studio in the Ballard neighborhood. In contrast to many other artists on Seattle's "street artist" scene, Ward always executes his public pieces with the permission of the property owner. Ryan Henry Ward's vision of creating primitive images with a dream-like, surreal quality has come to fruition. He wants the natural rawness of the painting process to show through his balanced, bright, and whimsical work. Ward's work has not received a generally favorable reception from Seattle's art critics. Jonathan Walczak characterizes Ward's work as "whimsical", but sums up the critic's verdict on Ward's work as "gooey, meaningless, and annoyingly prevalent." Former Seattle Post-Intelligencer critic Regina Hackett disparaged his "brain-dead cheer". Kevin McKouen, a former gallery owner who represented Ward's work for about a year before his gallery closed, describes it as "lighthearted… but it definitely also has a dark side." References External links Official website Artists from Montana Living people Painters from Washington (state) American muralists Year of birth missing (living people) People from Enumclaw, Washington People from Bellingham, Washington