Born in San Francisco in 1980, Ricky Watts moved to suburbia the following year and spent the majority of his childhood in a small, close-knit town in northern California. He picked up a love for typography at the young age of 4, when his mother would draw names in bubbly script fonts and he would color them in with markers, tracing over the letters.
In his early teens, Watts was introduced to graffiti art by some of his classmates. Soon after, he began sneaking out at night to paint his nom de plume on anything and everything in his path. This form of art quickly became a voice to the world and fueled his creative fires. Graffiti played an important role in Watts' learning, developing color concepts, composition, and a strong attention to detail.
After graduating high school, Watts spent two years working dead end jobs and sporadically attending the local junior college. In 2000, he enrolled at the Art Institute of California - San Diego campus to study graphic design. Unsatisfied with the classes being offered, he left the college after receiving his AA degree to work as a graphic artist at various print shops.
There, zine making became more than the hobby it had been and he produced numerous issues of HelmetHeds, an art and graffiti publication he started in high school. Later, in between jobs, he started to work more seriously at his art, developing his own style. His eclectic influences include H.R. Giger, M.C. Escher, Andreas Marshall, Wes Wilson, Jim Phillips and Salvador Dali; his father's finely detailed pen and ink work; as well as skateboard, tattoo and graffiti cultures.
In the past few years, he's begun to exhibit his art in invitational and one-man shows around the state and currently acts as currator for the art exhibits featured at Board Betty's, an upscale fashion store for girls and women in Sonoma County. He is among a select group of artists who have created pieces for a private collector in Washington state.
This year, Watts is taking a leap into the freelance world - leaving the days of salaried print shop jobs to devote more time to new art, graphics and his first book - a photo documentary, illustrating the history of a locally famous graffiti wall, "The Scrap Yard" in Petaluma. |
