Tavar Zawacki

Tavar Zawacki (born 1981) is an American abstract artist based in Berlin, Germany. For twenty years (1996–2016) Tavar Zawacki created and signed all of his artworks with his street artist pseudonym, 'ABOVE'. At the age of 19, Tavar bought a one way flight from California to Paris, France, bringing with him a backpack full of art supplies, all the money in his bank account ($1,500 usd), and a 'rise above your fears' approach to starting his art career. Starting in Paris in 2000, Tavar transitioned from painting traditional letter style graffiti of A-B-O-V-E, to his 'Above arrow' icon that represented his optimistic mentality to 'rise above fears, challenges, and anything holding you back from your goals.' During a 20-year period the artworks of ABOVE could be seen in over 100 cities spanning 50 countries around the world.

In January 2017, Tavar Zawacki decided to step out of his self-imposed shadow of anonymity, and start creating, and signing artworks with his real birth name –allowing more freedom of creative exploration, as well as liberation from the arrow icon he has associated himself with.Tavar Zawacki's painting styles with his large scale mural works, as well as his indoor fine art are characterized by the use of hard-edge painting, color field, geometric abstraction, Op art, and Trompe-l'oeil painting styles. Tavar Zawacki has been showcasing his work in galleries and creative institutions around the world since 2005.

Early career (1995–2003)

Tavar Zawacki was born in the foothills of Northern California in 1981 from two creative hippie parents who invented his name. Tavar was encouraged by both parents at a very young age to express himself through art, and music. At the age of 13 years old, Tavar was introduced to skateboarding and graffiti. Tavar stated 'as a teenager, I spent my time after school skateboarding and painting graffiti on trains at the train yard. I was magnetized towards skateboarding, and graffiti because they were both D.I.Y. and independent ways of expressing myself.'At age fifteen, Tavar started spray painting the traditional letter style graffiti with his moniker 'ABOVE' on freight trains in California. Four years later, Tavar changed from painting traditional letter graffiti to an arrow symbol that pointed 'Above'. Tavar credits an impactful, and pivotal experience where a train he had painted with the letters A-B-O-V-E was leaving the train station and his name was completely illegible due to the increased speed of the departing train. Tavar realized that he needed to find a way for his artwork to connect and be recognized in a fraction of a second.

In 2000, at the age of 19, Tavar moved from California to Paris, France. At that time Paris was home to street artists like Zevs, Invader, Stak, Honet, and André Tavar and the other Parisian artists were part of a movement in street art that was heavily based on characters and logos. In 2003, Tavar returned from Paris to California where he introduced his hanging wooden 'Arrow mobiles' from overhead wires. Tavar would later proliferate this hanging process of his 'arrow mobiles' for years to follow.

2004

In the summer of 2004, Tavar went on a self-titled "U.S.A. Tour". 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."

2005

After finishing the U.S.A. tour the previous year, 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 if the different European countries had many overhead wires like in the United States? I decided instead to make wooden arrow that were able to adhere to the sides of buildings, at elevated heights. During my travels around Europe I was able to in fact see that most of the countries I visited had overhead wires to support the future hanging of my arrow mobiles." Tavar visited 15 countries during his 4-month long European tour, installing around 500 of the larger wooden fabric arrows.

2006

After returning to California, Tavar began planning a new tour which he titled the 'Sign Language Tour'. By his own reports, Tavar counterfeited Eurail tickets for a six-month duration, spanning 26 countries around Europe. Tavar's 'Sign Language Tour' focused almost exclusively on his word play sign language arrow mobiles. Tavar is quoted saying 'sign language is a form of communication using movements instead of sound. I found a lot of charm knowing that the arrow mobiles, once installed, are constantly spinning around. To create a dialog I painted one word on each side of the arrow. Conceptually speaking, when the wind would spin the arrow mobile there would be a small word play dialog to anyone who looked at it." Tavar customized arrows to certain countries language such as French (J'ai/faim, chez/vous), Spanish (Hace/sol, como/esta) German (uber/alle) and Italian (ciao/ciao)."

2007

In 2007, Tavar expanded from the word play of the previous year by painting larger word play murals on the exterior of building facades in South and Central America. He said in an interview " I wanted to return to painting letters, like the traditional graffiti I did when I was younger, but instead of painting my graffiti name, I wanted to paint word-based art that was site specific and could easily be read and understood. Tavar funded his 'South Central Tour' by working as a waiter in a restaurant in Alaska for four months in spring 2007. His south central tour lasted six months, starting in October 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, spanning 18 cities in 13 countries, and ending in Mexico City, Mexico in May 2008.

2008

In September 2008, Tavar traveled to Lisbon, Portugal, where he painted his "Giving to the poor" stencil commenting on the social issue of homelessness. Zawacki stated "Every day I walked by this bank ATM machine and this particular homeless woman was sitting in the same place every day begging for money. I found it sadly ironic that just six feet away from here there were people lining up to withdraw money. The sharp social and economic clash inspired me to make this piece." In October 2008, Tavar returned to California, when the New York Stock Exchange (NTSE) took a drastic crash, marking a worsening of the 2008 recession. Tavar stenciled on the exterior of a Washington Mutual building (one of several banks that collapsed during this period) an image of the NYSE bar graph with a downward sloping red line that went all the way down into the street gutter, mimicking the results that occurred just a few days before.

2009

In April, Zawacki created a stencil mural depicting four children searching for "Easter AIGs" in response to the breaking scandal surrounding American International Group and the degree to which it profited from the 2008 bailout.

In May 2009, Tavar started another tour of Europe lasting four-months. This tour did not seem to have a title as with most of Zawacki's previous tours. In July, he painted a social and political stencil piece titled 'Bridging The Divide' directly on the Berlin Wall. The artwork depicted a young girl jumping up, with arm extended trying to grab a bouquet of flowers from a person on the opposite side of the Berlin. The painted scene was completed with a smiling guard looking at the young girl jumping. 'Bridging The Divide' was painted on the 20th anniversary of the German reunification

In August 2009, Tavar returned from Europe, and moved to Portland, Oregon. He started a charitable non-profit project involving Portland's homeless population. Tavar was quoted in an interview, "I wanted to address and draw more attention to the homeless crisis here in Portland. I wanted to learn more about this homeless epidemic by listening directly to the homeless community on an individual person to person level. During the month of November, 2009 I rode my bike around Portland wanting to listen to homeless individuals that wanted to share their story and suggestion on what shelters really help out with services as well as where I should donate the money fund raised from this 'Homeless not hopeless' print."

2010

In January 2010, just days after the Haiti Earthquakes, Tavar flew to La Havana, Cuba, to make a site specific stencil commenting on the recent devastation in the neighboring country of Haiti. Tavar's stencil work was titled 'Help Thy Neighbor' and depicted a young Cuban boy with tire raft, first aid medical kit, and a Haitian flag in hand ready to embark to what is assumed, Haiti.

French Stencil artist, Blek le Rat, had selected Tavar (then as ABOVE) to exhibit together for Tavar's first duo exhibition of his career at White Walls Gallery in San Francisco on 1 May 2010. This was Tavar's largest body of work exhibited at a gallery at that time in his career.

In a press release from White Walls gallery "The meeting of these two artists is a passing of the torch from the original stencil artist to a younger generation of urban artists following in his legacy. Blek let Rat first pioneered stencils in the early 80s as a bold, attention grabbing form of street art that was never before seen. ABOVE is the prominent stencil artist of the new generation, drawing on Blek's methods to project a social message into the urban environment.

2011

In January 2011, Tavar flew to Sydney, to prepare for his first solo show, titled Here Today Gone Tomorrow. In the press release for the exhibition, Tavar said that his older brother had passed away in an accidental car crash just three months prior. He was quoted, "I've been consistently traveling the world and the theme, 'Here Today Gone Tomorrow' applies to how I have been living my lifestyle for the past ten years. It's hard to say goodbye when traveling, and even harder when you don't even get the chance. I was deeply moved by the loss of my brother to make the new body of artworks that dealt with the fragility of life, death, and how important it is to live each day to the fullest." The body of work in the exhibition profiled fifteen different celebrities such as; Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Bob Marley, and Princess Diana, all of which died under the age of 37. Screen printing, and paper collage mediums were used to recreate the images of the fifteen celebrities assembled on top of an arrow cut from wood.

In October at the height of the global Occupy Wall Street protest, Tavar flew to Miami, U.S.A. and painted a 120 foot (37 m) long word play mural that read "Give A Wall St. Banker Enough Rope And He Will Hang Himself." Zawacki's mural incorporated a hanging effigy of a suited banker to the installation. When NBC News did a news report on Tavar's "Wall St." piece, he told the reporter "You don't have to read it, you just get it immediately when you see it. It's extremely aggressive and that's actually the point." His final reply was "Everybody's entitled to their own opinion, and some people will praise it, others will deny it and criticize it, but the point being is that it's getting people talking about the movement."

2012

In February 2012, Tavar traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa, where he painted a mural commenting on the illegal blood diamond trade. Tavar appropriated the proverb 'Diamonds are a girl's best friend' and painted the message 'Diamonds are a woman's best friend and a man's worst enemy' on the exterior wall of Jewel City, one of the world's largest diamond exporters. The site specific statement was 4 meters (13 ft) tall and 80 meters (260 ft) in length, spanning the entire city block.

The story of how Tavar was able to trick the owners of Jewel city to paint such a large controversial statement on the exterior of their building without any trouble was, in the artist's words, a 'jewel heist' of his own. Tavar said, "I was able to get away with this diamond wall heist because I told the owners I would paint in big letters 'Diamonds are a woman's best friend' on the exterior of their building. The owners loved the idea and all quickly agreed." According to Tavar, the owners never came outside to inspect, or question his actions. In an interview with a reporter from ABC News, Tavar said, "I decided to take it upon myself to justify lying as I felt that making this controversial statement seen, and topic of blood diamonds talked about more, would justify my actions. I have justified my lying as I feel it created a powerful social and political piece."

In September, amidst the Eurozone financial crisis, Tavar flew to Zaragoza, Spain. He painted a 120 foot (37 m) long stencil mural of a queue of silhouettes accompanied by the statement '24% Desempleados' ('24% unemployed' in English) that were waiting in line for the unemployment office. This social, political, and time sensitive mural addressed the hard financial times that Spain was facing with its highest unemployment rate in the world. At the time that Tavar painted this mural 24.6% of Spaniards were unemployed; for under-25-year olds, 53% were unemployed.

In the same month of September, Tavar went to Copenhagen, Denmark, to created a time-lapse film titled #Socialmedia. He painted a message on the wall, then repainted the wall white, only to repaint a new message. He repeated this process of painting new statements over a duration of two days. Tavar's messages were sarcastic mocks, factual, and confrontational towards society and the uses of social media. He profiled such social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In an interview, Tavar said that he does not use social media such as Facebook, or Twitter, which allowed him to act as an outsider, looking in on how society uses such social media platforms.

2013

In August 2013, Tavar created a time relative stencil titled 'Timing Is Everything' in London, England. The colorful stencil painted on the side of a wall depicted a break dancer positioned upside down, with his arm extended downwards. At night, the context of the stencil is 'activated' by the street light, thus creating a shadow of the nearby street pole directly onto the wall. The stenciled break dancer is now seen in a newer context of balancing himself on top of the street sign's shadow. In an interview Tavar said, "all of my stencil works exist in a site-specific context. I have been searching for this fixed shadow in a high visibility location for the past eight months during my global travels. I finally found the perfect shadow in Shoreditch area of London."

According to Tavar, the main reason why 'the perfect shadow' was so challenging to find was because it needed to exist in a highly trafficked area of a major city. A reporter from the news blog The Huffington Post claimed, "If Banksy and James Turrell were ever to collaborate, we like to think Tavar Zawacki would be their brainchild."

The majority of Tavar's street works have topics of social or political issues suggested in the artworks. During an interview he commented, "The Timing Is Everything stencil painted in London was void of any political or social message, but what it did have was an interaction with the city, and how things alter from day to night. The stencil shows how timing, and lighting can be the platform, as well as the inspiration for a piece of work." Tavar closed the interview by saying, "My main intention with this piece is to have people observe, and re-evaluate their surroundings of how literally, timing is everything."

2014

In June, Tavar was one of the international artists invited to paint at Artscape mural event held in the city of Malmö, Sweden. He painted a mural titled Metamorphosis on an eight-story tall building in a style replicating the color printing process of CMYK. He explained, "I've been interested for many years now in shapes and colors. The arrow is its own unique shape, and when I overlap this colorful shape using the CMYK color blend process, it allows for new shapes and colors to metamorphosis into something new." Tavar continued saying, "It's about having fun and experimenting. As an artist it's important for me to experiment with my work, otherwise one can become stagnant. Making this mural put the arrow into a new context, giving it room for expansion of a new life."

In September, Tavar had a three-month long artist-in-residence in Detroit, Michigan in preparation for his solo exhibition titled 'Remix'. His Remix exhibition displayed a variety of different laser cut wood panels that were then 'remixed', and exchanged into the artwork's final configuration. "The intention for the Remix body of work is to find a balanced symbiosis between curved and straight lines. The characteristics of the arrow are straight, sharp, angular, and void of any curved elements. My intention is to mix a variety of curved shapes within the straight arrow design, creating a totally new visual appearance." When asked the question, 'What strides do you think you have made with this work?' Tavar replied, "The variety of new curved elements from the Remix exhibition allowed me to expand the arrow design into something new and exciting. The emphasis was less on the arrow, and more on the mix of curved, and straight lined shapes. The arrow icon was breaking apart and morphing into new (and exciting) abstract shapes."

2015

In October 2015 Tavar painted his largest mural to date, a 33-meter tall (108 feet) by 17-meter wide (55 feet) mural titled 'Incognito' in Johannesburg, South Africa as part of the City of Gold Festival. Tavar spent ten consecutive days painting the mural and when asked in an interview about his process, challenges, and color choices he stated 'My color selections were predetermined by the relationship of how each color transforms when laid on top of another. This was easy, however, in the designing of the mural I had to constantly move colors and shapes to finally get the final color arrangement you see. The biggest challenge for me during the Incognito mural was ensuring the proportions of the design were correct. I needed precision, and a lot of it.The lines needed to be sharp and straight. If any line was miscalculated or skewed the design as a whole would suffer. This was my largest hurdle I had to overcome both with mapping it out, and painting it. Later in the interview Tavar said 'What I enjoy most about the Incognito design is the secondary shapes, and colors achieved from the overlapping of each arrow on top of another. There are many fun intersections of color and new shapes that emerge using this style of design. I look forward to exploring more in depth into this style in the future in my indoor and outdoor works.'

2016

In March, Tavar Zawacki (still using his former street artist name 'ABOVE') had a solo exhibition in Zürich, Switzerland titled '12 Months'. In a section of Tavar's artist statement he wrote, 'My intention with my recent body of work is to show the viewer a visual portrayal of associations, and experiences I’ve had with each Month. This body of work explores new ways of incorporating my arrow icon into a variety of patterns, configurations, and abstract styles, while using the entire color spectrum as my palette. My process started with reflecting back on each year, making detailed lists of colors, feelings, and associations I have with each month. I would use my written notes and transform these words into the visual designs of shape and color, you see in each painting. I aimed to create each work with a unique feeling, while still having a consistency within the body of work. I intended to have my arrow icon act as the supporting role in every month's composition. My goal is to have the arrow interact, transform, and re-create its shape as much as possible, helping illustrate the emotion and feeling of each month. During my creative process the consistent changing of colors, and emotions of each month both inspired, and challenged me.

In the summer of 2016, Tavar Zawacki served as artist-in-residence of the Quin Arts program at the Quin Hotel in New York City, furthering his exploration of geometric abstraction through colorful multi-layer arrow compositions. As curated by DK Johnston, the exhibit featured 36 works of handmade sculptural relief using acrylic and resin on wood. It opened on 14 July and was Zawacki's first solo show in New York City.

2017

In January 2017, Tavar decided to step out of his self-imposed shadow of anonymity, and start creating, and signing his artworks with his real birth name – allowing more freedom of creative exploration, as well as freedom from the arrow icon he had formerly associated himself with. Tavar stated, 'My decision suddenly liberated me, as well as opened up creative ideas to a seemingly unlimited expansion of new opportunities. I see a new foundation to expand upon, free of any artistic restrictions, and my curiosity to push my creative limits to new, higher levels'.

Tavar debuted his museum style solo exhibition titled, Metamorphosis in September 2017, at Urban Spree Galerie in Berlin. Metamorphosis' entire body of work was painted on large format canvases, and profiled four different painting styles, Op-Art, Trompe l'oeil, CMYK and Hard-edge painting. Tavar described his exhibition, 'Metamorphosis is about transformation from one state into a newer dynamic one. With a lot of brutal honesty, and conviction for growth I was able to take inner inventory of what no longer served me. I was able to let go of the fears that were stifling my creative progression. I was prepared for feeling uncomfortable during this metamorphosis. I was learning how to unblock my personal censors, and be valiant in painting the styles of works I’ve previously been too reluctant to paint.' Tavar Zawacki's Metamorphosis exhibition was the first time in his career that he made, and signed all his works with his real name.

In September Tavar's second book, also titled, Metamorphosis was published. Metamorphosis is a 168-page, hardcover book covering Tavar's last 3 years of creative works, from his seminal 2014 Remix exhibition in Detroit, to his latest and most ambitious show to date at Urban Spree Galerie in September 2017. The book covers all his outdoor murals during that period and illustrates how the artist navigates between his indoor and outdoor works and the influences thereof.

2018

Wunderkammern presents Tavar Zawacki's solo show, Shapeshifting, for the first time in Italy at the Milan gallery. For this occasion the artist has decided to reflect on the concept of metamorphosis intended in a personal and artistic sense, testing himself with the use of different types of shapes and colors.

In November, Tavar presented his solo exhibition, Shapeshifting at Wunderkammern gallery in Milan, Italy. For this occasion the artist has decided to reflect on the concept of metamorphosis intended in a personal and artistic sense, testing himself with the use of different types of shapes and colors.

Artist Shepard Fairey wrote the introduction text for Tavar's Shapeshifting exhibition. "I have known Tavar Zawacki’s art for more than 15 years. I initially knew him by his street name, 'ABOVE'. Tavar impressed me with his dedication to mastering the most essential aspects of street art: widespread coverage, recognizable iconography, and impressive placements on the street in terms of risk and visual impact. It seems to me that two years ago Tavar Zawacki had pushed his anonymous ABOVE concept to the pinnacle of what is possible and respected in the street art world, and decided it was time to expand his parameters and evolve, stepping into the sunlight by using his birth name and evolving away from just his long-present arrow icon. However, Tavar did not abandon the fruits of his years of graphic mastery in form and color, he simply chose to apply them in broader, more ambitious, and more sophisticated ways.

The recent works in the street and the studio leading up to his Shape shifting exhibition are the most visually dynamic but seductive pieces of Tavar's career. Sometimes the fundamental ingredients are there, but it takes the subtle moves to yield sublime alchemy. Tavar’s newest works embody power and beauty in elegant harmony, but especially the pieces that utilize trompe l’oeil push beyond design based art to create a provocatively surreal 2D/3D dialogue that distinguishes them. Tavar’s 2D/3D dialogue extends to three-dimensional pieces using gradients to mimic light play on reflective surfaces and cast shadows. Tavar has evolved and in the process developed a truly distinctive, powerful but luxurious, visual language."