Dadara

Dutch artist known for his flyers, paintings, album covers, statues and performance artwork. After finishing high school in 1986, Dadara briefly studied mechanical engineering at the Delft University of Technology, after which he studied at the Free Academy Psychopolis in The Hague, the Academy of Industrial Design in Eindhoven, and the Academy of Visual Design in Genk (Belgium), before graduating from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam in 1992. After completing studies, Dadara started designing flyers, live-paintings and record covers for the then upcoming international electronic house music scene. This included work for the RoXY club in Amsterdam, Outland Records, and the Mysteryland festival. The public recognition gained through this underground exposure led his paintings to be noticed by the Reflex Modern Art Gallery in Amsterdam, where till today he had ten solo-exhibitions, as well as exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, Stuttgart, Miami and New York. Commissions include baby-shaped loudspeakers for B&W, an Absolut Vodka ad, a Greenpeace campaign, invited artist for Expo 2000 in Hannover, and a 70 meters long mural for Leiden University in the Netherlands. In the past 10 years, Dadara mainly focused on both large interactive art projects and making paintings. The common thread throughout most of these works is that they provide a commentary on contemporary society. Topics include on one hand governmental control, lack of transparency, privacy issues, and regulations, and on the other hand value creation, money, and dreams.