V-FILES vol. 2: meet the ✅artist Gomad (NL)
It’s time to meet the artists behind all the murals you find on our platform,time to meet our verified artists.
Here’s a fragment of his bio found on his Street Art Cities artist page:
Marcus GOMAD Debie is a color blind Dutch artist, born and raised in the south of the Netherlands. He works as an international muralist and urban fine artist making murals and paintings for festivals, art lovers and exhibitions worldwide. Heavily influenced by the graffiti docu ‘Style Wars’, he got artistically active all the way back to 1985 in the Southern Dutch graffiti scene. His work is considered a pinnacle of post-neo graffitism, the fusion of photorealistic images of humans, animals and nature in a mind bending surrealistic setup, against organic shapes in an old Dutch masters composition. Combining oil paint, acrylics and sprays in a vibrant and unique idiosyncratic way. Murals and urban fine art paintings of his hand can be found in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, England, Italy, Croatia, Czech Republic, Albania, Bulgaria, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, Greece, Spain, United States and Australia.
1. Who is Gomad?
My name is Marcus Debie aka GOMAD, 51 years of age. I am a Dutch color-blind muralist with roots in graffiti which I started in 1985. Nowadays I still live and work here but travel the globe to do my artwork. Since 2014 I am working as a full time artist and my art studio has been expanded with my wife Nancy Montforts, being my personal assistant taking care of acquisition and book keeping. And she also helps filling the blanks on large scale mural projects. Together we form Team GOMAD. Our mascot is our domestic cat Mila. My two biggest fans, mother Mia and father Bert are in their 80s but still in good health and proud of what I have accomplished so far. I am a father of my son Ziggy, 19 years of age, and he doesn’t do anything with arts at all.
2. Where is home?
I grew up in the south of the Netherlands in the small city of Sittard-Geleen. It used to be a raw coal mine town with the Belgium and German border only 10 minutes away by car. So I got influenced by a lot of different cultures at an early age. I got my bachelor in Arts in 1996 as an illustrator. Here is where I also met my colleague James Jetlag, the only artist whom I still work with on a regular basis. Actually we celebrate our 30th work anniversary together this year.
3. How did you end up in the world of street art?
It was in 1984 when I first saw the iconic movie Beat Street. It gave an insight in a new culture, Hip Hop, with breakdancing, rapping and graffiti on the NYC subway trains. This caught my interest at the age of 12. Not long after that I saw the documentary Style Wars. I started breaking and rapping myself and as far as I can remember I was drawing graffiti 24/7. After a few years of illegal graffiti I did my first graffiti job in 1988. It was a shutter of a local jewelry store. I never knew back then that it would and could be my life’s work in the future. Graffiti was a hobby and after graduation at the school of arts I worked as a graphic designer for 20 years doing graffiti as a side job. Other known graffiti artist from my city are the late Nash, Mr. June and Digital Does. All inspirational artists and homies to me.
4. My first?
Oh that’s a difficult one. My career grew throughout the years by just doing murals as much as possible and and in as many different places, just to get exposure and name recognition worldwide with mural organization, festivals and exhibitions.
But when I think about it, in 2016 the Kings of Colors festival in the city of Den Bosch (NL) gave me the opportunity to paint a silo of 18m high, and this was the first time I did a design in a totally different style, my first personal style. And it was also the first high structure I’d ever painted. I believe this was also the kickstart of my career because people started to recognize my handwriting, the big eyes and geometric shapes. At the same time without knowing it, Belin a colleague from Spain made similar mural art and he called it Post Neo Cubism. But I was never a copycat even though some people thought so.
5. My everything?
Every project is important, but some are more special than others. For example my first 10 floor high building I did in my hometown together with Smug, was a project to remember.
Or the biggest mural of the Netherlands, approximately 2000 m2/21500 ft2 together with a dream team consisting of Chas, James Jetlag, Gart Smits, Karski and Beyond. This was also a special one because I was just recovered from a bad injury. Both of my heels were completely shattered after falling from scaffolding. I had to learn to walk again after being in a hospital bed for 6 months. And this was the first mural after that recovery.
Or my first big mural abroad on the isle of Zakynthos in Greece in 2012. To many to name…
6. What if (you weren’ an artist)?
I’ll turn 52 this year so I can’t worry about not making it as an artist. I probably go and retire :-)
But I started painting graffiti murals professionally around 1996 till 1998, but had a ‘break’ from muralism having a regular 9 till 5 design job at an advertising agency till 2013, when I quit that job and become a full time artist. Best choice ever, wish I never had that so called break and never had stopped painting for more than a decade. Where would I be as an artist today if I hadn’t make that decision.
7. My Last?
My latest is never that long the latest because I do a new mural every two weeks. But the last interesting mural I did was a container structure for North West Walls in Belgium, of 8 containers stacked on top of each other reaching up to 22 meters/72 feet of height. It took us 10 days to complete this beautiful masterpiece titled Timeless Gazes, on which I outdone myself completely if I may say so. You can visit the site every day in Werchter.
8. Challenges?
It became some kind of a hype in the last decade. On the one hand good because nowadays you can make a good living of being an muralist. On the other hand there are so many artists who claim to be muralists without having the experience and skills, but nevertheless this makes the competition much harder.
When it comes to AI I believe it will never replace human creativity but it can be a useful tool and addition to help in the design process and inspiration. That’s what I use it for. Also an OG has to keep up with the times.
Personally I find it difficult to challenge myself and bring new stuff to the wall. Of course your personal style keeps on developing and you try new stuff but I can count the times that I have been completely satisfied with my murals on one hand. Maybe it’s because I continue to set the bar high for myself.
9. What does street art mean to you?
Street art became such a huge part of my life, I can’t imagine a life without it. It gives me the opportunity to express myself by making storytelling murals all over the world and experience different cultures and meet a lot of people with the same passion. Making the world more beautiful with public art for everyone to enjoy. It’s a great lifestyle, sometimes hard work, sometimes a struggle but always satisfying.
Street Art, muralism and graffiti is by far the largest art movement on planet earth so I am glad I am a part of that.
10. Street Art Cities: thoughts, advice, feedback….
I think SAC is a good medium for artists to share their murals. It is also a great medium for street art lovers to walk around in a foreign city and by using the app discover the murals in that surroundings.
But in my opinion it’s the best for hunters and photographers to publish new shots of murals they made. A lot of hunters get more followers and likes on a posted mural than the artist’s itself. It’s funny how social media and algorithms work nowadays, or maybe I am just getting to old for this haha. Anyways, I think it should always be about the art, the craftsmanship and message, quality versus quantity. Don’t just post everything for the sake of posting, regardless of quality and content.
UPDATE DECEMBER 2025: first Gomad book is out → ORDER IT HERE:
“40 Years of GOMAD” celebrates the prolific career of Dutch street artist Marcus Debie (GOMAD), marking his artistic journey from 1985 to 2025 with an art book featuring graffiti, murals, and canvases, showcasing his pioneering role in the Southern Dutch graffiti scene and his evolution into a renowned muralist for businesses and public spaces. The milestone reflects four decades of vibrant urban art, from his early influences to large-scale international projects, highlighting a career built on color, detail, and storytelling.
If you like to discover Gomad’s work, head to his artist page or search for him on our website or in our app.
Street Art Cities is the world’s leading street art platform on a mission to promote and document all urban art in the world, thanks to our hunter community we’re active in more then 1500 cities and with over 85.000 artworks we’re one of the fastest growing street art platforms of the moment. We also assist our partner cities in their mission to promote their open air museum to our audience. Interested in our services, take a look at our page or send us a message.
He is such a nice guy!