Color And Chaos With Mason Ho And Mad Steez

Mason Ho is the widely considered most colorful man in surfing. 

Dynamic, unpredictable, and with a personality of nearly unrivaled electric energy and enthusiasm.

We say nearly because, well, we hadn’t met Rip Curl’s most recent collaborator, Mad Steez, aka Mark Paul Deren yet. Mad Steeze is a chaotically creative mad man and world-renowned mural artist (who is almost as handy with foam and fiberglass as he is with aerosol and public space). 

Introducing the maniacal muralist, Mad Steez!

For their new range of soft goods, Rip Curl tapped Mad Steez with designing a wildly vibrant line of borderline psychedelic graphics and patterns, that feature heavily on a handful of handsome new wetsuits, tees, trunks, and even socks. 

The most vibrant yet entirely inoffensive statement socks we’ve seen.

According to Rip Curl, “the range, made up of a selection of wetsuits, boardshorts and men’s apparel, is led by none other than Mason Ho. Mason, who has been a fan of Mad Steez for many years, invited Steez to come to Hawaii, paint, go surfing, design clothes and create the collaboration. The result? Bright colours, bold designs and a striking, irreverent campaign.”

Mace x Mad Steez.

“With a rare vision impairment in his left eye, Mad Steez sees the world through a different lens, and uses bright colours and large, sweeping strokes to bring his paintings to life in a way unlike any other artist.

‘Before he was an artist, MadSteez was a surfer,’ says James Taylor, Rip Curl’s Group Creative Director. “We wanted to collaborate with him because as an artist he shares our company values and a love of surfing, but also has the ability to bring something different to the brand.

“For the first time in company history we’ve allowed our iconic logos – The Search, the Wetsuit Logo and our corporate logo – to be modified. We gave MadSteez freedom to truly collaborate with the brand, and we are very happy with the result.”

How’s that subtle jazz-up of the iconic The Search logo?

While in Hawaii, Mason sat down with Mad Steez and picked his brain… he asked the question, who is Mad Steez? Click in to the edit above, and scroll south to see more from the range below. 

Mason in the Made by mad Steez trunks from the new Rip Curl range.

“To celebrate Rip Curl’s 50th Anniversary and the release of the range, Mad Steez will be traveling to the 2019 Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, painting a large-scale mural on the front of the Rip Curl Torquay store. This mural will be Steez’s interpretation of an iconic Bells lineup, with the inclusion of some of surfing’s greatest World Champions – 3x World Champion Mick Fanning, 2x World Champion Gabriel Medina and 2x World Champion Tyler Wright.

Steez will be painting throughout the Rip Curl Pro waiting period, and encourages fans, media and those passing through come view the mural in progress. You will find him painting at the Rip Curl Torquay store from April 18 – April 22.

As this is truly a global collaboration, MadSteez will be spending the rest of the year painting murals in other major Rip Curl regions around the world. For the weekend of May 4th, you will find MadSteez painting the side of Rip Curl by Hansen’s in Swamis, California. Following the USA, look out for Steez somewhere in Europe…”

Mad Steez himself, rocking the new Rip Curl trunks from his range.