Concrete jungle: How street artist Dared brightens up Berlin

Photo: Makar Artemev If you’ve ever spotted a French bulldog, a fox or a bat on the side of a Berlin building, chances are you’re looking at Dared’s work. The street artist has created a cast of furry friends that recur across Berlin, pasted up on walls across town. I certainly don’t make a living from this. Rather, it makes a living from me, because I sacrifice everything to keep it alive. The French bulldog was Dared’s first character, inspired by his friend’s charismatic dog Phatty. Dared’s cartoon Phatty was given similar human-like attributes: he is cosy, sporty, likes to dress up – a little bit like a Berliner, he says. “I practically grew into a street artist with Phatty’s figure. For the first three years, I only kept developing him. That’s the reason you can see more of him than the others,” explains Dared.  Even though he made his name through his paste-ups, Dared originally started his street art career as a teenage graffiti artist, leaving his mark on the grey walls of Marzahn, where he grew up. “I was a skinny kid and didn’t belong to any of the graffiti groups, I kept to myself and went out...