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An accomplished graffiti writer and well-

known artist who’d collaborated with staple

Aussie brands such as Insight, Something,

and Tsubi, Dmote cut his artistic teeth in subway

stations and abandoned buildings, and such a

scene, no surprise, doesn’t exist in Orange

County. While graffiti was never his only

endeavor, it was, for years, his primary one, but

things as of late have changed. “If you ask other

artists if I still do graffiti, they’d probably tell you

I’m retired,” he says. “I just don’t have the time. I

tag when I travel, but I don’t have the time to do

a piece, because that takes like 10 hours, and I

could be painting or I could be doing my job.” His

job as an art director at RVCA is his greatest

current opportunity, and also what lured him to

the Northern hemisphere. It’s his first full-time

office job in years, but he’s loving it. “It’s such a

challenge that I’m kind of just living the job,”

Dmote says. “I don’t generally leave before nine

o’clock at night, and it’s not uncommon to find

me there at midnight.” And while these generally

aren’t words you look forward to hearing out of

an artist’s mouth, RVCA is far from an average

company, and Dmote sees it as a progression,

rather than abandonment, of the things—

painting, fashion, misconduct—that he loves. “I

was in New York on holiday and Pat [Rvca

founder Pat Tenore] said ‘Why don’t you fly out

here and talk about it?’” he recalls. “And I got

there, and the guy’s just crazy. I mean, not crazy,

but just super-generous, like a kid who collects

art who also runs this clothing company. So

there were no meetings, no talk about jobs or

work, we just hung out and went to dinner and

went to lunch, and I did some painting and then

I went home.” A couple of month’s later, RVCA

asked him to do some prints, and when Dmote

asked for instructions, they told him not to worry

about that, just do whatever he wanted.

Whatever he wanted turned out to be something

that they liked. “Pat was always jokingly like,

‘Why don’t you come and work for us?’ but at

the time, I wasn’t really in a position to leave

Australia,” he says. “But then at the beginning of

the year, that situation changed. So when I

called him up to ask if he was still serious about

that job, he said to come over and start working.

Then when I got there, they were just like, ‘Aw,

start working.’ And I was like, ‘Ok, on what?’ so I

just did some in store murals and installations

and slowly transitioned.” And as unusual a

formula as RVCA is, it’s also highly successful

and growing quickly. As an art director, it falls on

Dmote’s shoulders to keep RVCA’s artists, such

as Ed Templeton and Barry McGee, happy while

still making sure the company sells enough

T-shirts for them to all keep their jobs. He’s still

figuring things out as he goes along, but doing a

bang-up job of it. “Dmote and I had mutual

friends, and I always admired his work,” RVCA

founder Tenore explains. “He’s very talented and

can go from street art to fashion to fine art to

paper and ink to computer seamlessly and

without compromising design integrity. It sounds

easy, but it’s a rare trait amongst art directors,”

he continues. “He’s paid his dues on and off the

streets and it shows in his style and work ethic.”

Dmote paid his dues on the streets with spray

cans, not paste and paper, and though only 36,

his roots in graffiti trace back to the eighties and

a preference for cement over sand. “The first

thing I ever remember seeing about graffiti was

in a story on 60 Minutes about breaking,” he

recalls. “It was about this group called the Floor

Lords from the Lower East Side [in New York]

and there was graffiti in the background. After

that, the Rock Steady Crew came out with

“Uprock” and the whole album cover was graffiti

art. My whole interest in doing it started because

no one else around me really did it and I hadn’t

really seen it.” At 15, he moved from rural

Australia to Sydney and in an urban environment,

his interest flourished. “I guess I was a kind of a

bad kid to start with, and an artist,” he says, “so

illegal art was pretty exciting.” In the city, Dmote

lived with his dad, a single, 35-year-old guy who

disappeared most nights and left him to roam as

he wished through drains and train yards. “His

philosophy was that when you’re that age, you

could do what you wanted. Which is probably

not the best philosophy, but it made me who I

am today.” Sometimes people open up during

interviews: They’re busy or stressed, and haven’t

gotten a chance to just sit and talk in a long time.

eight months into his stint as a working man in the good ole U.s. of a, dmote has embraced some aspects of american cUltUre bUt finds himself thoroUghly flUmmoxed by others. in orange coUnty, home of disneyland, he drives a classic 1969 dodge dart to work, bUt is for the most part appalled with a cUltUre that spawned the o.c. “sixteen-year-old girls are getting breast implants for their birthdays!” he says, incredUloUsly. “and for christmas! it’s common and it’s totally accepted.” bUt aside from the prevalence of plastic sUrgery, he actUally has few complaints aboUt transitioning to the states from sydney. “i miss the beach, and rain woUld be nice every now and again,” he mUses, “bUt the opportUnities here far oUtweigh that.”

he’s paid his dUes on and off the streets and it shows in his style and work ethic - pat tenore

He says that Dictaphones make him nervous,

but refuses an offer to hide it under a napkin,

and when asked, halfway through, what his

real name his, he considers for a few moments

whether or not he wants it in the story, then

writes out Shannon Peel in block letters. He

tells me that he was chastised by his friends in

New York, the legendary graffiti writers The Tats

Cru, for always introducing himself as Shannon.

“They were like ‘Who’s Shannon? Introduce

yourself as Dmote. No one knows who Shannon

is.’” But quickly humble about being humble, he

adds “But I have an ego as well, don’t get me

wrong about that.” Shannon Peel began to really

build Dmote’s name shortly after he finished art

school, and out of frustration with working, left

Australia to spend a few months traveling.

Through loose connections in the graffiti world,

he and Kasino, another artist from Australia

found free places to stay and eventually also

found themselves in post-war Bosnia. “We met a

famous train writer from Dortmund named

Shark, and it was his idea to go to Munich and

catch an illegal workers bus to Croatia, and then

go down along the coast to Bosnia,” he recalls.

“I was like, ‘You must be out of your mind.’ Then

I got to think that if I don’t go I’m going to miss the

most amazing experience of my life, live or die.”

They hired a car to drive across the border, and

once in Sarajevo, slept on the street amidst the

land mines and peacekeeping troops, and in

their waking hours, painted. “We ended up

painting on Sniper Alley,” he says, referring to a

main boulevard that was notorious for being

lined with Serbian guns. “We painted trains on

the main central station in Sarajevo, and all of a

sudden, a dude comes along herding goats. It

was just the most bizarre experience.” And

while Dmote’s day to day involvement in graffiti

may be waning, his love for it, and respect for

the lifestyle that surrounds it, isn’t, and he seems

awed at the experiences it has offered him “You

go to places at night and you go to places where

tourists don’t usually go. You go to the bad areas

with the right people,” he says, “That’s the

benefit. When I go to New York, I stay with the

Tats Cru in the South Bronx, and it just blows my

mind. Bio [one of Tats Cru’s most prominent

members] is from the Bronx River Projects where

Afrika Bambaataa grew up, and he was at those

parties when he was 10 years old. And we’ve

just kind of become family, and everything I’ve

ever wanted to achieve in terms of graffiti,

meeting the people that I’ve met and painting

subways in New York, has been possible

because of them. Every time that I’ve painted a

subway in New York, just the adrenaline and the

smell of the subway system and just being in

there, it just completely takes over your body

and you’re totally consumed by it. To walk out of

a downtown underground subway station and

disappear into a sea of peak hour people after

painting trains is something I’ll never forget.” It’s

no accident that Dmote has aligned himself with

old school traditionalists such as the Tats Cru

over the current proliferation of street artists. “I

don’t think the person who does graffiti is the

same person who does street art, ie pasting up

a poster,” he says. “I see that as a real college art

thing, where a graffiti artist tends to be more of a

hardened character and more in touch with what

is actually going on in the streets. I’m not a huge

fan of street art anymore. I have done it, but that

was before it became the stencil revolution or

was coined street art. Then it just kind of

annoyed me.” The respect that he exhibits for a

rougher, more authentic expression isn’t one-

sided, and, when speaking of him, Tats Cru are

enthusiastic and prolific. “Being one of the

earliest writers from Sydney/Australia, Dmote

has left a great piece of Aussie history within the

mural scene, as well in the train scene,” How

from the Tats Cru says. “He’s one of the few

outstanding Aussie writers who also made it to

worldwide fame, and gained great respect, and he

still is active in that way, even though he went on to

take it to different levels as a designer and artist.”

“Graffiti is what connected us initially, but his

personality is what’s kept us in touch,” adds Tats

Cru’s Nosm. “He’s a very straight-forward and

honest person. He says what’s on his mind,

whether good or bad, and that’s why I respect him

and consider him one of my best friends.” “We are

not easy people, or surrounded by many friends,”

How explains. “But the ones we have around us,

we can rely on and trust. Dmote is one of those

who we appreciate as a friend. In New York,” How

finishes, “we call that being real.”

As of late, Dmote is navigating a transition into

fine art, and still working out where Shannon

Peel ends, Dmote begins, and vice-versa. It’s a

question that is likely to pop up more and more

as his career in the States progresses. He’s

taken to painting on antique book covers, a

project that evolved, he explains with an eye-roll,

out of never having a studio and having to paint

small. They’ve been well-received though, so

he’s going with it. “It just kind of came out of

people wanting to buy them, and I’d always

found it kind of hard to sell art before, especially

in Australia. And because I always change—

which is great in graphic design but doesn’t help

your art career—I wanted to keep something

consistent going so people can kind of recognize

that. “I’m kind of settling in to what I want to do

now, which is abstract and realistic painting, so

I’m just working it out,” he says. It’s clear that,

when he talks about his personal work, this is

still what excites him the most, even amidst the

challenges of his job. As he’s made a career out

of being a commercial artist, he seems justly

determined to now set aside bits of his work for

himself. “The other day, someone asked me

about my skull paintings on the book covers,

and said, ‘Oh, they’d make a great swingtag,’” he

recalls, “But that’s not really how I want to see

that stuff. We can work out another swingtag.”

When I ask Dmote if he thinks he’ll head back to

Australia once his gig with RVCA has run its

course, he says mysteriously “That’s what

immigration wants to think. I don’t know. I came

here to enhance my career, because I was kind

of running out of companies to work for in

Sydney. And there are so many amazing artists

here in California, that every day I’m like ‘wow, I

want to do better.’ But,” he continues, “in Sydney

it’s amazing how much people accept you once

you come here and then go back. I’m looking

forward to that day. And now that I’ve had one

full time job, I might be able to have another.”

in other interviews, people avoid the qUestions as if they were pee-tainted water balloons, and verbally scramble to get oUt of the way. dmote doesn’t dodge, bUt he’s not going to Use this as a therapy session either

www.Dmote.com

he’s a very straight-forward and honest person. he says what’s on his mind, whether good or bad. - nosm