Few artists truly capture a dream world very convincingly, but Mark Ryden's works are so ethereal and strange and wondrous, we half-believe that he might just have a weekend cabin located in Dream World, USA. His book "The Tree Show," which he is signing on Saturday, January 31 at MOCA Grand Avenue, is full of paintings depicting fanciful meetings and moments from some faraway place in the back of our minds.
Here, a giant, wet-eyed bear seems to be telling a small child a grave secret. There, ghost girl hovers among the firs. The colors are diffuse, the symbols familiar but the settings odd and wonderful.
Lincoln is also a character in some his paintings; so are woodland animals like birds and deer. Everything brims with a soft, subtext-y vibe. After visiting a Ryden show at the Michael Kohn gallery a few years back, we felt as if we'd just woken up from a nap taken on some loamy forest floor. Not that we've ever really done that. It was just a feeling conveyed.
Mark Ryden signs "The Tree Show" at MOCA
Saturday, January 31, 3-5PM
MOCA Grand Avenue, 250 S. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles
213-621-1710
