studio giftig

Studio Giftig consisting of the Netherlands-based artist duo Niels van Swaemen (1981, Eindhoven) and Kaspar van Leek (1983, Philipsburg St. Maarten). They come into contact with each other in 2007, at which time both individuals have been active in street art for some time. From 2007 the first cooperation projects are picked up and a vacant warehouse serves as base for their studio. Within this warehouse there was a storage room for toxic substances and chemicals, in this storage room they kept their paint and spray cans. The name Studio Giftig refers to this storage room because giftig is the Dutch translation of Toxic.

At the start of the collaboration in 2007, one was still studying at the art academy and the other was working as a graphic designer. Therefore, they worked on their projects in the evenings and during the weekends. Because of the great interest there was not enough time to be able to pick up all the projects and in 2012 the duo decided to fully devote themselves to murals. In the following years the duo developed a common painting style, with which they became known through their highly detailed (sur)realistic murals.