Snapchat founder, Evan Spiegel approached artist, Ryan Wilson, who goes by his street name, “ThankYouX” after he received a Snapchat of the artist’s work.
A friend of Spiegel’s was in a meeting with Paramount Executive, Amy Powell, when he snapped and sent a photo of a Steve Jobs portrait by Wilson. Soon after, the two met and Wilson went on to create 12 custom pieces for Snapchat’s original beach house offices.
Wilson is now known for his “selfie portraits,” colorful portraitures of celebrities shown through a cellphone screen as if they were taking a selfie. The lucky bunch posted on the new Venice office’s wall includes Andy Warhol, Nelson Mandela, Daft Punk, Tina Fey, and many more.
Wilson started publicly displaying his art on the Los Angeles street scene in 2009, doing most of his work late at night. “After a few years and lot of sleepless nights I was able to quit my job and focus only on my art,” he told Business Insider.
“It’s still funny to me that by putting my art up illegally, I was able to make a career out it.”
In fact his street name, ThankYouX, was completely unintentional. “It started with some stenciled poster of Andy Warhol in 2009. I wrote ‘thank you’ on the posters and signed them with an anonymous ‘X,'” Wilson said. “I was trying to pay tribute to a giant inspiration, and from that blogs started referring to me as ‘ThankYouX.'”
Now, fairly well-known on the West Coast, ThankYouX has been commissioned by other big-name clients. Paul McCartney liked the portrait of himself so much he has it turned into a lithograph for his tour. Wilson has created an installation at the Sundance Film Festival, painted a car for Lexus, and worked with Sanrio on the Hello Kitty Art Show. He was also commissioned to do a mural for Skrillex’s warehouse.
He is currently working on putting together a show that will premiere in Los Angeles in the late summer, as well as another that will be in Hong Kong in the fall.
Follow Wilson on Instagram @thankyoux to keep up with his latest works.
