Ryan Crotty

Ryan Crotty was born in Los Angeles, California during the eighties. Coming from a diverse ethnic background of Spanish, German, Irish and French played well in the cosmopolitan area of Los Angeles and represent much of his art influences today.During high school, his first influences were film and cinematography. Moving to Newport Beach, he spent time filming the local beach, skate and surfing scene. His emphasis did not revolve on the sport itself but the characters and essence of those who were involved. He quickly looked at filming as a study of youth and their sports and the movement against the establishment.After high school, his focus turned to the documentary style of filming and his first thoughts were to capture the migration of Hispanics to Southern California, by capturing the journey from Mexico to the US. Unfortunately, funding was more available to movies than documentaries and he abandoned his premise. For such reason, he decided to pursue documentaries in Europe, but once again funding was the issue. While living in Prague, he began to see graphics as a way to express his ideas.With no formalized training but strong computer skills, he began teaching himself graphic arts and design with high end, technical fine arts programs. As he began to hone in on his graphic arts skills, he searched for a style that took into account his ethnic diversity, life training, travels and the profound life choices he made.As he progressed as an artist he looked outside graphic arts for other mediums of expression that paralleled his style but would enhance his artistic influences, such as digital silk-screening, paint, acrylics, screen print, decoupage, transparent sheeting, digital photographic prints and poster collage styles.Today, much of his work emphasizes a retrospective look at a world that has passed us by. Some irreverent, some touched by sarcasm, some with a dose of humor or some with sadness that we have lost a certain innocence that will never be regained.