Perhaps the highest form of art is found in the street art scene, a gallery in which everyone can enjoy art just for the sake of enjoying it. Does art always need a message or agenda behind it?  According to graffiti artist ARYZ, art can and should be created simply because it is fun, and fortunately for the street art world, ARYZ artwork can be found on the beautifully big factory walls he paints across the world. Always attracted to a challenging mural, ARYZ crafts some of the largest graffiti murals in the world in his unique style. The streets are his preferred studio, the walls his ideal canvas, and the elements his home. ARYZ thrives in this scene simply because he loves to be here.

Spain by Way of California

Born in Palo Alto, California but raised in Barcelona, Spain ARYZ quickly became enamored by the graffiti he would see on his way to school. Instantly he knew this was his ticket to a lifetime of passion and creativity. To learn about ARYZ mural art, his fans must dive back into his early school days in which he joined a group of creatives who pushed him into his now career.

“When I was at high school, I met some guys who were break dancing and listening to hip hop and I started to hanging around with them. One day they said, ‘Let’s go paint some wall.’”

ARYZ reflects on these early days and how his graffiti art was painfully sloppy and disorganized. The fledgling artist ARYZ would sneak back after his friends had left to try and make the mural art look better. The spark had been ignited.

Now as street-goers view artwork by ARYZ, no one would imagine this man once lacked the skill he now possesses. A notable steppingstone in ARYZ’s life was when a finger injury made it harder for him to use the spray cans consistently. However, the artist turned the difficulty into an advantage and started using brushes to craft his mural art. It was this pattern of continuous growth and overcoming of obstacles that led the artist to where he is today.

ARYZ Artwork     

Art for art’s sake can be frowned upon in a world that demands messages behind every action, but ARYZ's mural work doesn’t care to notice. ARYZ’s drive is the sheer euphoria created by the mural art process and by the challenge of painting his large-scale works. To him, graffiti art doesn’t need to be burdened by a message to impact the world, but rather should be free, creative, energetic, and left to viewer interpretation.

ARYZ's graffiti now mostly contains character studies, but in the artist’s beginning days, the mural art featured creatures, beasts, and patterns in different conceptual ways, shapes, forms, and colors. The artist ARYZ finds pleasure in creating personality, expression, and life through the characters he places on the walls for the world to see, a passion which has been even further translated into his illustration work.

An Artist Without a Box

The artist’s style is perhaps one of the most unique on the street art scene and thus the reason onlookers are compelled to view ARYZ's murals. Having evolved over the years due to development of interest and skill, ARYZ’s interests can be seen mostly in the content of his pieces. Consistency is present in the love of emotion, character building, and reflective storytelling.

ARYZ continues to bend his style, mixing the wild colors, blocky structures, and fluid movements of modern art with the traditional composure and detail of traditional pieces. ARYZ artwork originally featured a bright palette that really highlighted his more abstracted style but current ARYZ mural work has recently adhered to a more muted color palette.

“I feel it’s really aggressive when you paint in a public space, so I don’t really want to play with bright colors,”

said Aryz.

“It would be too much.”

The artist ARYZ combines other features of traditional illustration with this muted palette including heavy brushwork and a stylized, unfinished rendering which leaves the figures looking more sketched out. These innovations to his street art combined with his tendency to occupy big spaces has attracted many eyes to the artist who shows he is clearly unafraid of change and growth in his work.

Success of ARYZ Graffiti  

Only in his 30s, it is quite astounding to learn about ARYZ's creative work and how far it has come. From the young child who would walk the streets of Barcelona and admire street art to now a globally known street artist himself, ARYZ has rightfully earned the fame afforded him. 

A common theme in the success of the artist ARYZ is his refusal to adhere to one style or subject, in exchange for creative freedom and growth.

“I think, with time, you need to get rid of the technique and at the end go to the basic and go to the essence of the composition of the colors. I don’t know if I’m succeeding on that, but that’s my goal at the moment.”

ARYZ is always looking to improve and improve he does. His work has taken him to walls and gallery openings across the globe from L.A. to Paris to Madagascar. Austria, Spain, Norway, and Germany are some of the most notable locations to view an ARYZ mural. However, true to his personal message, the artist doesn’t engage in many mass media projects, creating his artwork solely for the pleasure of it and the income to keep doing it.

ARYZ Artwork Today

With an impressive list of humongous mural art pieces, ARYZ has more recently turned his focus to illustration and screen-printing. Recently, the artist completed a French tour, with gallery openings in Temple Saint-Eloi and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy. These gallery openings contained more traditional work such as his oil painting Nosotros contra Nosotros. The artist has been particularly focused on this new style of showing traditional boxers to express his discontentment with a society that Is ever quarreling.

Perhaps this is the first sign that ARYZ artwork has grown tired of not having a voice. ARYZ has been continuing this body of work with pieces such as PUGNA and Hacienda somos todos.

One of the artist’s more interesting tendencies is to post pictures of his character studies and unfinished reflections and thumbnails. They are a token of an artist who never stops studying and learning and creating in the field he loves most. The world can be sure to expect to view artwork by ARYZ in the future which further pushes the boundaries of what art can be.