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Feature<br />
Fans of flat track or cool biker<br />
brands or publications like Sideburn<br />
will instantly recognise the<br />
distinctive art and illustrations of Ryan<br />
Quickfall AKA ‘Ryan <strong>Road</strong>kill’. The 35<br />
year old from Newcastle upon Tyne in<br />
the UK has carved a niche for appealing<br />
and quirky Pop Art that has attracted<br />
growing interest inside the motorcycle<br />
industry. His work can be found on the<br />
side of flat track fuel tanks, wall prints,<br />
event posters, helmets, garments for<br />
people like Roland Sands and Deus Ex<br />
Machina and even brick walls in London’s<br />
trendy Shoreditch district.<br />
Operating out of his studio in England’s<br />
northeast Quickfall services clients and<br />
interest on a worldwide scale. His website<br />
www.ryanroadkill.com contains a<br />
decent spread of his output (as well as<br />
What’s a typical day’s workload? And is<br />
it always about bikes?<br />
It’s split between commercial and personal<br />
artwork. With the commercial side<br />
the client will come to me with the project<br />
and their wishes drive the look and<br />
aesthetic of the piece. The personal side<br />
is still driven by motorcycles, the culture<br />
and everything built around that but I’m<br />
much freer with what I do. For example<br />
it might be less about the motorcycle<br />
and more about the characters. I think<br />
I will continue to work with brands on a<br />
commercial level but then also split it<br />
down the middle with my artwork. They<br />
both inform each other. But you can get<br />
bogged down with client work every day<br />
so it’s good to have a bit of freedom because<br />
it can inspire and motivate you for<br />
the other stuff.<br />
“You need to be a businessman and also be businessminded<br />
as well as be creative, and normally I don’t think<br />
those two necessarily go hand-in-hand. You also have to<br />
find time to have new ideas, keep moving forward...”<br />
almost 17k followers on Instagram) and<br />
how and why he has become so popular:<br />
the art veers between gothicky cartoon<br />
extreme to desirable race-based sketches<br />
and illustrations.<br />
Wanting to know more about how bikes<br />
steer and energise his work and mind,<br />
we decided to deprive Ryan of his pencils<br />
and tablet for a good thirty minutes…<br />
Why a motorcycle?<br />
I don’t necessarily know how I landed in<br />
the motorcycle scene but motorcycles<br />
have been part of my life since I was a<br />
kid. I got my bike licence as soon as I<br />
could and I’ve been riding a long time<br />
now. I think anyone who is a motorcyclist<br />
will understand that it tends to inform<br />
so much else of what you do and your<br />
life around you. For me it informed my<br />
creativity. I think my first ‘in’ to the scene<br />
was working with Gary Inman from Sideburn<br />
magazine. He reached out to me<br />
around six years ago when he was asked<br />
to put together a book about artists in
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