Hand-Embellished 2-Print Set

Perfecting his craft since 1997, DOES is a multidisciplinary international artist recognised for his choice of colours and eye for detail.

His most recent show, Transition, presents a body of text-based paintings where words are visually imploded and reconstituted as aggregations of disarticulated, smoldering letterforms. These compositions seem to levitate in space, dripping and melting away at their edges into the painting’s etherial, minimalist backgrounds. DOES portrays the forms with incredible accuracy and attention to detail; rendering them nearly hyper-realistic. His technical mastery is stunning, and the paintings push beyond the boundaries of traditional graffiti into a more conceptual and painterly territory where shapes and colors assume narrative and present reflections of our frenetic post-modern society.

Though traditional letterforms remain his passion, DOES is exploring new ground both visually and conceptually. The artist explains: “while my roots are in graffiti, I don’t like to limit myself to only one discipline. I think it’s more interesting to take elements from different movements and incorporate them into my work.”

DOES was born in 1982 in Veghel, The Netherlands. Though he has been active in graffiti since 1997, soccer was his first love. At the age of 9 he was chosen to train with the youth selection of one of the country’s professional soccer clubs. His disciplined nature, focus and dedication eventually won him a spot on a team in the highest division. Throughout his soccer career he lead a double life; balancing the public persona of a professional athlete with the secret life of an underground graffiti writer. When an injury ended his athletic pursuits at the age of 28, DOES took it as an opportunity to focus solely on his art. He quickly carved out a reputation as one of the best practitioners of the craft, and today his work is featured in exhibitions and collections across the globe.