Taylor Rose has attended more than 100 art festivals and his murals can be found spread out in the Duluth area, througuout the United States and in Brazil. Working with a variety of mediums, he has been creating pieces since he “was old enough to hold a pencil,” starting out by drawing Pokémon and cartoons in the flavor of Calvin and Hobbes. He can be reached at rose_oner98 @ gmail.com, with his art found at divergingrosedesigns.com, on Instgram at both @rose_oner and @divergingrose, and on TikTok @drosedesigns. Rose occasionally accepts commissions, continuously seeking to do work he finds “inspiring and lets me have creative freedom.” His clothing, prints, stickers, canvas and more can be found for sale on his website. Below are words from a recent interview with Rose and some of his work.

I knew as a child that art was going to be my career forever. Even at such a young age I would tell my mom that I wanted to have a job where I was creative every single day. Since then almost every one of my decisions has been made in the name of my art and my dreams to be creative.

My main mediums typically are spray paint, acrylic on canvas, pencil, Bic pen, digital, colored pencils and marker art. I love to mix a lot of different styles together. I have always enjoyed all kinds of art and wanted to be very diverse and capable of doing anything. So I have practiced graffiti, anime, cartoons, realism, surrealism, perspective, dark art, modern cubism and subject drawing. In most of my paintings and works I am using multiple mediums to create a one-of-a-kind piece of work.

It’s hard for me to pick a favorite color per say … lately I have been working a lot with picking a specific color scale and trying to make a while painting in that color scale along with black and grey. A five-part series I’m working on now is a perfect example of that. I am painting a lady face that is black and grey and then painting the background to fit a color pallet. The first one is the series “Broken Thoughts” is all red and orange with the face.

The second one, “Abysmal,” is mostly all blue and purple, the third one that is currently in the works is all green and yellow. The whole series is based entirely on my mental health and the perspective of my journey that I have been on to find myself in this life.

I have had no formal training in art. I actually went to college for music production and live sound engineering in Edina. My art is mostly self-taught with many mentors and people who have inspired me to try new things along the way. I have spent the past ten years going to music festivals. This is where I found a lot of my inspiration for my earlier works.

I went to my first electronic music festival when I was 14 years old. I fell in love with the people and the music. Soon I started live painting and sold my first paintings and prints when I was 16 at a music festival near Lake Nebagamon. These events were where I met my first mentors. Then as time passed I’ve met many mentors in all the different styles I enjoy by just being involved in the art community and traveling the country and more recently outside of the country.

In the area you can find my murals at Jamrock Cultural Restaurant, Aces on First, Mexico Lindo, Margaritas, Ride or Die Pizzeria, Earth Exchange, Choo Choo Bar & Grill, the Shanty, 21st and Oakes Street in Superior, the Burg, Eagles Club, Drip 101 and Solon on 52. With more that I am missing … some of my current favorite murals are in São Paulo, Brazil. I have murals all over the United States as well. For a while I had a practice wall with Kevin Pendleton on Third Avenue West and 18th Street, but he has since moved. So currently I do not have a wall to practice on. I would like to build a new wall where I am at in Duluth now to work on.

My art has been displayed in a number of Legacy Glass galleries. I have been wanting to get more into galleries recently. I have sold and live painted art at hundreds of events and festivals around the country, such as Infrasound, Lost Lands, Earth Rhythms, ReKinection and many more.

I do love to collaborate with people. They always give you a new perspective and add so many new ideas to pieces that I couldn’t have done or come up with on my own. Kevin Pendleton and I collaborated on the Choo Choo and Shanty murals. Kirstie Connon and I did the Margarita’s Bar & Grill mural together and my good friend Nex Arts helped me finish up and paint the Mexico Lindo murals.

I tend to try and do a few collaborations every year with other artists. However, the majority of the time those collaborations are digital or on canvas. It’s not too often that I collaborate on murals since the way I work is very different from most. I don’t usually sketch anything up prior to doing a mural. I’m usually just doing my thing and creating as I go. That can be difficult to work with when collaborating with other artists. Collaborating with artists who I see as better than me is definitely one of the ways I have progressed and grown so much as an artist over the years.