For twenty years, (1996-2016) I created and signed all of my artworks with my pseudonym, ABOVE.
I started ABOVE, as a 15-year-old teenager illegally painting freight trains in Northern California.
I completed the ABOVE journey as a 35-year-old man in Berlin, Germany where my focus shifted to creating indoor, gallery artwork.
When I started ABOVE I was eager to travel the world, painting as much as I could along the way.
During the 20 years of ABOVE, I was successful in creating public artworks in over 100+ cities in 45 countries on 6 of the 7 continents *Sadly, I never made it to Antarctica!
ABOVE started as a motivational, upward-pointing arrow icon that represented 'RISE ABOVE.’
I’ve found incredible power in the mentality to RISE ABOVE and push through any self-limiting beliefs, adversity, and life challenges in front of myself.
The mentality to RISE ABOVE fueled my drive to keep going, farther, longer, and to never stop pushing my creative limits.
The collection of photos seen here in these three different galleries (Arrows, Typography, Stencil) is a testament to have powerful RISE ABOVE was for me then and still, today.
In 2017, for the first time in my life, I made and signed my artwork with my birth name, Tavar Zawacki :)
