Bringing his own artistic flavor to downtown Medford, local artist Ryan Moon’s new mural evokes the flora of Southern Oregon with a collage-like combination and wide range of colors. 

Moon started work on the mural in April and finished in late May.

“For me, really, (the mural’s) about gratitude and living in this particular area, and having grown up here in the outdoors has been such a huge part of my life,” Moon said. “Especially because of my wife — she’s such an avid outdoorswoman and she has really given me an amazing appreciation, especially for florals.” 

“I’ve been really into painting flowers lately and am loving the textures,” he added. 

The mural is located on the north wall of the Rogue Gallery & Art Center, near the South Bartlett Street and Theater Alley intersection. 

Moon was hired by the city of Medford’s Parks and Recreation Department in partnership with the Rogue Valley Art Association to paint the mural. 

“I’m so, so grateful to the city of Medford to be working with me and stepping outside of the norm of the small town mural,” Moon said, noting the city’s open-minded approach to his creative ideas. “It helps the downtown area to feel like it’s a giant art gallery.” 

Moon’s mural is currently untitled, and the piece brings in multiple local flowers such as three-petalled trillium flowers surrounding a woman at center. 

“The model that I chose is a good friend of mine that lives here that’s a photographer,” he said. 

When going through the planning process, Moon chose to do a doodle grid approach, adding hieroglyph-like symbols throughout the planned mural to help with spacing and perspective.

“With the doodle grid, what’s awesome is you can get up there and you start just basically doodling all over the wall,” he said. “It just makes it so much more engaging, not only for us as artists, but for people passing by too.”

The traditional grid approach for murals can be a difficult task of being exactly precise with measurements or risk warping the entire artwork, leading Moon to try the doodle grid style. 

“It’s super accurate and it’s more of a European style of doing it,” he said. 

Moon was sure to show gratitude to the people who aided him along the way to finish the mural, praising his wife, Jannis Moon, as well as artist Adrian Chavez.

“(Medford parks planner Kim Trimiew) has been instrumental in helping streamline things, and working with her really helped, to help me especially, navigate the bureaucracy that happens, but it definitely took up a lot more time than I thought,” he said. 

Moon was born and raised in Medford and has been making art since he was little, which evolved into a career of artistry through oil paintings, graphic art, murals and other areas of expertise. 

“I wanted to put something together that I felt was not about me, but about my experience a little bit in Medford and in Southern Oregon,” he said of the mural. 

Now that he’s finished the mural, Moon has many plans for the rest of 2025. 

“I’m kind of playing catch-up, so I’m preparing for new shows, trying to get out more personal work, but then I also have commission work that I have to get done,” he said. 

He will also be participating in the upcoming Meadowlark Comic Con in July, applying for art grants, continuing his work as vice president of the Rogue Gallery board and more. 

“I signed up for Mural Fest this year over in Ashland at ScienceWorks; that’s going to be super cool, and my friend Jarrett Davidson is putting that on,” Moon said. “There’s a ton of stuff down the road that I’m working on this whole year and next year, so I’m definitely keeping busy for sure.” 

For more information on Moon, visit ryan-moon.com. 

Reach reporter James Sloan at james.sloan@rv-times.com.