Today I dedicate my entry to one of my favourite artists of all time: Mark Ryden. I'm sure some of you already know about this American painter, since his work is pretty famous all over the world, even if the portraits he creates are full of spooky and macabre scenes. At first you may notice innocence and cuteness on his art, but just take a closer look at it and you will see macabre and disturbing things all over the painting.
I found about him for the first time by chance and it caused a big impression on me. On the painting, there was this little girl next to her bunny... but the bunny was cut in half and bleeding all over the floor. The expression on the little girl's face was so... apathetic and that made it even more impressive.
Since then, I started researching more and more about this painter and his art and I've became a fervent fan! The vast amount of details on each painting, all the feelings you get just by looking at them, the enormous imagination put into all of these portraits. I could literally spend the day enumerating the reasons why Mark Ryden is such a great artist for me.
Even if this art may seem like niche art, Ryden is quite famous, admired and respected, and lots of celebrities have openly declared their admiration for his art. Some of them have even worked with him, like, for example, Michael Jackson, who hired Ryden to design one of his CD jackets.
Michael Jackson was not the only one; people as Ringo Starr, Oingo Boingo, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Butthole Surfers or Jack Off Jill have worked with Ryden too. There's many other people who fervently admire and buy Ryden's paintings; just to name a few... Robert De Niro, Björk, Bridget Fonda, Christina Ricci and Leonardo DiCaprio.
I think I've already said enough, but if you're still interested in knowing more about this man's work, just visit: http://www.markryden.com/
amazing style of innocently weird
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