Boris Hoppek (born 1970, in Kreuztal) is a German contemporary artist based in Barcelona. His artistic roots lie in graffiti, but today his work spans painting, photography, video, sculpture and installation art. His work has been used in advertising campaigns as well.
Hoppek's trademark is a symmetric oval, which appears in most of his work either alone or in a constellation of three, thus forming a face. He is the creator of The C'Mons, a fictional rock band at the centre of a viral marketing campaign for the fourth-generation Opel Corsa car. In 2010 he was named as one of the leading figures in urban art by Patrick Nguyen in his book Beyond the Street.
In his own words:
Boris Hoppek is the son of Horst and Heidi Hoppek. He was born 1970 in Kreuztal, a little village in Germany were he mostly never visited school. As a Hippy-Community Baby he tried his first weed and attended parties, festivals and concerts before he could walk. Later, as a Second-Generation Hippie, he lived in the forest, hunting animals and building things.
Then, at the age of 11, he shocked his Hippy Family with his first computer, a Commodore VC20, at a time when most people didn't know what a Computer was. Sometime between this and that he found a Bukowski book in his grandparents' bookshelf.
After school Boris trained as a Technical Tracer in a factory, mostly by reading books and drawing in the toilet. Meanwhile, he started with Graffiti in 1990 and just in 1994 with Girls.
And for over 10 years he was too stupid to follow correctly the registration orders of the German Military. It took him several years to recover from school and find back to what he is best at.
Now he mostly refuses to communicate.