Books like The Snow Yak Show

I can’t help it … even when I don’t like Mark Ryden, I love Mark Ryden. That is, even when I don’t like him as much. I miss the riotous circus of his previous work. Yet, it’s okay. All of his early work is still there, in book form, for me to turn back to whenever the mood strikes me, so I accept the evolution of his style to a new simplicity. It is certainly a pleasure to follow him wherever he goes.Ryden has explored quite a few moods in recent years. From his macabre Blood Show, with children bleeding from their eyes, to the seeming environmentalist-activist Tree Show and now to the zen harmony of The Snow Yak Show. This new series finds him with a pared down color palette and scenic structure. All whites and creams and pale greys and hints of blue and rose. And in almost all the paintings in this series, the scenes are focused on only one or two characters with many of the backgrounds nearly abstracted, which is quite unusual given his compulsive detailing of tableaux in the past.The tone in The Snow Yak Show is almost entirely peaceful. Most of the paintings find toy-like shaggy yaks (each yak looking quite different in nature to the others) forming friendships with young girls who are far too centered and knowing to be real girls, rather they are spirits (one painting entitled Sophia’s Bubbles, gives us a clue that the girls may represent “wisdom” as Sophia is an ancient Greek word used throughout Greek philosophy and Christian mysticism to represent God’s wisdom). Admittedly, I do get a little uncomfortable with the nudity of young girls that Ryden often paints, however, fortunately, the girls do not seem sexualized so much as representations of the feminine spirit, and they are painted rather reverentially and with power.Every Ryden painting has a glow and a resonance to it, a mythic quality that points to mysteries one can never quite identify. There is always a beauty in his work, and that beauty to me goes beyond his vivid detail; it is the beauty created by triggering a deep sense of imagination in the viewer. I know his paintings inspire me creatively.Perhaps it was because of the limited content of the scenes in these paintings, but I was left with a little bit of cotton candy in my mouth compared to Ryden’s last show, which I reviewed here. I had a less visceral reaction to this work than I did to The Tree Show. Even so, Ryden’s work stands head and shoulders above most contemporary artists. A true master.From The Snow Yak Show:\ \