Niels Shoe Meulman is a visual artist, graffiti writer, graphic designer and art director, born, raised and based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. ”Experimenting within the traditional medium of paint-on-canvas, but also unafraid to venture into other domains like conceptual installations and poetry, Niels Shoe Meulman keeps pushing the limits of the global urban contemporary art movement," writes the Museum of Graffiiti, who collected his artwork into their permanent collection, as has the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and many private collectors.
Biography
Meulman was born in Amsterdam. He began tagging as Shoe in 1979 and was a graffiti legend by the time he was 18. In the eighties Shoe met New York artists like DONDI, Rammellzee, Haze and Quik in Amsterdam. Inspired by their New York Graffiti style he joined the graffiti crew Crime Time Kings with Bando from Paris and Mode2 from London. Together they gave a distinctive style to graffiti in Europe. He also meets Keith Haring in 1986, while Haring is staring at the wall piece "Better Times" Meulman painted on an insane asylum in Amsterdam. They hung out. Meulman recalls: “Keith drew something in my black book. Which ended up stolen, but I managed to get it back a couple of years later – but without his drawing for me. That drawing turned up at a Christie’s auction in 1994 and was bought by a French collector.”
In the 1990s, Meulman advanced his technique by apprenticing under the Dutch graphic design master Anthon Beeke (1989–1992). He ran his own design company, Caulfield & Tensing (1992–1999), with Michael Schaeffer, enabled by start up funds from Internet entrepreneur Walter de Brouwer. The advertising agency FHV BBDO took over the company, and employed Meulman as senior art director (1999–2001). Upon leaving the agency he was partner with Dennis Polak in the advertising agency Unruly. Under the name Unruly a line of luxury silk scarves was produced.
Commercial works of note include a signature shoe (sneaker) design for the British sports brand Umbro; the creative direction of the magazine WAVE; the re-styling of the Dutch television channel TMF; and packaging calligraphy for Bols Genever. In 2012 Meulman was commissioned by Louis Vuitton to feature alongside the spoken word artist yasiin bey aka Mos Def in the tribute video series Muhammad Ali – The Greatest Words. Mos Def recites Ali's poetic speeches while Meulman elaborates with painted calligraphy on the platform of a boxing ring. “When we were asked to pose as boxers in the ring for the Louis Vuitton videos, he uttered the words ‘strike a poser.’ Shoe is a painter of words.” —yasiin bey aka Mos Def.
With the avant-garde shoe design company United Nude the "Unruly Shoe" was designed, which "measures in at five inches tall and features details like laser-cut leather (which spells the words "unruly shoe"), a back zipper, and a spiked stiletto heel." Rem D. Koolhaas, creative director and co-founder of United Nude recalls: "At Art Basel Miami 2012, for the launch of the shoe collaboration dubbed NSMxUN, Shoe painted a 1984 stretched Cadillac Brougham. The original plan was for Shoe to paint a wall in Wynwood, but after we found this car, the plan became to paint it, as a painted car is the most mobile form of street art. In the following years the car was showcased in New York City and San Francisco.”
Calligraffiti
Shoe calls his art of writing Calligraffiti, an art form that fuses calligraphy and graffiti. He launched this movement in 2007 with a solo exhibition in Amsterdam under the same name. It was “a personal way to translate street work to gallery work.” Since then, his Calligraffiti pieces (signed NSM) have been seen in various international exhibitions in Europe and North America. In March, 2010 the book 'Calligraffiti - the Graphic Art of Niels Shoe Meulman' was published by From Here To Fame Publishing in Berlin. John Langdon, the ambigram artist who wrote the preface, is quoted in the book about the first time he met Shoe and saw his work: 'You are as good as me. Only I did more."