Zedz

Zedz, also known as Ronald van der Voet, is making graffiti since the mid eighties and his current work is in its essence still strongly related to the pure format of ‘writing culture’ and graffiti while at the same time it is researching and exploring new ways and formats. Whilst not losing touch with some key graffiti principles the work is pushing and pulling the boundaries, crossing over and turning limitations into advantages, generating new thoughts and ideas concerning the topic of expressive lettering and the way we use the urban landscape and take our surroundings for granted.
The collaboration with MUA (Maurer United Architects) 1999-2002 is a good example of Zedz’s more unconventional approach and research methods, and shows how Zedz’s work walks a thin line between for instance graffiti and architecture. The experimental collaboration resulted in several proposals for ‘graffiti-architecture’ which is actually an invention made up in this creative process. In a later stadium this early research resulted also in a series of -temporary- monumental sculptures in the public space functioning as street furniture. The works could be best described as crossovers between graffiti and its dimensional environment (architecture) and by creating these works it seems Zedz is exchanging spraycans for building materials which is in some sense also the direction he chooses in his more illustrative studies and studio works.