Daze, aka Chris Ellis, was born in New York in 1962. He became one of the pivotal figures of New York’s Urban Art scene in the late 1970s. Unlike the ‘taggers,’ who merely covered every accessible public surface with repetitive calligraphic writing, Daze had higher ambitions.

In the 1970s, New York was dark, dirty, dangerous and broke. Young artists, finding no outlet for their creative visions, lashed out by taking their work to the streets and subways. The city would become their canvas. Daze was one of the pioneer ‘train bombers’ – artists who would enter train yards at night and cover the outside of the subway carriages with elaborate paintings depicting the city as they saw it.

Daze’s fellow graffiti ‘writers’ were Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Daze’s first ‘sale’ was a collaboration with Basquiat – a collaged and painted refrigerator which they sold for $200 in 1980 to the Mudd Club, the celebrated new music venue in lower Manhattan. In the coming years these artists would leave the streets and enter the gallery and museum world. In 1982 the venerable Sidney Janis Gallery on 57th Street in Manhattan was the first to showcase New York’s Urban Artists.

Over the years, Daze and his fellow writers have seen their work move from the inner-city to the mainstream. Indeed, the urban ‘Wild Style’ of the late 70s and early 80s has now gone global, influencing not only other artists, but fashion, design and advertising around the world.

Daze has been exhibited in museums and galleries all around the world, including the Grand Palais in Paris, the Brooklyn Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Fondation Cartier in Paris and many others. His work has been collected and show by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Ludwig Museum in Aachen and the Tate Gallery in London and by private collectors, including Eric Clapton and Madonna.

Singaporeans can witness Daze in action as he creates an iconic piece of artwork, specially commissioned for VivoCity, by its developer Mapletree. From 20 to 24 February 2010, Daze will be at the VivoCity’s Amphitheatre to create a mural that will be permanently installed at the Sentosa Ticket Concourse at Level 3 of VivoCity. This will be Daze’s first artwork on display in Singapore.

On March 5th, at 7 pm, he will be joining Milenko Prvacki, Tan Boon Hui, and artist and curator Zaki Razak for the panel discussion From the Streets to the Malls: The Cultural Assimilation of Graffiti Art.

Fortune Cookie Projects has also invited five Singaporean graffiti writers to exhibit during the Daze project. “Is This Home Truly?,” curated by Zaki Razak, features Antz, Scopeone, Slacsatu, The Killer Gerbil, TR853-1 and Zero.