About Paddy Amsterdam

1980’s

The story of Paddy Amsterdam goes all the way back to the 1980s. That’s where my creative life began – with a passion for tagging, graffiti and hip-hop music in Amsterdam.

Back then, the city was alive with street art; you’d see young artists leaving their mark everywhere – walls, metro’s, trams, tunnels, buildings – each tag a statement of belonging and self-expression. I was drawing letters 24/7, over and over again on any scrap of paper I could find. And yes, I also took some walls, buses, metro’s, trams, tunnels and buildings. Sorry for that.

At the same time I was occasionally taking pictures of graffiti with an old school simple analogue camera. It had ZERO camera setting options, so I could only pray for the final result to be OK. After days of patience, the photo’s were finally ready. Unfortunately, I lost those photo’s with legendary pieces of Amsterdam’s street art. I was probably thinking ‘why keeping photo’s that just depicture daily life? ‘. I was wrong obviously!

1990’s

In the 1990s and early 2000s, my creative journey shifted to a career as a professional chef in Amsterdam, combined with a decade as a semi-pro house | trance | techno DJ ‘Patrick B’, mainly performing in Amsterdam and a handfull of other places like Leeuwarden, Arnhem and Nijmegen.

When 80-100 of my very best records got stolen in 2000, after I left a gig at one of the spaces inside the Olympic Stadium, I stepped away from DJ’ing. It was devistating in itself, moreover as I was realising with a full time job as a chef, the always late hours, I had to make a hard decision.

2000’s 

I studied Marketing, Sales and Business, obtained a bachelor and masters degree, and have been working in this field since 2006. Next to using hard skills in business, I have been able to add creative ideas into marketing campagnes, product development, concepts, branding strategies, websites and visuals, sales tactics and more.

I casually started photography in 2015 but really took a leap when I moved into digital photo art in 2023 – initially on my iPhone – with the same creative drive I’ve always had. My artworks blend influences from my past, my life experiences and endless ideas.