Dr. Dax returns to graffiti paradise

Legendary graffiti artist Dr. Dax got his start guerrilla spray-painting freight trains in Atlanta back in 1985. Only 9 years old at the time, he had recently moved from the dense swamplands of South Florida, an environment that couldn’t have been more different than the vast urban sprawl of Georgia’s capital. Yet, there in the concrete and railroad jungle of Atlanta, Dr. Dax found a playground of inspiration.

“I came from the Everglades, where there are things that are actually scary — like alligators,” joked Dr. Dax about trespassing on rail yards by himself when he was still in the single digits to tag train cars. “I think it gives you skin for life, when you’ve been doing graffiti from 9 years old. I’ll go to shantytowns in Jamaica, to the jungles and I don’t have that fear. I think it started in the Everglades.”

Today, Dr. Dax is a globetrotting world-class art star regularly painting new murals and exhibiting works in Los Angeles, Miami and Paris. This month, Dr. Dax returns to Atlanta in a homecoming of sorts at ABV’s new East Atlanta Village gallery. 

This genuine graffiti maestro has brought his street art into the gallery world with a groundbreaking exhibition titled The Other Side of Paradise. The name serves as a tribute to the artist’s mother and her home in the Everglades, where he spent his childhood and where he created all the work on display in this exhibition.

“This was right after Art Basel, and I was having a hard time staying on my path,” recalled Dr. Dax. “People wanted me to travel with them, but I knew that my path was to go to my mother, spend time with her and make the paintings.”

With a shaved head and a body covered in tattoos, Dr. Dax, born Dax Rudnak, doesn’t look like the type to spend a lot of time with his mother. Yet that’s exactly what he did after leaving Miami Beach in 2022, “retreating” to his mother’s house near Naples, Florida, to do something he hadn’t done in years: make new work for himself.

Using only leftover and discarded materials he collected during Art Basel — half-dead markers, old paints and oil sticks — and working outside in his mother’s backyard (even in the rain), Dr. Dax began what evolved into a three-year art project. He returned each winter during his slow season to make more visual pieces in the home where he spent his earliest, formative years. The result is a breathtaking solo show of all-new, never-before-seen works.

Upon entering ABV and seeing The Other Side of Paradise, what immediately greets the viewer is a brightly colored array of original graffiti paintings. In these works, the usual ostentation of the tagger-style lettering is completely transformed into organic shapes and phrases so fluid and flowing that they evoke a carefully manicured graffiti jungle of juicy lettered fruit. The bold use of sugary, candy-like colors only makes the paintings more appetizing, almost to the point of hypnotism. Dr. Dax describes them as “tasty,” akin to cotton candy for the eyes.

Yet, in true street art fashion, these paintings allude to something deeper, usually short phrases, or what Dr. Dax calls “silent” or “sacred reminders” that rattled in the artist’s head or helped him through a hard time. 

“They’re like prayers, like people counting beads on a rosary,” said Dr. Dax. The arrangement of the paintings illustrates the narrative of his life and struggles over the last three years, tying together “like tracks on an album” to create one whole piece. 

“I think things like graffiti only look good on trains, and that’s the aesthetic. And to bring it in here, I started breaking a lot of rules, which is very liberating because for graffiti to be graffiti, there are a lot of boundaries.”

Examples of broken boundaries include misplaced drop shadows, which usually lend the lettering more depth but look disorienting when mislaid, and allowing some letters to go “berserk,” moving in all directions. The resulting impact is a pleasant puzzle that inspires a closer look. While strange to the naked eye, the subtle “wrongness” or dream logic cultivated into the series effectively evokes paradise and all its otherworldly fecundities.

Dr. Dax understands how to break boundaries because he helped set many of them in mid-1980s Atlanta, practicing mostly on freight trains. 

“[That] was my school — or my self-schooling,” he said. “I wasn’t very good, just like anyone when they start. So I felt like painting on trains, no one would ever probably see them again. Yeah, that was not true and this became a huge movement.”

To put this local icon’s impact into perspective, this was at least five years before the now world-famous Banksy had even started as a graffiti artist. “We were paving the road, like the foundation for this,” said Dr. Dax. “We were making lots of mistakes and getting into a lot of trouble and even getting physically hurt doing this. But we figured out how to do it the right way. And since then it’s just grown.”  

The Other Side of Paradise will also feature Dr. Dax’s first large-scale, hand-printed sculptures that embody his signature style and icons. “We always try to have a few ‘wow’ moments every time we do any type of show at ABV,” said Greg Mike, the ABV Gallery’s founder and curator. A respected street artist in his own right, Mike has known Dr. Dax for nearly 20 years and hoped to exhibit his works for a long time. “Anyone who’s come out to the new space knows there’s going to be some elements of surprise and discovery.”

One of those surprising elements will be a fresh Dr. Dax mural on the back wall of the gallery, a “tradition for solo shows at ABV,” said Mike. The new mural is reminiscent of the colorful paintings inside but on a grander scale. “I made this like the ending of the story,” said Dr. Dax. “It’s got the same energy as what I was doing, but it says ‘East ATL’ because this is a neighborhood that a piece of my heart lies in. I did the first murals here back in the ’90s on the side of Grand Central when this neighborhood was boarded up.”

There will also be a large art installation that features some of Dr. Dax’s past in never-before-seen archival photos, stretching all the way back to his early days pioneering freehand street art. 

To gather these images, Mike and Dr. Dax sifted through thousands of his personal photos to help illustrate his evolution as an artist. In the installation are images of the artist’s early work (on what is now the Adult Swim building, for instance) as well as shots of Dr. Dax with famous Atlantans such as Goodie Mob, CeeLo Green (solo) and the hip-hop kingmakers of the Dungeon Family, of which Dr. Dax became a member. He was featured in their music videos and even traveled the world with the group while on tour.

“I’ve lived like a quadruple life,” laughed Dr. Dax. Not limited to graffiti, he has also become a part of the hip-hop, punk, skateboard and art scenes thanks to his work ethic, talent and earnestness.

 “My brain sparked with graffiti. I didn’t think I could love it any more,” said Dr. Dax. “I’m getting a little older and almost wish I didn’t love it so much because it’s kind of crazy to do it the rest of my life.”

The Other Side of Paradise offers a wonderful opportunity to see so much Dr. Dax art under one roof. Being surrounded by his work is like walking through an artist’s clever self-portrait in which, instead of seeing Dr. Dax’s face, we are offered a glimpse into his mind and storied past in beautiful fragments of graffiti.

The Other Side of Paradise will open at ABV Gallery on Saturday, May 3 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and will remain on view through Sunday, June 8, 2025.

::

Jeff Dingler is an Atlanta-based author and entertainer. A graduate of Skidmore College with an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University, he’s written for New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Tiny Love, Newsweek, WIRED, Salmagundi and Flash Fiction Magazine. More information at jeffdingler.org.