- Wooden Toy Features -

INTERVIEW WITH MISO (FROM EDITION 5 - 2008) // Interview by Chris Meyer

Miso entered our studio with a sheepish smile, a laid back mate and a giant 'Ghostpatrol' stuffed toy that was damn near bigger (and louder) than her. Quite the entrance.

To be brutally, and somewhat embarrassingly, honest I pictured Miso to be a tiny Asian girl. Let's just say that when she didn't arrive in a bowl I was somewhat disappointed. Now this has absolutely nothing to do with her or her incredibly soft and emotive artwork; no, more than likely it derives from my unrelated obsession with Japanese cuisine and a rapidly closing mind.

So, that out of the way, the real Miso is actually a tiny Ukranian girl - which if, by any chance at all, you are still clinging to some faint beam of misguided hope, is just a few letters from 'asian' - but alas, vastly different.

Miso is endearingly softly spoken with a slight verbal accompaniment (read:accent) faintly audible. And although it was a little hard to get the full message through her soft, and dare we say somewhat soothing, Russian undertoned voice without looking like we were coming on to her by sitting far too close (sorry Ghosty!). What we did manage to get from her was that she she was down with doing some art and dropping a few words for this issue, and we were understandably chuffed. These words and artwork are what unfolded:

Ok. We'll kick off with a bit of background..let's clear this up, what is your family heritage? (Miso) I was born in a big, gloomy city in the USSR and lived there for most of my childhood, after the union collapsed. There isn’t much of a family heritage because the wars and famines ended up crudely killing most of it off, so there isn’t much to talk about.

How have family and location influenced your artwork over the years? Being in Melbourne has been pretty central to everything. Right place at the right time. I guess there’s no way I’d be doing anything I’m doing now if it wasn’t for getting involved with street art when it started to happen and meeting the people like HaHa and all the Blender guys, Skeleton Suit and Ghostpatrol that inspired me to think about it more seriously.

Speaking of years - how long have you been doing this for? It’s been four or five years since I started working on the streets and began thinking more about drawing, though it’s something I’ve only really began taking seriously in the last year or two, doing shows and touring and getting up more than ever. Things have happened so fast, and even though it gets hard, it’s nice to have this pressure and motivation to keep up, even if it means never, ever having time for rest.
It’s taught me the importance and pleasure of being a thinking, questioning human being with not only opinions, but also the sense that I have the power to act on them. Also in what you can do for others, inspiring people to do the same, either in terms of creating art themselves or thinking, actively engaging with their surroundings, considering new ideas.
What’s still to learn is a harder question. I guess how to keep my hands off other people’s walls.

What makes your position as a female artist different? Working as a female artist is a strange dialect between having to play it really tough, having to work a lot harder to prove yourself, and having a lot of great opportunities or attention that come with it. It’s a weird balance between feeling like you have it too easy and at the same time, way too hard.

How is your work / technique as a female artist different to that of the male species? Even though being female is likely to resonate and permeate my work, which is a rather nice idea, I try to make art which isn’t overtly ‘female’, in the way that a lot of other female artists and graffers do. I really admire Swoon in that respect, because her work is so dignified and strong, and though she doesn’t make a point of being female, her work still reflects that in a really subtle way.

Which other female artists have you worked with - how do you find the dynamic working with other females as opposed to solo or with males? It’s a really neat dynamic, though I never get to do it much and tend to shy away from the handful of token events reserved for female artists, just because I don’t want to be restricted to being just that. Painting for Curvy this year with some of my favourites, like Fafi and Pets was neat, just because it’s not often you meet a whole bunch of female artists that are really inspired by and are good at what they do. I guess the only difference between painting with males and females is just that it’s rare to meet another girl, let alone a good few, going through what you are, and making it in a male scene, and that’s a really good thing to bond over.

How do you see the melbourne art scene... Neat communities of lovely people doing pretty amazing things. The best thing is that everyone pushes each other to new things and seem really excited and motivated by it – especially in street art, graffiti and illustration circles, but in any practice really. It’s great to get exposed to new things and possibilities – I’ve ended up making laser cuts and engraving into wood in the last few weeks!

Laser hey! What mediums do you usually work in when not using lasers? For the last while, paper, pen and watercolour drawings, on and off the streets. I really like working on wood and painting with cans, but somehow paper and pen drawings always seem to fit really comfortably with all the things I want to draw and the detail I want to achieve.
It’s just such a beautiful aesthetic that I feel is also being a bit left out with kids and their vectors. I’m getting a lot more into print making [screens and linoleum cuts], and would really like to do engravings and etchings at some stage.

Why choose to do a lot of your work in public places? What's in it for you? It comes down to wanting to share your drawings and artwork with people that otherwise wouldn’t see it. I rather give it away, instead of selling it and engaging in art as the commodity that it can be. It also ends up being really central in feeling genuine in your intent as an artist – really taking what you have to say as far as you can, to as many people, which showing in a gallery and selling to one person ends up restricting.
Lately, it’s been a really nice balance to doing exhibitions and touring – for every piece I sell, I make sure to do at least one on the streets.

Is there an underlying theme to your work - deliberate or that others have noticed in your work? Every piece has it’s own intent and ideas – but at the bottom of everything, I want to make art that’s beautiful and makes the world or the person better for having seen it, even if it’s temporary [as street art often is]. So much of contemporary art is concerned with ‘unsettling notions’ or ‘destroying comforts’ for really superficial and empty reasons, and so much of it has alienated people from engaging in this esoteric rubbish that is made for a particular ‘enlightened’ audience, that it’s nice to make art which engages people and reflects some kind of beauty or inspires interest in the world. That’s why doing work on the streets is such an important part of my work.

You seem to work with Ghostpatrol often. Where does he fit in? Kind of everywhere. It’s really great to have someone with whom you can share and experience everything with on the same level, especially in terms of being artists, pushing each other to progress and onto new things, and helping each other out.

Explain your dynamic together... In one sense, I think that we try to separate ourselves and do distinct things and projects, and challenge ourselves as artists on our own, but also help each other out with honest criticism and thoughts, just because it’s so easy to fall into ‘misoghostpatrol’ mode and go crazy with collaborations and shows. In the other sense, being artists in our own right and helping each other makes the ‘misoghostpatrol’ thing work even better, so I think that we’ve found a nice balance.

Is this a great love story? You bet.

Does any of your characters /personal life show through in your work? I’m not sure if I want to admit it, but they do. Most characters end up being based on myself or friends, either very directly or very loosely, because they’re always there, but mostly just as reference images to manipulate. Works end up as journal entries too, in that they’re always reactions to everything that’s going on. In that sense, my drawings usually end up being young females, though that’s also a really conscious part of my work – in the sense that, like most female street artists, in my own depictions of women, I’m actively changing the way I want them to be seen and worth in graffiti, and by other{male} graffiti artists, both as artists and figures.

Where/what have you studied? Going to art school is, I believe, probably the single stupidest thing an artist can do. Right now I’m studying philosophy, art history, languages and international politics at Melbourne University.

Does art pay the bills? I’ve been really lucky in the last year or so to be doing art full time and paying my bills and traveling with it, which I never thought I’d be doing at nineteen.

www.cityofreubens.com