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DABS MYLA interview for lax/pdx show at together gallery – march 31st

LAX/PDX
Art installation from Dabs Myla
Group show featuring over 50 artists (see list of artists below)
@ together gallery
co-presented & curated by LA’s thinkspace gallery

March 31st – April 24th, 2011
Artist reception March 31st from 6pm – 11pm

NAME: DABSMYLA
AGE: DABS 32 and MYLA… well… a woman never reveals her age.
LOCATION: Los Angeles
WEBSITE: www.dabsmyla.com
BLOG: www.dabsmyla.wordpress.com
TURN ONS: Each other

* Please talk a lil’ bit about the general idea behind your new install for the upcoming LAX/PDX show opening march 31st at together gallery.
The piece we made for the LAX/PDX show is a new painting in a series of
work where we are trying something a little bit different to our previous
paintings. It’s still very much like what we do, but we have been
experimenting with new compositions and mixing it up a bit. We are really
trying to bring both of our styles even closer together. Over the 6 years
we have been working together we have gradually become more in sync with
our paintings, to a point where they finally really feel like its just one
person, now we are trying to take it a little further again. Building off
each others style to make one entity.
As for the installation, we are also trying something a little different.
When we do painted installations for shows we usually try to make it look
similar to our graffiti, with a twist. For this install we are going to
make it a bit more like one of our paintings, but simplified and on a much
bigger scale!.. its kinda hard to explain.. but you will see what we mean
when its up! (hopefully)

* You are both from LA? how’d ya meet? how’d you end up in there?
We are both originally from Melbourne Australia, but we have been living
here in LA for two years now.
And loving every moment of it.. except for the traffic maybe!
But its worth tolerating to live in such an amazing city.
We met each other in 2005 at art school, we were both studying
illustration there.
While at school, we fell in love and have been together every day since!
We traveled over here to the States about 4 or 5 years ago on vacation and
to see our good friend Logan Hicks, who was then living in LA. We feel in
love with the city, the weather and the general chaos!
So we made a decision to just pack up and head over and see what happens!
It was a real leap of faith! No idea what we would do here, and no visas
to work. We just found an apartment bought two desks and hit the ground
running!
Now we have artists visas.. we are legit!… so i think we will stay here as
long as we can.

* If you had an unlimited budget and time was not an issue, what grand
artistic vision would you look to bring to life?
Painting a whole city block, the outside of the buidlings, the lamp posts,
the post boxes, the inside walls of all the buildings, the ceilings, the
desks, the telephones, the EVERYTHING! Could you imagine it… an entire
DABS MYLA city block!!!!!!
* What’s an average day like for you?
Pretty boring actually. Except for days when we are outside painting
walls! Everyday we wake up around 8, eat oatmeal for breakfast(everyday!)
answer emails for a few minutes then sit at our desks and start painting.
We do that until about 11 or 12 each night, then go to bed and watch a
movie.
The end!!
Then we do the same again the next day.
When we say it like that it sounds kinda harsh, like we never do anything
except work, but we love it, we love to paint and we love each others
company so spending every day doing that is actually a dream come true!

* What do you consider your biggest overall influence?
It would most definitely be each other!

* I’ve notice some repeated imagery in your work, care to explain?
Sometimes we find ourselves with a certain character, and as soon as he or
she or it is made, we both just fall in love with it so much that i think
we always want to bring them back for another cameo because it made us
smile so much the first time around!

* how do you like collabing, do you only work together or also solo?
Could never imagine it any other way!
It can be a hard process collaborating with another person sometimes, but
when it works its the best ever!… and for us it always works.
We never argue or really disagree on anything.
We collaborate on pretty much everything we make. The only times when we
do our own thing is when we are painting graffiti letters. When you are
painting a piece of your name its kinda something that has to be done
solo!
* Do you listen to music while painting/drawing? If so, do you have a
current favorite that inspires?
We listen to a lot of music while we work. Like we said, we are at our
desks pretty much 15 hours a day, so the ipod gets thrashed!
At the moment i think our favourite albums would be Ween ‘all request
live’, Brian Wilson presents ‘Smile’ and the new Radiohead album ‘king of
limbs’.

* what are your thoughts on portland? portland art? have you seen portlandia?
No, we haven’t seen Portlandia? Andrew from Thinkspace Gallery sent us a
link to the first few episodes and told us we need to watch them. But we
haven’t had time this week to get around to it.
We are really looking forward to coming up there though. We don’t know much
about it, but we have heard so many great things from people.
And when the reviews are that hot… its gotta be great!

* coffee, tea, beer, whiskey, kombucha?
Non of the above!… water, water and more water!

* What drew you towards art making, who, what, where, when, why?
We are inspired by colour schemes, hand drawn typography, graffiti
letters, animation artists, illustrators, graffiti writers, Disneyland,
cities and landscapes, 1950′s pop culture… and more! All of this has
drawn us into making art from when we were kids and as we grow older and
learn more we love finding more things that we love and inspire us!
* Interests outside of art making?
It is very very rare when we are doing something that isn’t involved with
art or our work.
When we are not in the studio working, we are out painting walls.
And if we are not doing either of those, we are probably at an exhibition
somewhere. Even when we travel, 90% of the time we are there to paint or
for a show or to gather reference.
We do watch a lot of movies though!!.. so there’s that i guess.
And we love it at Disneyland!.. we try to go there whenever we have a day off!

*Do you make a living off art or what, how do you pay the bills?
We do live off our art. And feel very lucky for that!
We don’t live just from selling paintings though. We do a little bit of
commercial work through out the year. T shirt designs, murals and
installations for different companies and stuff like that. That definitely
helps keep us living comfortably between shows!

* What’s next? Summer plans? 5 year plans? next 5 minutes?
In the next 5 minutes we are going to finish up typing these answers and
our dinner should be ready. Take an hour away from painting and eat our
delicious meal and watch some old episodes of Lost.
This summer we will spend the majority of it with our heads down working
on the paintings for a solo show at Thinkspace Gallery in August.
We are putting 110% into this show, so won’t be room for us to do much more
than that for the next 5 months. But i’m sure we will get out a few times
to paint some graffiti!
We don’t really have a 5 year plan other than to do whatever we have to do
to be able to stay here in LA.