Fascination Street, Mike Ryczek’s first solo exhibition, is the product of three years of intensive study, imagining and revision. Working from photographs taken on his trip to Seoul, South Korea in 2016, Ryczek collaged together imagery and incorporated research into Korean culture to create paintings that capture the sights and sensations from his first trip outside of the country. The descriptions below provide more insight into the experiences and research that inspired each painting. Read more about Ryczek and Fascination Street here.
Soft Power, oil on panel, 13" x 25" framed, $1,250
Soft Power was the first completed piece in Fascination Street and served as a way for Ryczek to test out his ideas before committing to an entire series about his experience in Seoul, South Korea. The painting juxtaposes two scenes Ryczek found in the city: graffiti on a street corner and the omnipresent cute characters seen on commercial goods, subway signs and hospitals. The friendly cartoon faces are meant to encourage cooperation, acting as a form of "soft power," or social control attained through attraction as opposed to force. Together the images contrast urban neglect with the enticing veneer of consumerism.
Decline and Fall, oil on panel, 31 1/2” x 31 1/2” framed, sold
Decline and Fall was inspired by a unintentional snapshot of an employee on a smoke break outside the entrance to the Majang Meat Market. In his research for Fascination Street, Ryczek learned about the workaholic culture in South Korea that has lead to an increase in stress-related deaths. He began to think of the figure in Decline and Fall as another victim of toxic work culture trying to steal a moment of relief. The man is dwarfed by his chaotic surroundings, which serve as an outward manifestation of inner turmoil.
Display, oil on panel, 19” x 25” framed, $1,800
Like several other paintings in Fascination Street, Display began with a quickly snapped photograph. Revisiting the image after returning from Seoul, Ryczek found the intoxicating abundance of the stalls in Mangwon Market to be a particularly rich source of inspiration. The piles of meat on display were both beautiful and repulsive, and the stall's location next to a cosmetics shop invited some intriguing comparisons. Ryczek often divides his compositions into distinct emotionally charged "compartments" to create different moods within his paintings. His challenge with Display was to contain the overwhelming detail in the scene to a series of these compartments while maintaining the original memory's movement and energy.
Nursery, oil on panel, 25” x 19” framed, $1,800
Nursery captures the frenetic energy and communal atmosphere of a restaurant in Seoul. The rushing servers, suffocating heat, steam from grilling one’s own food and array of side dishes and condiments (banchan) create a dynamic environment for the shared meal not experienced in many traditional American eateries. Ryczek was particularly struck by the sensation of eating while sitting cross-legged on the floor. Much of Ryczek's painting process involves connecting with his inner child, and his ground level perspective during the meal proved instrumental for that purpose.
Passage, oil on panel, 25” x 19” framed, sold
Passage conflates two of Ryczek's memories from his trip. The majority of the composition derives from a photograph he snapped while trying to get through a crowd of people. However in Ryczek's recreation, the bustling street is flooded with dark water. On a different trip through the city, Ryczek encountered a flooded walkway running along the Han River. Adults casually splashed through the water chatting and children stopped to play in it. Together these memories tell a story of beauty found in the commotion of a city, and of environments that disrupt that commotion and allow strangers to connect.
Gazing Girls, oil on panel, 25” x 19” framed, $1,800
Gazing Girls and its companion Passage were originally planned as a combined collage showing day fading into night, but Ryczek eventually expanded the composition into two paintings to fully capture each scene. While working on both paintings, Ryczek reflected on the question of what makes Seoul so visually distinct from other major world cities. He sought to convey the singular visual effect created by dense rows of vertical signage and neon storefronts packed into narrow alleyways. Documenting the fluorescent optical assault of Seoul's night time cityscape was essential to communicating Ryczek's brief experience there. The awe-struck stances of the titular figures perfectly express what Ryczek felt and what he wants the viewer to feel when encountering such a scene.
Apex, oil on panel, 31 3/4” x 37 3/4” framed, $3,200
Apex is centered around a statue of King Sejong the Great who ruled Korea during the Joseon Dynasty from 1419 to 1450. He is seen by most Koreans as being responsible for some of the greatest cultural achievements in Korean history, namely inventing the Korean language Hangul. The historical significance of the statue, located in a prominent place in Seoul, is heightened by Ryczek's choice to surround the figure with cityscape imagery observed during his trip to the Namsan Observation Tower (the second highest point in Seoul) and the visually weighty symmetry of the painting. The obscured face of the statue acts as a window into time, connecting past and present, and serves to question idealized fantasies of historical figures after their deaths.
Lost and Found, oil on panel, 19” x 25” framed, sold
Lost and Found started as a quiet scene taken from a tour of Gyeongbokgung Palace, a major tourist site in Seoul, and ended as a slightly surreal collage of real and imagined traditional Korean architecture. The group of figures wearing traditional Korean hanbok dresses are the only element taken from the original photograph. The surrounding composition combines royal architecture with traditional urban façades inspired by the reconstructed Bukchon Hanok Village. Ryczek added anachronistic elements like paper lanterns, stylized clouds and geometric symbols to create a sense of the past merging with the present. The title hints at a tense relationship with Japan due to two periods of Japanese occupation in South Korea. The palace, destroyed and rebuilt many times during the occupations, symbolizes resilience and restored pride for Korean people. The centralized red dot and wilted cherry blossoms hint at the stain left by these events.
Han, oil on panel, 19” x 25” framed, $1,800
Through his research for Fascination Street, Ryczek learned about han, a broad concept prevalent in contemporary Korean culture which encapsulates feelings of rage, resentment, grief and hopelessness. The central figure evokes the feeling of han with her unsettling gaze and empty bouquet. She is immersed in black water, a reference to the Han River, one of the major rivers in South Korea. Her expression is mirrored by a cartoonish cloud, a recurring image in Fascination Street, with a similar vacant stare. Contrasting the somber portrait of the woman are the images of lotus flowers, a symbol of rebirth, and a cheerful cloud; these elements offer hope for persistence through suffering.
Perilla, oil on panel, 19” x 25” framed, $1,800
The dust masks commonly worn in South Korea due to the poor air quality serve as a central symbolic element of Perilla. Wearing the masks eventually developed into a fashion statement, with many stylish options available. For Ryczek these masks represent a unique convergence of self-preservation, anonymity and self-expression. The purple perilla leaves (a common ingredient in Korean cooking) surrounding the defiant female figures act as a protective shroud and camouflage, while the grungy atmosphere of the painting creates an atmosphere of menace and hopelessness. As the painting evolved Ryczek delved into researching the fragile status of women in South Korea, and incorporated elements representative of the issues that Korean women are fighting against such as domestic violence and spy camera pornography. In 2016, the year of Ryczek's trip, South Korea also experienced the contentious impeachment of their first female president, Park Geun-hye.
Minjok, oil on panel, 31 1/2” x 31 1/2” framed, $2,700
In Minjok Ryczek employs the iconic image of a lotus flower, often a symbol of enlightenment and rebirth, in his exploration of the controversial concept of Korean identity known as minjok. The concept arose amongst Korean intellectuals during the Japanese occupation between 1910 and 1945 as a way for Koreans to distinguish themselves from their enemies and promote national unity. As modern South Korea becomes more multicultural, minjok still remains a powerful identifier. Polls have shown that Korea is more likely than most other countries to view itself as "one people" who share the same bloodline. Ryczek's composition represents the tension between a unified Korean identity and an increasingly diverse society by centering a lotus grouping that is isolated, but also merging with its surroundings.
Lesson, oil and pencil on paper, 14” x 14” framed, sold
While inside the National Museum of Korea, Ryczek observed a teacher with a small group of students gesturing toward the 38th parallel (the latitude marking the separation between North and South Korea) on a wall map. He initially planned to include the map in Lesson, but found that the political implications of the subject distracted from the quiet nature of the interaction he witnessed between teacher and student.
Level, oil on panel, 19” x 25” framed, $1,800
Level is an ode to Ryczek's own childhood nostalgia and the cuteness culture prevalent in Korea. The painting began with a photograph of the skyline taken from Ryczek's hotel room. The Jumbotron that dominated his view seemed to encapsulate the sleek, beautiful and technologically advanced image that modern Seoul tries to present to the world. The sight reminded him of skylines from Nintendo games (primarily by Japanese designers) he played as a child; Ryczek reflected on how much his preconceptions of East Asian cities were shaped by those early moments of indirect exposure. Ryczek added elements characteristic of side-scrolling games like jewels, power-ups, life meters and other 8-bit video game staples to the scene. The cloud on the Jumbotron takes its haunted expression from a toy Ryczek spotted in Kyobo Bookstore, reflecting the unique blend of dark humor and anxiety he found in many similar tokens he encountered in Seoul.
BTS, oil and pencil on mylar, 14” x 14” framed, $750
BLACKPINK, oil and pencil on mylar, 14” x 14” framed, $750
K-pop is currently the most recognizable pop culture export from South Korea. Ryczek watched a lot of K-pop videos while preparing himself for his trip, and continued enjoying them while working on Fascination Street. These portraits serve as monuments to the two most prevalent gender specific identities portrayed in the K-pop industry. BTS represents the fashion-conscious androgynous male, while BLACKPINK captures the aggressive and arrogant femme-fatale. Oil portraiture, a medium traditionally used to facilitate insight into a subject's emotional reality, was an intriguing means through which to convey the dazzling and over-stimulating style of K-pop that seems to reject deeper examination. While indulging in the shallow excess and endless visual variety of K-pop videos, Ryczek discovered a startling sensuality in the subjects he was painting.