{"id":61937,"date":"2022-08-23T14:04:17","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T13:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/?p=61937"},"modified":"2022-08-25T16:32:42","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T15:32:42","slug":"influx-meets-the-north-east-based-artist-obsessed-with-deep-black-lines-motorcycles-and-skeletons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/influx-meets-the-north-east-based-artist-obsessed-with-deep-black-lines-motorcycles-and-skeletons\/","title":{"rendered":"Influx meets the North East based artist obsessed with deep black lines, motorcycles and skeletons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan \u2018Roadkill\u2019 Quickfall is a new breed: the 21<\/span>st<\/span> century illustrator and pop artist. He has a black line style as thick, deep and dark as the River Tyne, which runs a stone\u2019s throw from his studio. At 38 he\u2019s over a decade into the life of a full-time, self-supported ink-slinger.\u00a0 Is it possible to resolve the dichotomy between art and commerce?<\/span><\/p>\n

Billeted in a fifth-floor of a 100-year-old Art Deco office block, on the dusty, rundown edges of Newcastle city centre, Quickfall flip-flops between painting his own gallery work, creating Roadkill-branded merchandise and prints to sell online, and working for clients ranging from small to huge. When monsters of rock Iron Maiden wanted a satirical animated short film to accompany their 2021 comeback song, Quickfall was chosen to create the Four Horseman and the rest of the post-apocalyptic carnival of human wreckage. Close to 30 million views later it is undoubtedly his most recognisable work (yes, you can watch it with the sound down\u2026).<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes Ryan wrestles with the balance of being both a commercial illustrator and wanting to develop his own art that stands on its own two feet, but not for long. And he can easily compartmentalise it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018For me there\u2019s a key difference, and that is the brief behind them,\u2019 says Ryan. \u2018With commercial illustration the brief comes from the client and I\u2019m a tool in the process. The client comes to me with a brief, I interpret it, put my twist on it, and produce the work and get paid for it. I execute my [personal] artwork in exactly the same way, but the brief is from me, I\u2019m creating it for myself, not anybody else. There\u2019s some murkiness when it comes to timescales. If I\u2019m short of time, because a client hasn\u2019t left enough, I\u2019ll create all the artwork digitally on a Wacom tablet, when normally I\u2019d prefer to ink it by hand, then work on it digitally, but nobody is going to tell the difference.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n