If you've walked around our hometown of Portland, Oregon, at any time in the last 17 years, you've probably seen the work of RX Skulls. Known best for his signature, wide-eyed, grinning skull motif, the anonymous artist has haunted Portland's streets and lived on its walls since long before the city went mainstream. In fact, according to RX, when he first began screen-printing stickers, stencils, and cardstock installations, Portland's scene consisted of about six people. Since then, he's propagated his squiggly-lined style from Seattle to Phuket and become one of the most recognizable (skinless) faces in the Northwest's ever-growing street art scene.
For the first 10 years of the project, RX began his creative process with the eponymous and ever-recognizable skull—in particular, a photo he took in 2007 of a skull housed in the Natural History Museum in London. From there, he'd create an illustration and transpose it onto a linoleum block with a finicky and time-consuming graphite transfer. The lines would then be carved out, and a stamp would be created, transferred onto paper, scanned, and screen-printed. This way, the final product would retain, in RX's words, an "organic wobble."
While the specifics have been loosened and the process streamlined in the intervening years, RX has never stopped carving each design into linoleum. If a design needs to be smoothed, the entire block is hand-traced and touched up digitally. Beyond refining this creative process, he has also used laser cutting, resin molding, UV printing, and even leatherwork to realize his designs.
We reached out to RxSkulls to help us launch our Neon X collection not only because he's local, talented, prolific, and punk as hell—but because of his use of color. Neon X, at its core, is about standing out for safety in a way that's new, subversive, and practical. What better artist to partner with than one who creates some of our city's most vibrant and recognizable artwork?
