Dede Bandaid

Sea of Bandaids #1, 2023,
Mixed technique ...

Sea of Bandaids #1, 2023,
Mixed technique and collage on cardboard,
128X115 cm.
Signed and dated.

Dede is the alias of the Israeli graffiti artist and multidisciplinary artist who was born in the late 1980s. Dede holds a combined degree in art and design from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (2010) and the HEAD Academy of Art and Design in Geneva, Switzerland. He began his artistic career as a street artist in 2006, creating graffiti paintings on the streets of Tel Aviv. By the early 21st century, Dede's artistic career had solidified, and he began exhibiting in galleries and museums throughout the country. His works, which were previously adapted and displayed only on the city streets, have been made accessible to the general public and have also broken through national borders in solo and group exhibitions in leading galleries in New York, Miami, London, Berlin, Russia, and elsewhere.

Dede's artworks draw inspiration from the complexities of daily life, urban landscapes, and social and political issues, merging them with his personal experiences. Various motifs in his works reflect these ideas, such as his prominent use of the plaster icon, reflecting the artist's traumatic experiences from his military service. Or the juxtaposition he creates between magnificent creatures made of tree branches and construction waste, symbolizing the marginalization process of the lower class by the bourgeois, similar to how nature is pushed aside by urban development. Dede employs diverse techniques including stencils, spray paint, freehand painting, and collage, using various materials such as wood panels, newspapers, cardboard, and industrial waste components. These are carefully chosen by the artist to serve and highlight the sources of inspiration and the essence of the depicted characters.

"I hope that what ultimately resonates from my work is a path that reveals my thinking and logic with statements that may not yet be entirely clear, but will gradually become apparent both to myself and to the viewer." (Dede, from an interview with Yoav Litvin for BSA, 2013)

Dede is also the creator behind the poster campaign of the kidnapped and the missing, alongside his partner, the artist Nitzan Mintz. In the days following the 7/10, Dede and Nitzan posted the posters of the kidnapped and missing in Gaza on social networks, successfully attracting media attention, and the awareness began to appear in major cities worldwide.

The poster campaign has made the duo the most famous Israeli artists in the world. The ads themselves are based on research they conducted and are based on missing and kidnapped ads in the United States. Part of the tremendous success that swept the project lay in everyone's ability to print the ads from any computer and hang them in public spaces around the world.

Measurement with frame:

128 x 144 cm