Roadsworth Turns Streets Into His Canvas

Roadsworth also known as Peter Gibson is not ordinary street artist born and raised in Toronto. He chose the name Roadsworth because, as he states, "Where Wordsworth is a poet of words, Roadsworth is a poet of roads."

He started to paint streets in the city of Montreal in 2001 to motivate the city to make more bike lanes. What began as a project continues to this day as his form of expression. His creative street art often has a message related to current social issues or as he says, "simply protest against the mundaneness of the urban landscape."

"As my personal artistic process evolved, political concerns were eclipsed by artistic ones and I often felt more inspired by the process than I did by the message I was trying to convey. Marshall Mcluhan’s famous quote 'the medium is the message' is significant in this regard. The ubiquitousness of the asphalt road and the utilitarian sterility of the 'language' of road markings provided fertile ground for a form of subversion that I found irresistible. I was provoked by a desire to jolt the driver from his impassive and linear gaze and give the more slow-moving pedestrian pause for reflection. The humourlessness of the language of the road not to mention what I consider an absurd reverence for the road and 'car culture' in general made for an easy form of satire."

The artist has been modifying the streets, side walks, parking lots and other surfaces with spray paint and handmade stencils. He uses asphalt surfaces as his canvas, for example he painted a crosswalk in such a clever way that it became a huge boot print. He also makes use of city lamp shadows in his pieces creating an illusion of an owl perched on a branch of a tree, a pair of shoes dangling from a wire, tigers are painted onto the projected shadow mimicking the idea of captivating the wild animals.