrealist master's "paintings created to illustrated Divine Truth in accordance with the secret principles of Science & Soul."
"What is it that makes Mark Ryden's paintings so engaging? At the crux of his paintings is the surrealist strategy of combining unrelated images to create scenes that could never exist in reality. Dali always claimed that his selection of subject matter was completely random and involved no conscious thought whatsoever. In 1924, when Andre Breton wrote the Surrealist Manifesto, the notion of fusing the rationally unrelated was so fresh that the combination of almost any imagery or objects was provocative. Man Ray produced a startlingly enchanting object by simply putting a row of tacks on the underside of an antique iron. But as the decades have passed Dali's brand of pure surrealism has lost much of its potency. Perhaps it is because reality has become increasingly surreal, but the near ecclesiastical gravity with which the surrealists approached their work in pre-WWI Europe doesn't play the same today. In contemporary, culture pure surrealism's most common, and effective, use is as a strategy to achieve humor in movies. Ryden has trumped the initial surrealist strategies by consciously choosing subject matter for his paintings that are loaded with cultural connotation. He relies on the irrational to help him achieve intuitive leaps in his combining of subject matter: with dazzling results. The sheer amount of layered information in each painting also contributes substantially to the impact of his work, But the crowning factor with Ryden is that he is an artist in touch with his time. The overall look and feel of his paintings and the stuff he finds interesting strikes a resounding cord with contemporary everyman." - Mike McGee, from the preface.
Price: $200.00