FLYING FÖRTRESS is the inventor of the legendary TEDDY TROOPS — a Munich-born artist with his first encounters with graffiti and the associated scene at the end of the 1980s. What began in the streets of Germany grew into one of the most recognizable visual identities in global street art.

After years of refining his craft through graphic design studies, FLYING FÖRTRESS returned to the streets with something entirely new. He wanted to move away from lettering and tags towards a visual language that would reach a wider public — creating a universally understandable icon from the coded signet of the graffiti tag. The result was the TEDDY TROOPS: a deceptively simple figure that onquered walls, stickers, posters, T-Shirts and vinyl toys worldwide.

Mixing seriousness with comical elements, his aim has always been to surprise people and give them a smile — always leaving a trace of humour in his art. Flitting between the graphic and the graffiti world, between small and large formats, between silkscreens and tags.

Next to this, he is a founding member of the JUKEBOX COWBOYS — a crew of artists united not only by a shared style, but by a shared attitude towards art, culture, party and creative independence.

Today FLYING FÖRTRESS is represented in galleries from Zurich to Los Angeles and has exhibited at institutions including the Urban Nation Museum in Berlin and the Museum of Graffiti in Miami.

www.teddytroops.net
@flyingfortress5410