Amsterdam street artist Max Zorn has a unique talent for making incredible art using mainly brown packaging tape.
The very idea of using tape instead of paint came from Max Zorn’s friend who was working in a car design. “These guys often use slim tapes to outline their ideas on large boards. I was surprise to see how fast they could create stunning sketches with it”, says Max Zorn. And ever since then, he started showing his talents making this packaging tape art by decorating old street lamps which you can find almost everywhere in Amsterdam. “It’s the perfect medium to experiment, because of its golden glow“, he adds.
Max Zorn’s rise began after publishing the two-minute self-made video on YouTube “Street Art by Max Zorn Making of Tape Art” back in 2011, showing how he hangs his translucent tape art on street lamps as a form of street art at night in Amsterdam. It was picked up by national and international media, and by April 2012 Max Zorn created over 150 works of tape art. In a speech about creating street art seen in the dark at TEDx Talent Search, Max Zorn stated “I didn’t want to work on walls or on the floor I wanted to use street lamps as an urban gallery and I wanted to use the darkness as the setting around my artwork”.
I’m generally interested in the dynamics between people. I want to freeze a moment that initiates a story without telling too much… like a screenshot from a movie that sparks imagination but leaves room to decide where the story goes, the artist adds.
His settings and themes are heavily influenced by film noir while brown shades and different layers of tape create a sepia tone. Max Zorn says he also finds inspiration from characters in novels produced by writers from The Lost Generation specifically Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Salinger. His work also is influenced by American realism artists such as Edward Hopper.
And do note this: Max Zorn is the founder and creator of Stick Together, an online project that spreads street art around the world for free. Offline Stick Together creates an annual live painting event held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, open free to the public.
