(See our latest Dabs Myla interview – January 2013 – here)

Moving to another city in order to pursue an artistic dream, let alone another country, is one of the biggest challenges any artist can face – and yet, collaborative duo Dabs Myla have not only overcome challenges in doing so, but have flourished within their adopted scene. In the past year since their move, they have further enamoured fans worldwide with their unique  artwork, and now, with their second solo show being presented at the Per Square Meter Gallery here in Melbourne, they are set to unleash the fruits of their artistic sojourn onto their home town.

Thankfully, they had some time to speak to us to give us a run down on what they’ve been up to of late, and let us know their how their invasion of Los Angeles has been progressing …

First and foremost – introductions time, can you tell us a little about yourselves and your backgrounds?

MYLA: We’re both from Melbourne, where we lived our entire lives! We met each other six years ago, back when we were both studying illustration. At the time, we were good friends, and then one thing lead to another and we fell in love. Once we finished studying, we started Per Square Metre Gallery and Studio with our friends from school, Sam and Bernie, and we were later joined by Dvate. Over the years that we were working at the studio, we started becoming in sync with our work, which is when we decided to start collaborating together. We really liked the collaborations a lot more than our solo work, so we wanted to focus solely on working together.

When we first moved into the Per Square, I’d never even used spray paint before, and I’d never even painted a piece, or anything. Dabs taught and guided me over the years, and when Dvate started working at Per Square Metre, I learnt the ropes from both of them. It was also a lot of fun when Dvate moved in because Dabs was painting with him a lot, and I’d often go down trackside with them when they were working.

Whilst we were at Per Square Metre, we took two trips to the USA, and spent a lot of time in Los Angeles. We had a good friend, Logan Hicks, who lived there at the time, and he introduced us to the city – and on our first trip we met some amazing illustrators, artists and graffiti writers including Greg “Craola” Simkins. Then, last, March we had our first solo exhibition at the gallery, which was also our farewell to Per Square Metre, and we then moved to Los Angeles. We’ve been in LA for almost a year now, and we just returned to Melbourne to have our second solo show at Per Square Metre, as well as to release our first book.

In regards to your move to Los Angeles, did past associations and friendships help the process of settling in? What were the biggest challenges you faced with the move?

MYLA: The hardest part about the move is that we never knew how long we could stay! It seemed almost impossible to gain a visa to stay in the US. While we were there we applied for our visas, but for most of the eleven months, we just weren’t sure if it the application would be successful. It was a really uneasy feeling, not knowing, and not being able to plan what we were going to be doing in the future. Thankfully, we found out at the end of January this year that we could stay!

DABS: It did help a lot, in moving to LA, that we’d been there a few times before. Having some good friends that we’d made on previous trips made settling in a lot easier, rather than just rocking up to a new country and knowing no one.

How would you describe the work that you do, and what are some of the common elements that you frequently use – and why?

DABS: I guess our work is a combination of both of our training as illustrators, as well as our influence from graffiti. Its kind of a meeting of photo-realistic renderings, with contemporary illustrated characters and a whole bunch of noise! Our paintings are definitely not graffiti art, but we both do graffiti as well. I mean, I’ve been painting walls for fourteen years, so even if we tried, I think it would be impossible not to have those graffiti elements come into our work. It’s such a big part of our life, so its bound to reflect in our paintings also.

Do you have any set processes by which you both work on your collaborations? Are there specific elements that either of you focus on, or is it more organic?

MYLA: When we start a painting, we usually spend a while drawing up the thumbnail sketches first, then Dabs starts drawing up the characters, in the meantime I find the references for the buildings, signs, et cetera. We then do a general layout of the composition and often transfer that on to wood. One of us starts their part and then we switch over. Most of the time we work on two paintings at once, so we both are working at the same time, but with the larger paintings, a lot of the time we both sit down and work on it together.

There’s always a point with every painting when we know we need to add more, so we sit down and try to work it out – usually the end of the painting is the hardest part for us.

On the old street vs gallery subject, do you find yourselves employing different methodologies as per above when approaching collaborations in the two environments?

DABS: We definitely approach the two in a similar way. When we do our paintings, and when we paint a wall together, we brainstorm together and come up with a concept and design idea. Then, we’ll both draw up different ideas and sketches, and slowly refine them into a finished drawing. That’s when we do a concept or collaborative wall, though – when we paint walls and are just doing letter work or pieces, then we both just run solo, like lone wolves. When we paint pieces and such is really the only time we really both work separately anymore.

Myla – I read recently that Dabs taught you how to paint about three years ago, you obviously must have already had a passion for the style previously as well as a background in art, but how did you find the transition to painting in an urban style?

MYLA: When I started high school I borrowed Street Art and Subway Art from the library, and I started copying some of the characters in sketchbooks, just drawing them on my pencil case in Poska pens. I always loved graffiti and I loved seeing it on the long train ride from Diamond Creek to Preston, where I went to school.

I remember talking to a girl at high school about the BZR pieces on the rooftops that you can see from the Hursty-Epping train line, and I never imagined that one day I’d be painting pieces and characters, but at the end of the day it all makes sense, I guess. I’ve always loved to draw and paint, so after Dabs and I started dating he encouraged me to paint pieces. He has been the best teacher ever! He’s my biggest inspiration. It was really hard for the first couple of years, I’m so critical of myself and I’d tend to get frustrated that my can control was crap, and that my pieces looked shit. It’s only been gelling and coming together for me over the past year, and I still have a long way to go.

Dabs – obviously she was a good student and already had the chops, but what were the most challenging aspects, and the fun parts, of bringing someone”up to speed” with the whole style and medium?

DABS: Man, I had a great time introducing Myla to graff! I’d never really brought some one into it from scratch like that, so it had to be a really in-depth introduction. Before I even started on the painting side of things, I spent a lot of time with her back-tracking through the history and pretty much everything that I knew about graff at that time – especially in regards to the Melbourne scene. We were going through old flicks a lot, and all the while I was explaining the what’s what of the graff world – what makes a good style, bombing, walls, productions, anything and everything. I was trying to ingrain a sense of the Melbourne style to her, but also let her be free to develop her own unique style, without being too influenced.

So, how do you two stop from killing each other when you’re working together so often? ;)

MYLA: Ha! That’s funny! The truth is we never argue or fight – we honestly have the best time working together and totally enjoy each others company. Sometimes we get tired of working long hours on our work, so we take a break and go do something fun.

Can you tell us about your recent collaborations with other LA artists since you’ve been over there and can you share any stories you might have?

DABS: Over the last year of living in the States, we’ve been lucky enough to meet and work with so many amazing artists. To move to a new country, and meet a lot of people who we get along with so well, and can hang out with, and who also do the same things we do is
amazing. If those people also happen to be the likes of like Rime, Greg Simkins, Tyke and Persue, who are all big time super stars, then, shit, that’s even cooler! These guys are all at the top of their game at the moment, and having worked with all of them over the past year, we’ve learnt a lot.

Can you tell us a little about the book you are releasing – Super Smooth”? How did it come about and what did you want to ensure you covered within its pages, in order to fully represent your work as artists?

MYLA: Along with our friend Jonas from Final Outline and Revolver Upstairs, we’ll releasing our first book ‘Super Smooth’ at Revolver Upstairs. There are only a hundred available for this first edition, and the first fifty books will come with a limited edition Burn T-shirt that we designed – plus, all the books will be signed and have something hand drawn in them by us.

Jonas really made the book possible – he put it all together in the last few weeks we were in LA, before we came back to Melbourne for our trip. The entire book is pretty much based on the time we’ve spent in LA so far, the paintings we have made, the walls we have painted, celebrities we have seen and good times that we have had!

Back on your whole Per Square Metre experience here in Melbourne, can you tell me a little about your experiences running the gallery? Do you have any plans to get involved in working with any gallery spaces in LA?

MYLA: The three years that we co-ran Per Square Metre gallery were so much fun. We met some awesome artists, and had some really great times. If we had never have run a gallery, it would be a lot harder to understand the operations of galleries in general, which has definitely helped us exhibit in the States. Running a gallery is a lot of hard work, there are so many things to organize and be on top of, then add being an artist to the mix, as well as organising other artists – well, it gets pretty hard. To be honest, we are happy just working as artists for now.

What are you views on the more commercial aspect of street/urban art, do you believe the recent explosion in interest in the last decade of the style in a more commercial format is a positive thing, or a detrimental thing to, what essential used to be, an underground movement?

DABS: That’s a tricky one to answer. In one sense, I do think it is kind of detrimental to the whole graffiti movement. When I was a teenager in the 90’s, doing graffiti, it was still relatively underground. People didn’t like it, and apart from people who where doing it no one else really understood it. There’s something really nice about that? It was for us, and no one else! Yet now its so accepted – everyone’s an expert, and everyone wants a piece of it. From all that though, a lot of positive aspects have emerged – for example, a lot of hard working writers can now catch fame on a much higher level, from all kinds of people! There are some really great opportunities becoming available to them, and everyone likes to be paid for what they are good at! Nowadays, all those talented artists can be rewarded, either from big commercial jobs, or just for being mad writers. So I guess like everything, there’s always going to be a good side, as well as a bad side to the whole thing.

So, to finish off, what are you both looking forward to about your return visit to Oz, and the exhibition you’re putting on whilst you are here?

DABS: We are both really looking forward to coming back home to see all our friends and families, that’s the main thing! We’re looking forward to getting out and reclaiming some spots around Melbourne too. It’s great to be painting with the guys from our crew again, because its been way too long! Then there’s the usual things – good fresh air, Cadbury chocolate, some Bundaburg ginger beer and seeing the Hawks smash the Demons in the first round at the MCG, but, well … maybe Myla doesn’t really give a shit about that one!

Dabs Myla will be holding both their second solo exhibition, Hollywood & Western at Per Square Meter, as well as their Super Smooth book launch at Revolver Upstairs in early April 2010 – make sure you get along to both and support them in their endeavours!