Ryan Shultz became known for being one of the contestants of Bravo's reality TV series Work of Art:The Next Great Artist. A self-taught painter, he earned a full tuition fellowship to Northwestern University. He lived off his art through prize money and commissions, in addition to teaching private art lessons. He has since displayed his work in over 60 art shows, which deals with youth culture and its excesses. His preferred medium is oil painting, utilizing past techniques to merge it to the present. Since being eliminated in the seventh episode of the show, he joined the National Wet Paint Exhibition in 2010.