Artist Feature: Ryan Gardell

COURTESY OF JOE JACOBS COURTESY OF JOE JACOBS

ARTIST FEATURE: RYAN GARDELL JASON SAVIO

Ryan Gardell has big ideas for his artwork and the Worcester arts scene. His creations are, after all, enormous.

Gardell is a street artist who specializes in public murals, larger than life displays of creativity by way of spray paint. You may have seen the smoking panda on Green Street— that’s one of his many murals scattered around town. Gardell’s calling card is an 80 foot by 30 foot psychedelic design he collaborated on for POW! WOW! Worcester in 2017, an arts festival that is part of a worldwide arts initiative network. “It was pretty epic. The scale was bigger than anything we had ever painted before,” Gardell said about the mural located on Coney Island, which he and fellow artist Kai Griffiths teamed together on. Gardell says that he and Griffiths worked on the mural for at least 10 hours a day for nine straight days. “We had something to prove and we went above and beyond,” he said. “I hope it is something that is going to last a really long time because it kind of captures a moment in time for us.” Gardell is an artist who is making the most of his time by keeping busy with his own creative agency, the Worcester-based Artifakt Studios. He started Artifakt Studios in 2017 to house all the various projects he was working on, including 3D-cutout fabricated signs and commercial art for local businesses. Gardell describes himself as an artist for hire who can make custom pieces of art. Born in Worcester, Gardell grew up in Grafton, where he was influenced by music, skateboarding, and art at an early age. He originally wanted to be a graphic designer for a skateboard company, drawing company logos. His interest in illustration would turn to a love for graffiti art.

“Skate parks are always notorious for graffiti, I think the cultures kind of blend, so there was always the interest and the desire to dive into it,” he said. Gardell said he and his friends would “go out bombing and painting graffiti in the city just for the hell of it,” but it was when he enrolled in an open media art course while studying graphic design at Fitchburg State College that he began to take street art seriously. “When I started using spray paint not just to tag the skate parks or whatever, but to actually use it to create a painting, I just loved it,” he said. “I couldn’t put it down and haven’t since.” Gardell cut his teeth in Fitchburg, hosting his first art exhibit in 2011 and immersing himself in the art community before relocating to Worcester in 2014. Once in Worcester, he started attending music festivals where he took part in live canvas painting in front of an audience. “I found that I enjoyed the live element because there’s an energy to it that’s different when you’re out in the world versus being isolated because people are observing your work and the energy of the show is influencing and inspiring the work you’re creating,” he said. “It’s changing the way you’re painting. It’s kind of like an adrenaline rush. You’re trying to entertain your audience by whipping up a quick painting.”

The only problem was that Gardell realized that not everyone at the concerts could see what he was painting because many of those in attendance in the large crowds were too

far away. The solution? Go bigger. “That grew into us painting murals,” he said, citing the need for that “wow factor.” Spray paint became his go-to for murals because the spray paint dries faster and is easier to maintain, all boxes checked off in his interest to be able to finish his work in front of an audience before they go home.

After the festival scene, Gardell got the itch to branch his talent out to the street. His first public mural in Worcester was the boombox on the Clark University radio building, he said. Gardell said that he did a series of murals in 2016 and was chosen from a call for artists.

He has also done street art in Spain, where he said there are “legal walls” that you can paint on without getting in trouble, as opposed to here in Worcester, where you need to apply for a permit to paint an outdoor mural that is exposed to the public. Gardell’s personal goal is to see a legal graffiti wall in the city of Worcester where people can practice and learn how to paint. He believes there needs to be a format available for those interested in getting involved.

“If I was a young kid growing up in the city and saw all of these cool murals, I’d probably want to paint one too,” he said. “Most mural artists who are older and successful, they started through painting graffiti and most of modern-day street art and muralism is post-graffiti, it’s a movement that is born out of the roots of graffiti art. There’s a disconnect between those worlds because there needs to be a transition point and more of an open format for people to practice and come together.”

In October, Gardell took part in Bridge Fest, an event organized by the Save The Bridge Campaign to paint the old mill building located at 300 Southbridge Street. The campaign was put together to create a “community-controlled arts and trade academy/ community center against the rising tide of gentrification in Worcester,” according to the group’s Facebook page. Gardell and other local artists were tasked with painting the walls of the building in what was advertised as a “private paint jam” due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Gardell hopes that the work done at Bridge Fest will inspire future generations and be a step toward getting a legal wall for Worcester in the future. “The idea is to empower people, to inspire people and say ‘look what you can do on your own,’” Gardell said. “By the culture for the culture. Sometimes you just need to create art for art’s sake.”