MadC (born Claudia Walde, 1980) is a world-renowned graffiti writer and muralist. She was born in Bautzen, Germany, and is most known for her large-scale, outdoor artistic paintings.
MadC started her artistic trajectory as a teenage graffiti writer and has since developed her creative endeavors into various related fields (including as graphic design, writing, and fine art). MadC painted her first graffiti piece in 1996, being 16 years old. She studied at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle and Central Saint Martins College in London. MadC carries a master's degree in graphic design.
It is MadC's philosophy that graffiti is the greatest a way to express one's self due to the fact that the end product is all that matters and that no one has to know your true identity.
MadC is an author and designer of three books on street and graffiti art; "Sticker City – Paper Graffiti Art" (2007), "Street Fonts - Graffiti Alphabets From Around The World" (2011), and "Mural XXL" (2015). Each book is published under her birth name, Claudia Walde.
"Street Fonts" features work from 154 artists, ranging from 30 different countries. In the creation of the book, MadC directed artists to use international alphabets that she had spent two years traveling the world to collect.
Her major international breakthrough came however in 2010 with the production of the work that has become known as the “700-Wall” – a 700 square-meter work along the train line between Berlin and Halle. This painting is most likely the largest graffiti mural created by a single person, taking four months to finish.
MadC's transition from street art to gallery work went through a transformation, as she explains "taking the street energy to a canvas and how spray paint translated differently onto canvas". She later moved on to 'Spectra' Paint, which had a transparent effect on her work with spray paint. She has also been known to use ink, watercolor, acrylic paint and acrylic markers in her work.
Her tagging style incorporates science fiction and fantasy elements, and is influenced by such artists as Vincent Van Gogh and the graffiti artist Dare (real name Sigi Koeding, whom she collaborated with on his piece “Basel”). Walde dedicated her piece “6313 – Here to Stay” to Dare.
Mad C also works with spray paints on canvas. At her first solo gallery in 2015, Night and Day, she showcased works such as “Nineteen Nineteen” and “Twenty One Zero Six”. These works had either a black or white base (symbolic of her night and day work required of her for tagging), and investigated “the relationship between overlapping colors, light, glass and calligraphic movement”. For her canvases she is transferring her philosophy of connecting single parts to one piece – background, foreground, lines and shapes. To create those works, MadC uses spray paint, transparent spray paint, ink, watercolor, acrylic paint and acrylic markers. She is painting on canvas as well as carton from spray paint boxes. http://www.graffitiprints.com/artist/madc/