Illustrator/Designer & Screen Print Fanatic

Heavily influenced by concept art for films/anime and computer games, being the main reason why Rhys chose to study illustration at Brighton University. This fuels the underlying principle to why he makes art - the opportunity to design the imaginary. Rhys’ interests are firmly embedded in the underground Rock scene. Naturally this led to him designing for the music industry, particularly for the UK Hardcore, Post-Rock and Stoner/Psychedelic scene.

In September, 2007 Rhys designed and screen-printed a poster for the San Francisco Summer of Love Festival at the Firehouse Kustom Rock Art Co, with good friends Chuck Sperry and Ron Donovan (read more on the Creative Review Blog). This led to him designing a poster for the his favourite band “Queens of the Stone Age” - (Big thanks to Firehouse & Alan Forbes for that).

Screen Printed Posters:

Rhys has become obsessed with screen-printing and creating Rock-Art since he undertook a two-day master-class with Chuck Sperry at BDI printers, Brighton in May 2006. This inspired the British Rock Artist Group – a Brighton collective of 10 artists purely specialized in creating screen-printed posters and igniting the burgeoning British scene. In June 2008 Rhys with BRAG invited Firehouse to return to Brighton and host an exhibition, this was to repay all the generous help and guidance they have given the group over the past two years.

Output Studio, Brighton: Resident artist April 2008 – Dec 2008

Rhys joined Output studio in April 2008 – a newly formed screen print workshop and artist’s stable rooted in the centre of Brighton, UK. With four artists taking residency, Ben Duarri (studio manager), Mark Hooly, Taz Stevenson and Rhys Wootton (production manager). Over the past few months the studio has been through some major developments with a new gallery space being built. BRAG displayed Output’s first exhibition that ran throughout May, being apart of Brighton’s open house festival. The studio has undergone a major transformation since it started in September 2007. It originally was a model plane company and before that someone used it to make “cock-rings” (which explains why they found loads of mysterious ring shaped casts left behind).

Northstar Studio, Brighton: Dec 2008 – Onwards

Rhys moved to Northstar studio in December and is enjoying working in their print studio that has been established for over 20 years.