For every aspect of Mark Ryden's art, there is this split potential: on one hand the very simple explanation of his manic collector's personality in which one or once could never be enough, and on the other a wealth of readings that one can take from or attach to his archetypal symbology. We might speculate ad nauseam on what the surface sexuality he allows his depictions of children to bare might tell about humanity, society and the artist, but would prefer to think of this as a kid's book. So too is this artist's contemplation of the ideals and artifacts our recent past, his true love and fanatical devotion to the halcyon days of popular Americana, open to all sorts of insights through cultural criticism. And then, while we're at it, there are so many other ways in which the wealth of religious and art-historical references could be analyzed. But as much as one can sense how this is a painter who has taken some inspiration from the psycho-analytical legacy of Freud and Jung, he is certainly not parlaying in such currency himself. Mark Ryden has an uncanny access to the stuff that dreams are made of, and a rare capacity for sharing and baring the full glory of his explorations into this fantastical realm with us. His working process seems something of a waking dream state, a meditation on nothingness in which he can freely download all the surfeit of a life-time's media overload. He does not try to explain his pictures, and I'm not sure that he even could. What Ryden shares is his passion for the mysterious and mystical sides of reality. When we questioned him about this visionary aspect of his art, he told us that he is in fact a pretty logical person, one who if not an artist might easily have chosen to become a mathematician. By such an account, we come to understand just how it is that the illogical fascinates him so. In it he may seek the discrete synchronicities and other-worldly perspectives that invisibly bind our chaotic world, and we can take pleasure in how this rational mind has turned its attention to the archetypal language of imagination itself.