The posse and I have tracked Dave for some time! He’s caused havoc in neighborhoods with his street art for some time now, painting on any and everything. Like our hero Jean Michel Basquiat, painting is not something done to Dave, it’s an activity, and it’s something you do.

Decked out with a game room, a radio station, and a remote control tire swing, David Choe’s Los Angeles warehouse studio is a testimony to the “bonus level” that he has reached in the art world. As a wildly popular and widely recognized international artist, Choe is also known for his reality TV show, the art he made while detained in a Japanese prison, and the mural he painted for Facebook, valued at over $200 million in Facebook shares. Inside his studio, the painter, muralist, and graffiti writer talks frankly with Alia about the new freedoms and challenges he’s facing at this new stage in his practice.