Los Angeles-based artist Mark Ryden expands his singular melding of high and low art, cerebral meditation and pop-culture camp with "The Gay 90s: West" . "The Gay '90s" is a term invented in the Roaring '20s that refers to the utopian image of American life during the supposedly simpler 1890s—an era untouched by world wars, economic crisis, and urban chaos. Without a trace of irony, Ryden has never shied away from exploring notions of nostalgia and kitsch, and his work always hints at something much deeper beneath the surface. His art is like a fairy tale—cute and comforting one second, provocative and mystical the next.