Ryan Gerdes – Acceptance

These are a few shots of a recent show, called Acceptance, featuring the work of graphic design student and up and coming street artist, Ryan Gerdes.  The show took place in the studio gallery at Linfield College and featured all of Ryan's morbidly themed stencil art.  His stencils are shocking and straightforward in their simplicity, slightly political in nature, and reminiscent of the works of Banksy.Ryan had originally called the show Step Back but decided to change it after he put all the pieces together in the gallery.

I thought it was interesting that one would walk into this small room absolutely surrounded by images of death.  Images of death in many different forms.  There was a playfulness for example with the accordion player.  There was a political/social undertone with the Die for Me and the Dr. Mori.  And there was this recurring theme of flight—almost like death isn't something that you should be afraid of—it frees you.  So I changed the name to Acceptance, the sooner one can accept death as a part of life, the sooner one can more fully live without fear of the ticking clock.

Well said.All of his works are for sale and range from a very reasonable $40-$100.  I already bought a piece titled, Dr. Mori and cannot wait to have it on my wall.  You can contact Ryan at rgerdes@linfield.edu for more info and also check out all of his pieces for sale at his Flickr site.I'm very excited to see Ryan continue to create anatomical street art and to see where he takes it.  I expect big things to come from him!