SAM3 „Embrace | June 11, 2024

Andreas von Chrzanowski, better known as CASE, was born in Schmalkalden in 1979 and now lives in Frankfurt am Main. His artistic roots lie in the East German graffiti scene, where he has been working with spray paint since 1995. In 2000, together with three other graffiti artists, he founded the group MA'CLAIM—one of the pioneering groups in photorealistic graffiti, which is still regarded internationally as a style-defining force. His training as a painter and his studies in restoration have honed his technical precision and are visibly reflected in his visual language.CASE’s trademark is his photorealistic, often monumental depiction of hands and body parts—a motif that has earned him worldwide recognition. In art history, hands are considered one of the most expressive and, at the same time, technically demanding motifs of all, and CASE succeeds in capturing their emotionality and dynamism with extraordinary precision. Yet he is never concerned with mere anatomical reproduction: he removes body parts from their familiar context, alienates and exaggerates them, confronts classical notions of beauty with controversial, almost grotesque visual moments—and thus creates a presence that is entirely his own, both unsettling and fascinating.Central to his work is the idea of overlapping hands as an image of movement, connection, and—as at the Reisholz Harbor—internal contradiction. For CASE, this movement never refers solely to the physical gesture, but always also to the political and social: gestures speak a language that needs no translation; often, a hand gesture says more than a thousand words. In Düsseldorf, he consistently applies this superimposition technique to a single, internally divided statement: He paints each of the two hands twice—once clenched into a fist, once open in a peace sign formed by the index and middle fingers—and superimposes both poses semi-transparently on top of one another, so that the fist and the peace sign remain visible at the same time, interwoven, with neither gesture ever completely disappearing or prevailing. Aggression and peace, resistance and reconciliation thus do not exist one after the other, but in the same moment, in the same hand—an illustration of how close these stances are to one another and how much every gesture, every political position, always carries its opposite within itself. Only at the fingertips does the strict photorealistic anatomy break down: in garish green and red, like a second, digital layer superimposed over the classical painting, the tension of this moment is made even more visible.The mural was created in 2013 in Düsseldorf as part of the first 40Grad Urban Art Festival.

EPOD’s work is a fusion of graffiti, conceptual art, and fine art—three influences that come together in his pieces in such a distinctive way that his style is recognizable at first glance. Born in 1977 and raised in a high-rise housing project on the outskirts of London, he began his artistic journey as a graffiti artist under the name “DOPE.” This evolved into the alias .EPOD—a shift toward a more nuanced, stylized visual language, technically honed by his training in technical drawing and fashion design, which is still evident today in precise, structural lines that meet loose spray-paint textures. Artistically, .EPOD blends our vision of the future with vintage, fashion with technology, and reality with alienation. His visual language draws on the visual culture of his youth—hip-hop, retro sci-fi films, and the sleek, glossy pages of 1970s *Vogue*—and meets the dramatic lighting of the old masters: Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro, Rembrandt’s psychological depth. From this fusion emerge ethereal figures, industrial textures, and a cinematic color palette that blends classical mastery with futuristic design.The mural in Düsseldorf displays precisely this signature style: a figure in profile whose skin shimmers in cool blue-violet against a backdrop of glowing orange and yellow—classical portraiture, disrupted by the sharp, triangular shapes above the head, which resemble a sail or a futuristic blade. The torn edge of the picture plane, as if ripped like paper, makes the portrait seem to emerge from an imaginary second plane—a reference to .EPOD’s interest in alienation and the rupture between levels of reality.The work was created in 2024 in Düsseldorf as part of the “Kultur meets Euro” project.

FinDAC’s artistic practice has evolved over more than a decade in dialogue with public spaces and galleries. At the intersection of urban art, portraiture, and graphic design, he has created a distinctive visual language that combines contemporary urban aesthetics with art-historical references—a continuous process of maturation that continues to this day. Exhibited internationally in galleries, museums, and at major art festivals, his work is known for its masterful synthesis of Eastern and Western visual traditions. At the center are strong, self-assured, modern female figures—painterly portraits of great presence that interweave graphic precision with multi-layered cultural symbolism. This combination of painterly sensitivity and graphic clarity makes his visual language both distinctive and universally accessible. FinDAC’s female figures embody sovereignty and self-determination within an ever-changing visual culture—a strength that draws upon cultural heritage while remaining resolutely and unmistakably modern in the present. His murals can now be found around the world.A hallmark of FinDAC’s work is the mask-like painting around the eyes of his female protagonists—a recurring motif that also appears in Düsseldorf. It references both the character Pris from “Blade Runner” and the iconic makeup of pop singer Annie Lennox from the 1980s. A small dot on the forehead—the third eye—represents the artist himself and his spiritual journey. FinDAC deliberately keeps the exact meaning of the masks and the dripping paint a secret—a moment of mystery that surrounds each of his portraits. Painted in gray grisaille, broken only by the bright green of the mask, the mural depicts a woman in a calm, focused pose—her hand on her chin, her gaze directed directly and confidently at the viewers. The model for “Rasimin” lives in Düsseldorf, giving the large-format portrait a direct connection to the city and its residents.The work was created in 2023 on Neusser Straße in Düsseldorf.