Kaspar van Leek (1983, Philipsburg St. Maarten) en Niels van Swaemen (1981, Eindhoven) are the founders of Studio Giftig, an urban artist duo based in the Netherlands. They specialize in photorealistic paintings and murals, often with a surrealistic twist. Each work they make is unique, because they photograph their own models which they use for their paintings.
Kaspar and Niels met in 2007, when both of them were already active in street art for some time. From 2007 the first collaboration projects were picked up and a vacant warehouse served as base for their studio. Within this warehouse there was a storage room for toxic substances and chemicals, where they kept their paint and spray cans. The name Studio Giftig refers to this storage room (because giftig is the Dutch translation of Toxic).
In 2012 the duo decided to fully devote themselves to murals. The creative school Sint Lucas in Boxtel wanted to show on the outside of the building that it's all about creativity, technology and craftsmanship. Studio Giftig created this with symbolic streams.