The Dotmaster

NationalityBritishGenderMaleAge51Websitedotmaster.co.uk

Biography

Leon Seesix, known as The Dotmaster, hails from London but started painting on the streets of Brighton in the early ’90s. He takes a sideways look at populist media, with a typically British sense of humour. After his trip to France in the 1980s, where he was so inspired by the stencils of Nemo and Blek Le Rat, Dotmaster started painting on the streets of Brighton. Soon he founded a group called c6.org, an international media art and street art collective. The group was active from 1997 to 2010 and was known for mixing graffiti, new media art, and performance art with political commentary.

His early use of half-tone brought modern print techniques to the street and he specialises in impeccably detailed works, designed to fool the eye. From photo-real colour stencils of trash to black and white rude kids and wallpapered domestic scenes, he creates street-based illusions that play with perceptions and defy conventions. Over 20 years, Dotmaster has exhibited around the world, both on the streets and in galleries. From Beirut to Tokyo, New Zealand to Miami, his cheeky rude kids have invaded street corners and gallery walls, always caught in the act.

Dotmaster's love of repeat patterns has developed into large-scale wallpapers that wrap buildings to form domestic scenes visible from the street. Interiors peeks outside, with framed artworks, fireplaces and furniture depicting cosy indoor scenes as walls disappear and homes become dollhouses.Leon is a driving force behind Glastonbury festival's weirdest late-night area, The Unfairground, acting as art director, curator, performer and general showman.

With an international network fostered through years of artistic curation and as Head of Production for the legendary Nuart festival, Leon has produced a broad range of events and installations with a diverse set of artists and organisations. From the Cannes Lions awards to the iconic head offices of technology companies, from community projects in Lebanon and Calais to Fuji Rock festival, from high-end ski chalets and award-winning hotels, Dotmaster's unique and idiosyncratic art always finds a perfect, site-specific home.

His art is ever more relevant in current times, combining irreverent humour and a mischievous sense of mixing things up with an uncanny knack of juxtaposing the unusual with the humdrum -  it conveys a tongue-in-cheek playfulness and discombobulation aimed to make us smile.

There is NO subculture ONLY subversion.

Dotmaster's work has been shown at Cabaret Voltaire, Switzerland; ICA, UK; Kunstnernes Hus, Norway; Museum of Modern Art Gulbenkian Foundation, Portugal; and The London Underground.Video visuals supplied for The Buzzcocks, Steve Ignorant, Chuck Palahniuk, Irvine Welsh, Phil Hartnol, Longrange and Second Life.

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The Dotmaster's Works