Mark Ryden: Dodecahedron
-
-
Paul Kasmin Gallery is pleased to announce Dodecahedron, Mark Ryden’s second exhibition at the gallery, on view at 293 10th Avenue from December 10, 2015 - January 23, 2016. Dodecahedron features the Los Angeles-based artist’s first-ever bronze sculpture, along with eight new paintings, drawings, color studies and a new porcelain edition.
The vocabulary of images in Ryden’s new body of work remains consistent with his pervasive distortion of scale and his iconic fairytale-like creatures set against seductive landscapes of untouched beauty. However, the subject of his latest series is informed by the geometric structure “dodecahedron,” a solid figure bearing twelve sides whose perfect symmetry has been the source of extensive query by mathematicians and scientists since antiquity. Drawing upon the form’s mystery and divine connotations as a source of inspiration, Ryden explores the bridge between the physical world and the intangible realm.
-
For the exhibition, Ryden created his first sculpture cast from bronze. Measuring one meter in height, the work consists of twelve pentagonal panels that join together to form a dodecahedron. Each panel is individually cast and features images and motifs that have been prevalent throughout the artist’s oeuvre such as; the tree, the eye, the fetus, the bee, the ammonite, and Abraham Lincoln.
Ryden’s labor-intensive canvases skillfully rework centuries of art history, combining the grandeur of Spanish and Italian religious painting with the decorative richness of Old Master compositions and the lush textures of French Neo-Classicism. Expanding on these concepts, the artist’s paintings focus on “the soul confronting its physical form” as represented by his reoccurring feminine child figure, he calls “anima” or “soul” figure. These anima figures appear under different guises, such as in Anatomia, 2015 and Aurora, 2015. For the artist, they represent the part of us that wonders at the elegant mathematics that exists underneath everything and the sacred geometry that constructs our physical world.
-
Works
-
About the Artist
Portrait by Christopher French. -
Join our Newsletter
* denotes required fields
We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy (available on request). You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.
-
Explore
-
Alexis Ralaivao: Éloge de l’ombre (In Praise of Shadows)
May 15 – July 25, 2025 509 West 27th Street, New YorkFor Éloge de l’ombre (In Praise of Shadows), Ralaivao unveils a suite of new paintings rendered entirely in black and white. Working within the self-imposed parameters of a reduced palette,... -
Theodora Allen: Oak
May 7 – July 25, 2025 297 Tenth Avenue, New YorkAllen’s atmospheric oil paintings on linen depict natural phenomena and symbols chosen for their enduring presence in human history and culture, often drawing from mythology and medieval imagery. From hearts... -
Alma Allen on Park Avenue
May 2 – September 30, 2025In Alma Allen's largest outdoor installation to date, ten unique bronze and onyx sculptures including examples reaching over 10 feet tall and realized especially for the exhibition, are on view...
-
-
Explore
- Diana Al-Hadid
- Alma Allen
- Theodora Allen
- Sara Anstis
- Ali Banisadr
- Tina Barney
- Judith Bernstein
- JB Blunk
- Mattia Bonetti
- William N. Copley
- Cynthia Daignault
- Ian Davenport
- Max Ernst
- Liam Everett
- Leonor Fini
- Barry Flanagan
- Walton Ford
- Jane Freilicher
- vanessa german
- Daniel Gordon
- Alexander Harrison
- Elliott Hundley
- Robert Indiana
- Lee Krasner
- Les Lalanne
- Matvey Levenstein
- Lyn Liu
- Robert Motherwell
- Jamie Nares
- Nengi Omuku
- Robert Polidori
- Jackson Pollock
- Elliott Puckette
- Alexis Ralaivao
- George Rickey
- James Rosenquist
- Mark Ryden
- Jan-Ole Schiemann
- Joel Shapiro
- Bosco Sodi
- Dorothea Tanning
- Naama Tsabar
- Bernar Venet