Though fairly unassuming at first, once you’ve seen them, you will never miss them again. They are dotted all across the city, mischievously located ever so slightly above eye level: the cyan, magenta, yellow and key colours, originally in the form of dots. Now, you might be able to spot them in other shapes.
“I need a goal, otherwise I get lazy,” says OKSE 126, the artist behind the CMYK Dots. So, getting bored with unambitious graffiti, one sunny spring day in 2016, he challenged himself to create 1000 dots across 100 cities in 10 countries. The mission was accomplished in 2021, but the 3D-sculpture dots haven’t stopped multiplying.
With the grand total at 1325 and counting, OKSE 126 has no intention to retire.
“I have periods when I make a lot of them, and then for weeks, I don’t. I wanted to make something that stands out and is cheerful, and I thought everyone is familiar with the four colours of print, so that’s why I chose that.” The born and bred West Berliner uses styrofoam to create the dots and installation glue to fix them on the walls. He is always on the search for spots where there is contrast – other graffities, open spaces.
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“It’s cool to see that often the graffiti gets washed off the walls but the dots are still there.”
OKSE 126, who wants no one to know his real name or profession, earlier got into trouble for tagging, being caught and fined by the police. But with his dots, he’s never had any problems; he’s not even sure what the penalty would be.
“I just walk up with a ladder and put them up on the wall, during the day – I am too lazy to go out at night!” he laughs. “But people think that because I have a ladder, I am allowed to do that. Everyone sees that it’s nothing nasty, and they are rather curious about what’s happening.”
- You can buy CMYK Dots prints, artworks, hoodies and beanies at cmyk-dots.com
