Mark Ryden was drawing meat dresses long before Lady Gaga wore one.

Artist Mary Ryden’s unsettling images have long fascinated me. There’s no easy way to describe his work, except to say that it blurs the boundaries between cartoons and traditional techniques—his work even inspired a new genre, dubbed “Pop Surrealism”, when it first became popular in the 1990s. Iconography has always been a big influence for me, especially when decorating—Ryden’s paintings and drawings are also infused with religious iconography, from angelic girls bearing meat chops to a floating Jesus. His work is childlike and macabre at the same time, with doll-like girls crying tears of blood or playing with dismembered bunnies, while he is also clearly obsessed with anatomical drawings and, interestingly, Abraham Lincoln. And he was drawing meat dresses long before Lady Gaga wore one.