Mad C

MadC was born in 1980, in Bautzen, Germany, as Claudia Walde. She started her artistic experimentations as a teenage girl, back in a time when Walde was attempting to paint her first graffitis in her neighborhood. She proved to be a quick learner – Claudia’s first graffiti piece was in 1996, in the time when she was a little over 16 years of age. While she was developing her urban art skills tirelessly, Walde never lost track of her education – in fact, she managed to graduate from two different schools while simultaneously learning to paint murals! She holds degrees in Graphic Design from the University of Art and Design in Halle and Central Saint Martins College in London.

Such a combination of two far apart worlds, one academic and the other more street-wise, proved to be a key moment in MadC’s career. It is this confluence of situations – immediate connection with the street art subculture and a devoted approach to art research – which has been decisive in turning Claudia into the artist she is today. Since she began developing her talent at an early age, MadC managed to broaden her creative endeavors on many fronts – such as writing and fine art, as well as graphic design which she studied at her collages. She recently made a bold decision to transport her work indoors as she started to paint on canvases too.

By transforming her work into gallery pieces, MadC investigated the relationship between overlapping colors, light, glass and calligraphic movement as well as the differences and similarities between seemingly opposite mediums. Some of her more famous works on canvas are Nineteen Nineteen Twenty One Zero Six – both of who had a recognizable ratio of black and white, characteristic for MadC’s early tags. By her own claim, she is influenced by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and the graffiti painter Dare (for whom Claudia dedicated a few mural pieces).