Roadsworth is bringing 'peace and love' to Montreal's Mural Festival

Back in 2001, Peter Gibson, then a music student in Montreal, started painting the city's streets — turning the lines in a parking lot into dandelions, transforming a fork in the road into a zipper, and creating DIY bike lanes everywhere. His art came from "a strong activist impulse, specifically around questioning of city space, urban space and car culture, for lack of a better term." 

His work as Roadsworth started to get more and more attention from Montrealers, the art scene and urbanists — but also from the Montreal police graffiti squad. In 2004, he was arrested and charged with 51 counts of mischief.

Rather than end his career, however, the charges turned him into a celebrity. He wound up sentenced to probation and a fine, but also gained enough notoriety that he started getting commissions for road pieces, murals and more, launching what he calls "the second phase of my career."

This year, Roadsworth will be part of the Montreal Mural Festival, painting 13 spots along Saint-Laurent Boulevard.

Where did the name Roadsworth come from?

I came up with the name mostly because I was getting approached by journalists, prior to being arrested, and I couldn't give my real name because I was engaged in illegal activities. [British nature artist] Andy Goldsworthy was one of my bigger inspirations, at least in the early part of my career, so it was kind of like Goldsworthy — Roadsworth.

Also, at the time, the only other kind of unsanctioned public [art] expression was graffiti. I was trying to distinguish myself, to a certain extent, from graffiti writers because what I was doing was a lot different. So I was looking for a name that had kind of a snobby sound to it. And then literally, "road's worth:" the worth of the road.

What appeals to you about road markings?

What I find interesting is the idea of subverting this sort of official language. There's something innately authoritarian about road markings, and you're not supposed to question them. And then they repeat themselves. Going back to Andy Goldsworthy, who would use patterns that reappear in nature, like leaves or other repeating forms in nature. It's the same with the city. It's mostly man-made forms, but there's a lot of predictability in the city; there's a lot of repetition. I just find there's something humorous about it, when you are playing with something that we take for granted.

I think, for me, the road is a very loaded space that we take for granted. It's a metaphor for a lot of things. It's like a transitional space. It's kind of a dead space because nothing grows there. You can't just loiter in the street. You can't have a picnic on the road. 

You said a lot of your early work had an activist spirit. Do you think you still have that?

I think it depends on the context. It becomes a bit of a balancing act when you're doing a commission or there's a client and somebody is paying you. For a while, I would try to sneak in a little subversive message or whatever, but it just didn't feel right. I guess because I have a certain reputation, I have the fortune of being solicited to do work that's kind of in line with my thinking. So I do a lot of projects involving pedestrianization of streets, which has become a big thing anyway. It's worked out in that sense. 

You mentioned that a lot of the things you were talking about in your art 15 years ago are becoming mainstream now. Does that feel vindicating at all?

What I was preoccupied with [then] are the preoccupations of the day in terms of mainstream urban planning. I don't know if I was ahead of my time. Obviously there are people like Jane Jacobs, who were pioneers of this kind of rethinking of cities, who were talking about this for a long time. But maybe [I was], in terms of these sort of guerrilla interventions. But then at the same time, there's still a lot of room for improvement on that level.

So tell me about your project for the Mural Festival?

We've got 13 locations along Boulevard Saint-Laurent that I'm going to be painting, and the theme is "Peace and Love," which at one point I might have thought was kind of a corny idea because it's sort of generic. But I just feel like nowadays, it's almost rebellious.

The atmosphere nowadays, where there's so much antagonism, everyone's looking for so many bad guys — people will say, "Oh, that's a corny, naive, unrealistic message." But so be it. It's just an effort to put something out that's contrary to voices that are out there.