The project does have its challenges. For artists crossing over into the mainstream commercial realm, growing pains come with the ever-expanding venues that accommodate their vision. “Because we had only built experiences like this for a gallery setting, one of the main things was that we didn’t think about TV and camera angles and what could and couldn’t be seen,” recalls Myla. “Fortunately, we worked with an amazing set designer, Tamlyn Wright, who helped us a lot after the initial design, adjusting the camera fit and placement of the presenters and presenters on and off the stage.”
The award show sets contained hints of their usual themes: cityscapes, characters that seemed ripped from classic cartoons or pulp art, and a playful, energetic edge spirit. Today, both Dabbs and Myra tend to be inspired by outside forces at the same time. Dabs was marking walls in the 1990s before attending art school, while Myla has spent most of her life with a paintbrush in hand. They spent much of their early years learning from each other. “I guess we don’t have separate influences anymore,” Myra said. “When we first met and started working together, we both had independent lifetime influences that we could share. But now we’ve been working together for thirteen years, and we’ve actually seen each other every day for those thirteen years. We’ve never been apart for a whole day…We can both see something in the museum that I love and inspire me, but it only takes a few minutes for me to turn to (Dabs) and point it out to him.”
Dabbs pointed to the recent show “The Unseen” as a practical example of how unexpected agents can enter their lives and change their jobs. The exhibition, held at the former TASCHEN Gallery in Beverly Grove, is about the invisible forces that surround us. There are a lot of physical objects at play, though. The work spans over six thousand square feet and includes an outdoor installation, twenty large-scale paintings, more than one hundred works on paper, handmade ceramics, and floral installations. Similar vases appear in works throughout the exhibition. “The inspiration came from a blue and white vase we bought while traveling
India a few years ago; “We bought it as a souvenir, but it ended up in our paintings,” Dabs said. “It evolved into completely different patterns and vases as we adapted them to our liking, but these vases are a big part of our recent work… You don’t always know where inspiration is going to come from.”
Recurring interest and perspective become the focus of the exhibition; “Panoramas are of particular importance in DABSMYLA’s work,” reads the diary. “Microscopic viewpoints are referenced within a larger perspective, creating interconnections between large and small paintings. Just as one unlocks a larger perspective when zooming out on a camera, one understands that an individual subject is actually just a tiny element that makes up a larger and recurring theme.”
However, the show also represented a unifying shift for the pair. “In this new body of work we hope to bring to life our subconscious ideas that we have spent the past two years exploring and depicting, expanding the scope of our universe,” Dabbs said.
“These larger-scale paintings are a new direction for us,” added Myra. “They explore the unseen forces, powers, and intangibles of the world around us. We place the new characters in realistic fantasy interior environments heavily influenced by desert and mid-century modern design.”
Prior to “Things That Can’t Be Seen,” 2015’s “Before and Future” was another high-profile moment for the duo since moving to Los Angeles in 2009. The 4,000-square-foot installation transforms a free-standing 1930 Spanish Revival-style office building located on the Modernica Furniture Factory campus. The 25-year-old furniture manufacturer Modernica was an ideal partner for the duo, a company that has existed in the past and present and emphasizes its hand-made processes. In addition to DABSMYLA’s paintings and sculptures, the project includes fiberglass shell chairs, ceramics, lighting installations and other unexpected artifacts from the duo’s hands. “We approached it by spending several days sitting in an empty building drawing, walking from room to room,” Dabbs recalls. “Because it’s a large space with a lot of different areas, we need to do all the initial conceptualization in the space so we can make sure each area relates to each other. We then take those plans back to the studio and refine them
Every experience. We spent about two weeks sketching and planning the space, and then spent eight weeks straight without any days off painting and making everything in the space. A big part of this installation was the experience of the two of us making it together for days on end. “
… We’ve been working together for thirteen years, in fact, we’ve seen each other every day for those thirteen years. We have never been apart for a whole day…
