In Blob We Trust: The Art of KRK Ryden
KRK Ryden’s latest solo show “Wet Bread” is now on view at Brassworks Gallery in Portland. Read an interview on the pop surrealist from our archives by clicking above!
Interview by Atta with additional Art Photos by Quang Le.
Even KRK Ryden’s bathroom walls are hand painted in comic book panels. Elsewhere, a collection of convenience store-boughtnovelty lighters are positioned like circling sharks has invaded a brightly colored coffee table.
The kitchen refrigerator, long removed from the premises to make room for the wall of mousetraps; each room, nay, each exposed surface or wall trimming is painted its own distinct color. Alone, the colors are obnoxiously garish, but together, they compliment each other like a neon bouquet in Paris. Windows and curtains always drawn, the conductor KRK Ryden creates his work surrounded by a kaleidoscope symphony of his own choosing. The odd ephemera, expertly placed knick knacks, and spectrum-colored walls would appear as the ultimate distraction for a meditating Zen Buddhist, but for KRK, it makes the coziest of homes.
KRK’s paintings are like his house/studio. Experiments in controlled chaos, bursts of expertly displayed clutter, arranged by color, pattern, size, and theme. Each has its own push and pull on your eye and brain.
I sat down with KRK to interview him for Hi-Fructose as we ate a bowl of fresh popcorn, heavy on the butter. We were in a room crammed top to bottom with Sharpie labeled VHS cassettes and DVDs of titles like: “Hot Rod Girl”, “Fiend of Dope Island”, and “The World of Tomorrow”. (It’s been a dream of KRK’s to host a Saturday night Creature-Feature TV show). There are stacks of cartoons too: “Gigantor,” “Colonel Bleep,” and old “Betty Boop” when she still sported a dog’s head. Some have handwritten reviews by KRK on them, “cutting edge animation, but the music score ruined this fl ick!” Or like the review for “The Return”: “like watching grass grow while having prickly heat, but not as exciting.”
Atta: [Pointing to one of the DVDs] A few months back you leant me a DVD collection of the badly animated (but in hindsight, surreal) Klutch Cargo series. It’s insane that to cut corners on animating the dialog, they inset clips of an actual human mouth! This reminds me of your paintings, where you place elements completely out of context, and even, in completely different styles/realities into the same painting.
KRK: Badly animated!? Klutch would be insulted. It was actually cutting-edge television animation, the predecessor of limited animation years before The Flintstones. It just looked funky because of their little experiment with lips. Sometimes the cell vinyl color didn’t come close to matching the fl esh tone of the people actually doing the voice-overs. Klutch made it into the film Pulp Fiction; it was used in a scene that needed a choice example (albeit odd) of an early 60s kid’s show.
My art does have a layered, cut-and-paste look to be sure. Years ago, I thought the “dropping in” of cartoon or comic book art and the occasional ad art illustration in a realistically painted piece wouldn’t work. Sometimes it’s vice-versa; a realistic image like a portrait in the foreground is superimposed on a comic book panel. As I forced the images together in time, I developed a technique that fused them together in a way that made visual and artistic sense. I experimented with paint application and style so that the overlapping welded together.
For example, a comic book figure will be outlined with a color that conforms with a color of the fi eld behind it. Real clever stuff like that.
Atta: Each piece, when gathered together, seems to provide evidence for the bigger story…
KRK: It is evidence. Puzzling evidence. You’ve got to put all the paintings in a big room to get the picture. That’s how you can see the story unfold. I’ll lose track of the tale myself unless I can see everything together like that. Da Vinci said that when an artist’s imagination soars far beyond his ability to create that vision, it’s a good thing. I’ve got far-flung ideas that in time will come to fruition. With time and lots of money, those dreams will be turned into reality.
Atta: A major KRK Ryden piece wouldn’t be complete without your handmade, fantasy, fur-wrapped frames, with surprise shadow boxes with recessed areas often silhouetted in a skylark blobbed shape. On paper that sounds horrible but in actuality, the frames are wonderful and I couldn’t imagine the paintings presented any other way.
KRK: Allow me to reveal to the world how I make fur frames. To begin, I should explain the source of the fur frame concept. I was in SF MOMA looking at beat art from the 50s. There was a smallish piece that had its frame coated with a dark brown fur—it might have been rabbit. I can’t remember the artist or what the art looked like, but I’ll never forget that totally unreal and ultra-cool frame. It reminded me of Duchamp’s fur-lined teacup. I had thought of doing something like that before, but seeing the thing crystallized that way encouraged me to pursue and develop it.
I start by drawing and cutting out a paper template. The shape is usually googie style, like an elephant ear. The template is used to create a plywood form. The edges of the wood are sanded and made round. I get most of my material from a humongous fabric store in the Mission district in SF.
They’ve got a lot of rare and bizarre fabrics. The material is layed down on a large flat area (like a fl oor) face down and sprayed with a cancer-causing and ozone-destroying 3M adhesive spray. The plywood cutout is deftly dropped on the fabric and pressure is applied. I cut away the excess fur about an inch from the wood, like shearing sheep. The material is flapped around the edge and stapled upholstery style. If the fur is long it needs to be combed out with a toothbrush before it’s hung up. All the fur I use is fake, because real fur is murder to clean.
A complicated form might be rendered in monotones while a simple shape, when approached from the left or right side, will reveal an odd sanded texture or a literal hole in the picture plane, inhabited by the eyes of a Peeping Tom.
I paint almost exclusively on masonite. That gives me the freedom to cut out shapes and create multi-leveled art. They’re reliefs. I’ll cut a hole out of a piece from the picture surface, and back it up with another painting behind. That’s something that can’t be done with canvas easily.
There’s a painting technique that my brother Mark turned me onto about 15 years ago. Paint an area with a thick coat of paint, being conscious of the brush strokes, controlling their direction and pattern. After that primary coat is bone dry, the image you initially planned to do is painted over it, basically ignoring the undercoat, which is usually of a lighter value. After that part is done and dry, fine sandpaper is used to sand and reveal the first layer of pigment.
Another trick is to backlight or electrify the art. Behind the cut out masonite pieces white lights are arranged and attached to illuminate glass or plexi. As the construction of these pieces evolve, I hope to introduce more complex technology. I want to use fl at screen TVs with CGI that integrate with the painting. For example, a scene that portrays a window in a room may have clouds moving by with an occasional bird in fl ight via a monitor built into the painting. This is a future goal. I’d like to build in motion-activated software that produces sounds and programmed lighting emitting from the art.
So now, when you scratch the smoke coming out of the house that’s in place of a human head on the print, it really smells like lime.”
Atta: In 1977, you changed your name from Keith to Keyth, and now use the name KRK for numerology reasons… How does numerology integrate into your day-to-day life?
KRK: I’ve got OCD when it comes to numerology. I’ll look at a hotel room number, quickly add up the number on the door like 428, get a 5, and say, “Shit, it’s going to suck in there.”I changed my name from Keith to Keyth in ‘71, around the same time Dionne Warwick added the “e” to her first name for the same reason: numerology. In ‘82 I changed my name to KRK because the band Manifest Destiny would come in my studio and call me that, referring to the initials on my sign, which stood for Keyth Ryden Kreations.
For quite a while, I signed my art with a simple “KRK” until I found out about someone who had the same number, Norma Jean. Marilyn Monroe’s life pretty much sucked when she was Norma. I added Ryden to the paintings that previously had KRK and they sold. It changed the numerogical vibrations by doing that, yo. Girls like me to do their numerology; it’s almost as good as having a cute dog.
Atta: You’ve had a long relationship with Devo and their front man Mark Mothersbaugh. Your work also encapsulates Devo’s core, with ideas of De-Evolution and the failed promises of the 1950s America…
KRK: I’ve known Mark for almost 25 years. How we met was Devine Devonian intervention.He saw a litho printed poster I did that a friend of mine, Karin Hansen, brought to a party. This poster portrays a quartet of scientists whipping a sexy girl who has been miniaturized via high-tech machinery. When you look at her through traditional red-blue 3-D glasses, she becomes naked.
He saw a litho rinted poster I did that a friend of mine, Karin Hansen, brought to a party. This poster portrays a quartet of selentists whipping a sexy girl who has been miniaturized via high-tech machinery. When you look at her through traditional red-blue 3-D glasses, she becomes naked. Her red dress gets filtered away by looking through the red lens. Mark called me and I went to Hollywood from Encinitas, a small south eal beach town. I met him at Larraine Newman’s house (of Saturday Night Live’s Conehead fame) who Mark was going with at the time. He set me to work on The Brainwasher and dubbed me the editor-in-cheese. The BW was meant to be made for Devo fans but would eventually turn into a slick monthly on the racks may. At the time you could only get “The Bw” by joining Club Devo, and you could only join by buying the record and ordering something through the Devo Surplus catalog that was printed on the inner sleeve. This was back when people would spin flat black disks on things called record players to produce sound, unfortunately, it never made it to issue two even though I made a some art for it that kicked ass compared to the first one.
Thanks to the zealous efforts of my good friend and manager, Michael Pilmar The Brainwasher is now an interactive magazine accessible through Club Devo on line. The original graphics from the first Brainwasher are used throughout. MM’s art has influenced my art through the years. You can see the similarity in composition, in the placement of elements.
I’ve got OCD when it comes to numerology. I’ll look at a hotel room number, quickly add up the number on the door like 428, get a 5, and say, “Shit, it’s going to suck in there.”
Occasionally I’ll even stick a profile of a face in the upper corner, peering down diagonally. I’ve thrown in the occasional potato, too. I’m a devolutionary artist. I was raised in the 50s, and some of those images haunt my paintings in a positive way. The stereotype and simplicity of a guy in a monkey suit wearing a Stetson has a charming appeal to me. The use of these scenes, like that of a woman ironing, often in black and white, are surreal. They are surreal by virtue of being thrust in today’s world. They’re out of sync, and get laughs.
Atta: Let’s talk about your family a bit here…
I’m the oldest of five. Got two brothers and two sisters. My pop’s name is Keith, his middle name is Harold. My given name is Keith as well, but my middle name is Lawrence so I’m not “Keith Ryden the Second.” Sometimes I call dad Harry and he calls me Larry. He insists that Harry is not short for Harold, and that Harry S. Truman’s name could have never been Harold. He’s right actually, but Harry was short for Harrison, Truman’s uncle. Pop’s a tough son-of-a-bitch. The leftist views and Yippie persuasion I have may be to do with the infl uence of his inherent anti-establishment attitude.
Mom, God bless her soul, died over a decade ago from lung cancer. I look at people who smoke nowadays and just fi gure that they’re either retarded or suicidal. My sisters Jay Air and Lori are both purty enough to be models. My brother Steven is the archivist, and currently owns the biggest collection of my original art. Markie can draw pictures too, he can paint real good. He lived in a castle once.
Atta: Did you really meet Walt Disney as a boy?
When I was four, I visited Disneyland for perhaps the second time. The year was 1957 and the park was fresh, clean, and new. My uncle Al, one of the managers, introduced me to Walt and he took me to his little offi ce at the corner of Main St., the one that’s been rebuilt for prosperity and history’s sake. I just barely remember Walt sitting at his desk and asking me if I liked Donald Duck. I then rejoined my folks and we continued down Main St. It was so beautiful, so perfect, and I was so excited that I hurled my guts out all over the cobbled street. It’s one of my earliest, if not fi rst, childhood memories.
Atta: Your recent prints through Pressure Printing are in 3D and, uhm, infused with the scent of lime?!
These fi ne art prints come with custom made 3-D chromadepth glasses. They aren’t red and blue. They’re something new. They make cool colors recede and warm ones (especially red) pop out about an inch above the picture plane. If the art is executed correctly, an orange bagel will appear to fl oat on a sky-blue sky. Viewing the print or painting without the glasses does not give the viewer a distorted picture however, like with the old school red and blue shift technique.
The prints smell too.
I’m the first spud on the block to put scratch-and-sniff in fine art prints. I had
done a piece called Lime Scent and a fan from Oregon by the name of John Barley suggested that I try scratch-and-sniff. I collaborated with Brad Keech of Pressure Printing and I started to investigate the process. Much to my surprise, it was much easier to do than I had thought. It basically involved purchasing a special order of something called slurry. So now, when you scratch the smoke coming out of the house that’s in place of a human head on the print, it really smells like lime.
My next print will portray someone smoking a joint somewhere in a surreal scenario. Scratching it will make it smell like cannabis.*
This interview first appeared in Hi-Fructose Issue 7 back in 2007. It is sold out. Get our latest print issue by subscribing to Hi- Fructose here.
KRK Ryden’s latest solo show Wet Bread, is now on view at Brassworks Gallery in Portland, Oregon.
