Digital Does

Digital Does – Joos van Barneveld, renowned as DOES or Digitaldoes, was born in Veghel, The Netherlands, in 1982. His initial passion revolved around football, and he honed his skills as a professional player with the Fortuna Sittard football club from the tender age of 9. In 1997, he stumbled upon graffiti, an irresistible passion that led him to lead a double life. For over a decade, he adeptly juggled the demands of a professional athlete by day and the clandestine world of graffiti by night.

In 2010, a knee injury struck, prompting Joos to relinquish his football career and contemplate a new future. While many would view this as a dramatic turn of events, Joos saw it as an exclusive opportunity to fully dedicate himself to art. With the same unwavering dedication, focus, and self-discipline instilled in him by football, he embarked on a journey of artistic development, elevating his craftsmanship to new heights.

Over the years, both as an artist and as a member of the LoveLetters graffiti crew, Joos’s style, now highly recognizable, has evolved into a fusion of influences from old-school writers and his own extensive research. His artwork reveals the roots of 3D lettering, while also surprising with meticulously balanced color schemes and precise outlines. As Phase 2 wrote in his Style Writing from the Underground manifesto in 1996, “Writing is centered on names, words, and letters. Combined with the objective of their execution, this creates the product and the overall makeup of the writer.” Joos thoroughly comprehended this process and methodically explored his unique style, akin to controlled dripping. His letters, adorned with mesmerizing color palettes, are stretched to the limit, seemingly releasing their energy and cascading drips across the canvas.

While many applaud him for his exceptional draftsmanship and mastery of color, DOES is currently pushing the boundaries of his artistic research in novel conceptual directions. He views graffiti as an archive from which he physically extracts samples that encapsulate his own artistic roots. By drilling or peeling off spray-painted walls, he incorporates these artifacts into plaster sculptures, essentially forging a contemporary archaeology of urban spaces. He meticulously records the geographical coordinates of these walls, adapting the tools of a discipline typically associated with the past to underscore his unique narrative and emphasize the enduring impact of graffiti culture on our society.