Larger than life
CT MURALIST CREATES ART AROUND THE WORLD FOR THE PUBLIC AND FOR DISNEY
North Haven artist Ryan Christenson, better known as an artist under his professional name of ARCY (a play on his initials RC), never planned to be a street artist, but he’s living life to the fullest doing exactly that. His public art installations including a newly unveiled mural in Danbury featuring Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
The medium of using a can of spray paint to create art became immediately appealing to him in his high school days. Once he picked up a can, hew said, there was no turning back. He got more and more public art commissions and today has large scale, permanent murals all over the world and has been on a whirlwind tour of
much of the United States since April, doing live painting events at state fairs and public events.
When we caught up to ARCY in late September, he had just arrived in Atlanta, Ga. where he is working on a mural for the North Georgia State Fair before he will head to Kansas, Missouri and then Iowa. He’s also been keeping busy creating artworks on canvas for Disney Fine Art.
“It’s great because it is allowing me to do stuff that is more available. In 99 percent of my work, you have to go there to see it but now with Disney Fine Art allowing me to create these pieces that are going to be distributed nationwide and internationally, the average consumer will be able to enjoy them in their own living room,” he said.
A Disney fan all his life, ARCY said it was a dream come true to be able to work for Disney and like many other career opportunities in his life, happened somewhat serendipitously.
“In my first national tour through the country here [doing live events] in 2015, I was passing through Missouri and decided to stop by the Walt Disney Hometown Museum in Marceline, where Walt grew up,” he said. “I stopped in the museum and kind of was able to plant some seeds there.”
He met the museum’s executive director and later, as his tour continued and his work became more well known, he put together a Disney portfolio and shared it with Disney Fine Art, which is a license holder through Disney.
“Fortunately enough, they accepted me as one of their official
artists and they have opened up so many doors for me, allowing me to do what I love through my splatter graffiti art and merging it with these iconic [Disney] characters now.,” he said.
Anyone familiar with his work knows that ARCY includes a hidden Mickey Mouse among the paint splats in each of his works and the casual viewer might assume it’s a nod to Disney.
He’s actually been doing it for years and it started out as a message to his young sons back at home when he was on tour working.
“I did that way before I was working with Disney, and it’s always been a staple to my brand so the average person assumes it’s because he’s a Disney artist,” he said. “It’s always been for my two little guys.”
Always interested in art and avidly drawing as a child, he found himself inspired by graffiti art in his high school years and embraced it. Soon enough, his early graffiti and experimentation with words morphed into photorealism and his large-scale public murals are now fine art. His edgy, paint-splashed canvases however stay true to his roots, taking the best aspects of both art worlds.
“In my high school years, I was very influenced by graffiti art,” he said. “I just fell in love with it and expressing myself that way. I didn’t think of doing it as a career; it was just one project led into another and it got to the point. The universe has a way of working in really mysterious ways.”
Graffiti now is quite mainstream and as part of the public art scene, ARCY said he was excited to see graffiti artists breaking down old stereotypes and using their art to beautify and bring communities together.
“You see a lot of graffiti artists sticking to the roots to what they are inspired by but now doing stuff on a large-scale basis for communities, and that is definitely where my story kind of moved in that direction as well,” he said.
From to a massive public mural of an elderly man in Volos, Greece to vibrant and whimsical images of iconic Disney characters like Goofy and Jiminy Cricket, ARCY’S style is instantly recognizable.
“It has definitely evolved. I started out playing with letters so I started to adjust and identify with how can I relate to everybody,” he said. “That’s where my photorealism started to evolve with me trying to focus more on defining my skills with imagery and being able to quickly identify with any age bracket through my photorealism. Over the years it has evolved from me just doing my graffiti straight up into what I’m doing today but you will notice that what I am doing today showcases the best of both worlds.”