| KRK Ryden |
The STATS:
Sex: male
Marriage status: single (never married)
Height: 6'1"/ weight: 214 (subject to change)
Shoe size: 10 - 10 1/2
Hair: black, long (previously white, multi-colored, mo-hawked)
Eyes: brown
Born: March 4, 1953 at: Seattle, Washington
Religion: The Holy Spud (a mixture of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, Hare Krishna, Subgeni, and the teachings of de-evolution.)
Mom and Pop: Keith Harold Ryden, Barbara Kathryn Ryden (deceased)
Favorite food: milk, salt, sesame snacks, halvah
Citizenship: Woodstock Nation
Lineage: Hungarian, Polish, Swedish, Finnish
Race(color): whitish, greenish, tan
Sexual preference: hetero
Health: fair to good
T-shirt size: xxl
Favorite color: coral blue
Fave music: experimental, electronic music/ techno-pop,40's big band swing, reggae, jazz, hardcore/oi, punk(old & new school)
Favorite bands, musicians: DEVO, Mark Mothersbaugh, Visiting Kids, Kay Kaiser and His College of Musical Knowledge, Raymond Scott, John Coltrane, George Russle, The Beatles, The Residents, The Slits, Slaughter and the Dogs, Der Plan, The Jackofficers, The Wipeouters
Political party: Yippie (Youth International Party)
Immediate relatives: (oldest of five children; Steven Ryden, Janine "Gigi, JR, J-9, Jay Air" Ryden, Mark David Ryden, and Lorine "Lori" Thomaselli)
Edjamakation: attended many grammar schools along the West coast due to frequent moves including Palmer School (a private school in Walnut Creek, California) grades 2 & 3.
High schools: Canyon High (Castro Valley, California), South Tahoe High (South Lake Tahoe, California) - Marsing Job Corps (major: carpentry) -
San Francisco Academy of Art (major:illustration, one semester only).
The name
In 1977 Keyth (the spelling from Keith to Keyth was changed in 1969, for reasons relating to numerology and to distinguish it from his father's first name) Ryden made a decision to focus on commercial art relating to the music industry.
Keyth Ryden Visual (KRV) was born and a few gigs were done under this logo while residing in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1980, KRV was changed to Keyth Ryden Kreations. Returning to California, KRK started a small studio in the small Southern Cal beach city of Encinitas. In the storefront was a large "KRK" in stenciled letters.
One of the local bands that KRK did art for was Manifest Destiny. The debut album of this political hardcore band was done at this studio. The band hung at the studio and became friends with the artist. The lead singer, Daryl Hall, refered to Keyth as KRK in a sort of ribbing way, and the name adhered. This name started to show up on work dating around 1982.
In 1983, KRK moved to Hollywood and did a stint as a radio dj. The show was called The Radio KRK Show, and featured prominently the music of Devo. During this time, the studio station's receptionist brought KRK a copy of Flipside, the famous hardcore music magazine. It had proclaimed that a photographer named Kirk had changed his name to KRK. It also featured some lettering art that resembled some of the script that was on the back of the Manifest Destiny album.
Since then, the name KRK has cropped up on rare occasion. At least one SF club dj has the letters in their handle. Will KRK someday become as common as "Joe"?
Intro to KRK Ryden-
KRK Ryden's art is a record of mongrel pop culture. His aesthetic is informed by comic books, punk rock, and cartoons, while his world view is strictly DEVO. KRK's work embraces everyday absurdity and a cartoony view of reality. His paintings are colorful and visually appealing reflections on discarded icons, and his graphics are well-realized snapshots of cartoon life. For over thirty years KRK has been creating illustrations and paintings for underground bands, publishers, and institutions.
The following excerpt is from Juxtapose magazine #29 Nov/Dec 2000 :
They may share a last name, but make no mistake: Keyth Ryden is not The Artist Formerly Known as Mark. As his alias suggests, he's an enigma unto himself, creating paintings that draw from past, present, and future all at once.
I'm standing in the lower level of a suburban house. There is art everywhere; even the front of the refrigerator and the toilet seats are fully painted in styles ranging from realistic to 1940's Brylcreme. Found ephemera of the 20th century are arranged in glass cases and tables with sunken compartments. Tiki statues dominate a world gleaned in equal parts from Betty Page, car ads, and educational films of the early 1960's. In a bedroom lies an old man, blinded in the LA riots. He used to make custom cars, really wild things like mock hotrods built on the body of a Gremlin or LTDs turned into pickups or flatbeds. It's his son's house. Steven Ryden is the archivist. He keeps everything straight for his artistic brothers Keyth and Mark. -(there is) a painting of the artist's second cousin Ashley when she was about seven years old, painted by KRK. She is wearing torn black leotards and is slinging a whip, her little-girl belly and legs held erect and strong as an ad for Dr. Denton's, her gesture caught perfectly in the arm's childlike windup. The painting is called Whip it Bad.
There seems to be people whose art is so good that you can learn to draw just by looking at it. Then you become an artist by looking at everything with your eyes open just as wide. There is an illustration that KRK did for Devo, a rather anthropomorphic potato with many eyes floating like an icon on a sea of black. Light is radiating from it, and its hand and two fingers are raised in beneficent, uncomplicated blessing. In calligraphic script is emblazoned the slogan "Eyes All Around". Though they take much of their imagery and style from comic books, KRK's works have none of the flatness of Lichtenstein. Beyond the far horizons looming like backdrops out of a Hollywood backlot, the picture plane itself is a riot of color. More little schmoos [surreal globs] float in these paintings, little alien observers, not part of the main narratives but utterly aware of them. They are stand-ins for us in KRK's floating world of multiple dreams and realities. They seek form, entertainment, meaning, titillation truth? No, but some hint of reality will do for us now. Sit back. Look at your dream again. Someone, something will be there to check on you later.
- Alexandria Volk for JUXTAPOSE Magazine
Life and Art
KRK was born in Seattle, Washington but didn't stay there long.
His early years were spent growing up in Southern California, in cities like Anaheim, the home of Disneyland. KRK's uncle Al (Alex Korgal), was employed by Disney in the late 50's and early 60's as a manager of the 'Main Street' area of Disneyland. Because of this, "Keithie" got a lot of free E tickets. When he was four he was introduced to old man Walt himself. Later that day, due to all the excitement, little Keithie hurled at the entrance of Disneyland, right on the cobblestone street.
Artistic Roots
Leap forward to Canyon High School, Castro Valley, 1968. In his sophomore year, an art class assignment would define his painting and drawing style, and consequently influence the artistic style of his brother, Mark Ryden.
An art teacher had each student reach in a hat and pick a slip of paper with the name of a particular art movement scrawled on it. The student was to write a paper on the movement of art randomly chosen.
When KRK (then Keith) picked Surrealism he was peeved because he wanted to write about the Italian Renaissance. Another reason for the upset was because he had no clue to what Surrealism meant. The word had looked utterly foreign.
After checking out a few school library books and seeing for the first time the art of Dali, the artist's art and life was changed permanently. This art triggered a sort of rebellion; it created a disdain for the norm. There was no turning back to the imagery of landscapes, still-life, and puppies. It fit right in with the times; the Summer of Love. It was 1968 and psychedelic art was at full swing and going on just a spit away in San Francisco.
Splitting From School
The last two years of high school was spent almost entirely in the art class of South Lake Tahoe High. It was taught by a Czechoslovakian
by the name of Zdenk Dvorak. Good fortune came to KRK here because this teacher should have been in art college but preferred teaching at high school level.
It was Dvorak who taught Ryden how to print; stone lithography, photo offset printing, lino-cut, and silk-screening. Mr. Dvorak also taught him how comic book inking was done, and this early introduction on how to handle a brush influenced a style and direction that evolved through the years. Directly out of school, KRK worked on a local Tahoe free magazine called Fibre. In this first issue of Fibre, (previously called The Pink Dinosaur), he was given credit as art director, under the name of Keyth Ryden.
Mad City
Skipping ahead to the year 1975, KRK found himself in Madison, Wisconsin. Madison was meant to be just a rest stop on the way to New York. KRK left San Francisco that year to join the Yippies in Kansas City, Kansas. The Yippies (Youth International Party) were gathered in Kansas to whoop it up at the Democratic convention being held there.
It was there that famed radical David Peel saw his art and invited him to come along and stay at the Yippy headquarters on Bleeker Street in New York.
After stopping at Madison KRK was taken in on how cool this "Berkley of the Midwest" was. So instead of jumping back on the Yippy bus and continuing on to the Big Apple, he stayed there for four years, cut his hair from hippy waist-length to a punk buzz cut, got a leather jacket and created some radical art for local leftist papers, (Free-For-All, No Limits).
In 1979, KRK, (using the company name Keyth Ryden Kreations), started involving himself more with the music industry, doing stuff for punk bands like So What, and ad art for the local club Merlyn's . He also created the logo for Merlyn's.
The cold of the Midwest started getting to him, (cabin fever and thirty degree below weather), and with the help of his brother Steven, hightailed it back to sunny California.
New Wave Era - The 80's
Upon arriving in Escondido, KRK discovered that his youngest brother Mark had become an artist. This was a shock. When KRK left just a few years earlier, no clue was given that Mark Ryden had any interest in art. All around the house were large oil paintings on canvas, including a huge vertical seven footer of King Tut, (it was the year he was touring).
All the art had the surreal influence gleamed from the art KRK had left behind earlier. Mark soon won a scholarship for the prestigious Pasadena Art Center. The rest of Mark's story is history, (click on to Mark's Ryden's website for more dope!).
Devo Days
In 1981, KRK had established a small studio in Encinitas, in Southern Cal. A phone call had come to KRK as he was watching TV at his folk's home in Escondido. It was Mark Mothersbaugh who was celebrating the success of Whip It and the New Traditionalists tour. Devo was literally popping a cork of champagne in celebration. This was going on during the first conversation of KRK Ryden and Mark Mothersbaugh. Mark had asked him to come to Hollywood and meet him at Larraine Newman's (Saturday Night Live, The Coneheads), house to work on a project he had in mind called The Brainwasher. Larraine was a girlfriend of Mark's at the time.
Currently, some art from this one and only issue is used electrically on Devo's website at Club Devo, (refer to the links). This initial project would lead to other art gigs with Devo and a twenty year friendship between KRK Ryden and Mark Mothersbaugh.
And Then
KRK left Encinitas to start a small studio off of Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Here he met various bands and artists, (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rick Wilder of The Mau Maus) and helped Celebrity Skin with some early promo art.
Around 1990 KRK did a radio dj stint on cable radio (Kaleidoscope Radio). The name of the show was The Radio KRK Show. Lots of Devo and techno pop was played. It was a lot of fun and taught KRK how to spin disks. Around this time the logo for Mystic Records was created. Doug Moody paid $80 for the logo, (a skull on a yin-yang symbol), which is still used to this day.
During the late 80's an involvement in what is referred to as the lowbrow movement saw a lot of KRK's art in group shows up and down the west coast. And finally, in 1997, KRK took one semester of art at the San Francisco Academy of Art, learning mostly sculpting. His major was Motion Picture Art but changed it to Illustration.
After a couple of years working at the Vorpal Gallery, KRK got a job working at Last Gasp of San Francisco. Thirty years earlier, Keyth Ryden, (then a teen-ager), had met Ron at his new company Last Gasp Eco-Funnies. Babba Ron commissioned him to design a stationary head utilizing images of some underground comic caricatures circulating at the time.
The cost of living in San Francisco went sky-high like the gold-rush days, so KRK moved to Oakland, where he lives in a house with a lovely garden.
Work by KRK Ryden debuts in Santa Fe, NM exclusively at POP Gallery as featured in a four man show, POP Visual Subversion: Four Fathers of POP Surreal, opening October 11, 2008.
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