Saber, the legendary Los Angeles graffiti artist who made global news in 1997 for painting the world's largest graffiti piece on side of the LA River (the size of a football pitch, it took 97 gallons of paint and 35 consecutive nights work), unveiled his first London show this month. Aggressive and honest, his work has evolved from the raw elements of graffiti into sculptures and abstract pieces, an innate, emotional style that draws on 18 years of destructive experience. In the UK with Upper Playground and his crews AWR/MSK, Seventh Letter, the star of Doug Pray's Infamy movie talks openly about his work.

Dazed Digital: Let's start with your recent Close Encounters show at White Walls Gallery in San Francisco.
Saber: The paintings are based on photographs of police helicopters above my house that are there every single hour of the day. I realised that when I took a picture at a certain exposure it really looked like a UFO. And it is a close encounter because the LAPD will abduct your ass! That was my first solo show after all these years.
DD: Then you went on a Scion painting tour?
S: I drove with David Choe and RETNA from San Diego to New Orleans. It was crazy to see the aftermath of Katrina, extremely depressing. It's about working together to push the culture forward and create a better perspective. It's been a long road. The word "graffiti" has terrible connotations. Coming from Los Angeles there is a certain violence and struggle attached to it. Europe has a more relaxed point of view. It's more accepting to put graffiti into an art category.
DD: What about London and our artists?
S: It's a very sophisticated city. Everybody is very on top of their game and on top of their conversation. There are a lot of original writers here that put in significant work back in the day but got overlooked because the scene was way ahead of its time.
DD: Can you talk us through this show?
S: The sculptures and abstract work are all evolutions from the original idea of the tag I did as a kid. It's gone to calligraphy, 3-D, abstract, digital installations, oil paintings, movies, screen prints, graphics... the exhibition shows the level of adaptation.
DD; After all these years is that hunger for graffiti still as strong?
S: Absolutely – the hunger is worse. It's killing me. It's a virus. And I've had to tame that virus within me. It leads to severe anger management issues to drug problems. It's a very deep struggle to push the art forward. It's a representation of what art really is. It's not about graffiti. It's not about street art. It's about the struggle of an artist.