Ruddy Muddy Turns Dirty Vans into Graffilthy Art

English Artist Turns Dirty White Vans into Works of Art on Wheels

By Sumitra on January 20th, 2014 Category: Art

You don’t really need an expensive canvas to make beautiful art. Rick Minns, from Wicklewood in Norfolk, proves that a dirty old van will do the trick.

Seriously, if someone like Rick lived in my area, I’d never clean my car. I would just leave it coated with layers of filth, hoping he’d find it and do his thing. Rick, or ‘Ruddy Muddy’ as he’s now being called, creates amazing works of art in the grease, mud and dust collected on unwashed vans parked in the streets.

Rick said that he had often wondered if people would like to find art on their cars, rather than the usual ‘clean me’ and other rude messages scribbled in the dust. That’s how he got the idea for ‘Graffilthy Art’. “I was a bit bored at work one day, with a bit of spare time on my hands and thought it would be like a bit of fun,” he said. When no-one complained, he took it as a good sign and kept going. “I played around with a few things and they sort of developed from there.”

The 39-year-old has an A-level in art and delivers flowers for a living. He is currently attending art classes to improve his skill. He started off decorating the dust on his own van and then moved on to others. Rick says he enjoys entertaining people with his ‘graffilthy’. “The reaction I get is great – it’s just nice to see the smile on people’s faces when they notice,” he said.

Rick has come a long way since his first piece of van-art, which was a mountain scene. With time, his work has become more sophisticated. In fact, many car-owners have actually contacted him via social media and thanked him. He said that his artwork is spreading across the region – people have spotted it in most counties in the east.

He takes anywhere between five minutes and an hour to complete a drawing. The tools he uses are ‘dirt’ cheap – just his fingers and a some tissue. He starts by making a rough sketch of the image with his fingernails. Then he uses his fingers or a tissue to fill in the finer details. “Maybe even a cotton bud – that’s about as extravagant as it gets,” he said. “All you really need though is a dirty van. That’s the important bit.”

Ruddy Muddy isn’t the first artist to use dirty vehicles as canvases for unique artworks. In the past, we’ve also featured dirty car-art masters like Rafael Veyisov and Scott Wade.