DAIM

Mirko Reisser (DAIM)
Reisser (DAIM) in front of his walltaping, 2011
Born	Mirko Reisser 1971 Lüneburg, Germany
Nationality	German
Education	Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland
Known for	Public art Graffiti Painting Street-Art
Movement	Hip-Hop Culture

DAIM (German pronunciation: [daːiːm], like the coin dime; born 1971 in Lüneburg as Mirko Reisser) is a German Graffiti-Artist, lives and works in Hamburg. He is particularly known for his large-size, 3D-style graffiti works. This has become known as his trademark. For his technically sophisticated style he obtained the reputation of being one of the best graffiti-artists in the world.

In 1989 Mirko Reisser sprayed his first works, still under the writing name of CAZA in those days, which he kept till the year of 1992. He already sprayed his first commissioned pieces in 1990. In 1991, right after his graduation from secondary school, he began to work as a freelance artist and named himself DAIM. In 1996 he started the fine arts programme at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland. In 1999 Mirko Reisser founded the studio collaboration getting-up in Hamburg together with the artists Gerrit Peters and Heiko Zahlmann. The artist collective has been realizing internationally noticed projects together for more than fifteen years. During his artistic career Mirko Reisser has already travelled to vast parts of the world and took part in a multitude of museum and gallery exhibitions. He also realized a lot of art projects, several of them as an initiator and co-organizer.

Mirko Reisser (DAIM) is represented by the gallery ReinkingProjekte in Hamburg (Germany) since 2005. Since 2010 he is also represented by the gallery MaxWeberSixFriedrich in Munich (Germany).

At the beginning of the 1990s DAIM developed his 3D-style: The artist attained publicity with his trademark of creating the four letters of his writing name in three-dimensional style. Outlines that are commonly used in Graffiti cannot be seen in this style. In fact by applying light and shadow effects the colours are placed in such a way that one gets the impression the letters are floating in the room and are tangible. DAIM had been making photorealistic drawings also before his career in graffiti and was influenced by artists like Salvador Dalí and Vincent van Gogh to not place outlines, but rather create forms with shadings and thus present them three dimensionally.

Reduction is initially the last word that one would attribute to the works of the artist. But relating to the choice of his motive this expression is definitely appropriate. Reisser depicts in his works the four letters of his writer's name – DAIM.