Above (artist)

ABOVE
"Incognito" 33 meter tall abstract mural depicting a variety of overlapping, and colorful transparent arrows in a style similar to CMYK color printing. Johannesburg, South Africa. 2015
Born	Tavar Zawacki (1981) San Francisco, California
Nationality	American
Education	Self-taught
Known for	Street art Abstract art Stenciling Public art Installation art Printmaking
Website	www.goabove.com

Above born Tavar Zawacki is a Berlin-based international contemporary artist. Tavar Zawacki was born in California in 1981 and has been creating public art since 1995. Zawacki is best known for three different styles of street works, his multi-layer, full color social and political stencils, colorful abstract arrow compositions, and large text-based painted murals. Zawacki's stencil and text-based artworks usually have a strong message or awareness about social, political, or international current events, while his abstract works are a visual language of shape, color, and form. Tavar Zawacki began painting graffiti by tagging 'ABOVE' graffiti on freight trains in California in 1995. At the age of 19, Tavar moved to Paris, France, where he started painting his trademark arrow icon pointing 'above'. During the past 17 years Tavar Zawacki has painted artworks in the streets of over 100 cities in 60 different countries around the world.

By his own account, Tavar Zawacki was born and raised in California. Tavar states that art and music were practiced and encouraged by both parents at an early age. At age fifteen, Tavar started spray painting the letters A-B-O-V-E on freight trains in California. Three years later, Tavar changed from painting traditional letter graffiti to an arrow symbol that pointed 'above'. In an interview he stated that he thought it was useless to paint the side of a fast moving train with letters if nobody could read it. Tavar said he wanted something that could be seen and understood in a fraction of a second regardless of how fast it was moving. In 2001, at the age of 19, Zawacki moved from California to Paris, France. At that time Paris was home to street artists like Zevs, Invader, Stak, Honet and Andre. Tavar and the other Parisian artists were part of a movement in street art that was heavily based on characters and logos rather than more traditional letter based graffiti. In 2003, Tavar returned to California where he started installing hanging wooden arrow mobiles.

Following his arrow mobile project, the artist went on a self-titled "U.S.A. Tour" in 2004. He drove 5,000 miles (8,000 km) across the United States hanging 300 plus arrow mobiles in 14 major cities. It was during Zawacki's self-titled, U.S.A. tour that he introduced elements of word play by writing a word on both sides of the spinning arrows to suggest a dialog. Zawacki has declined to respond to questions about how he is able to hang his mobiles so high, saying, "I value and respect that we all have imaginations and for me to interfere with what your imagination would be wrong."

After finishing the U.S.A. Tour, Tavar returned to Europe in 2005. When asked in an interview why he did not hang his arrow mobiles in Europe after his U.S.A. tour, he responded, "In the United States there are an almost infinite amount of overhead telephone wires and street cables. However I was unsure of how the different European countries 'overhead' wires and supports were so I decided to evolve the wooden arrows I made in Paris in 2002 and focus on putting these on elevated walls around Europe while at the same time observing and researching more about the overhead wires in all the countries I visit." Zawacki visited 15 countries during his 4-month long European tour, installing around 500 of the larger wooden fabric arrows.