Interview with Graffiti Street Artist ABOVE + Print GiveAwayListThumbs
Interview with Graffiti Street Artist ABOVE + Print GiveAway
Above is an extremely talented artist whose work can be seen all over the world. I had long discussions with him about his awesome Graffiti Tour to South America and the Sign Language Tour where he visited 26 countries. Every each of his masterpieces has a special message. Enjoy the many projects this young artist has done.
Information about the print give away at the bottom of the page
Ljubljana, Slovenia 2006
I CAME BACK THE NEXT DAY TO TAKE SOME PHOTOS OF THIS PIECE. I WAS SURPRISED WHEN I SAW A MODEL ALREADY POSING FOR A FASHION SHOOT IN FRONT OF IT! THE MODEL LOVED THE ATTENTION AND I WAS ABLE TO TAKE A FEW PHOTOS OF MY OWN.
Copenhagen, Denmark 2005
Athens, Greece 2006
1. First of all we would like to thank you for taking the time to provide abduzeedo.com with this interview. Please tell us more about your art and design background and what made you become an artist and designer?
Thank you as well for having an interest in the artworks! My "artist" background basically started with my family. Both my Parents are artists and growing up as a young kid there was always art supplies to play with and experiment. I consider my family upbringing very fortunate and responsible for why I started and am curious in art. When I was about 15 I was already skateboarding and many if not all of my skateboard friends were tagging and painting trains. Because of my upbringing with art and an interest already established in creating It was just a matter of time before I too got into tagging and painting trains in California. I did the traditional letters but became bored with this coded language or style. In 2001 when I was 19 I moved to Paris, France to focus on making a new style in the streets. At that time there were just a handful of artists making "street art" that was not about letters but instead an icon/character/symbol that would represent their name or idea. For me I changed from writing the letters "A-B-O-V-E" to a symbol of an Arrow pointing "ABOVE."
Years later back in the United States I started to make a physical wooden arrow complete with glued on fabrics and a word on each side of the arrow. The process of making these wooden arrows is about the extent of my "Design." I like to make things with my hands so designing on the computer just is not what I am interested in at the point in my life.
This Word/Play was painted on the outside of a 4th grade classroom. While the young students were inside learning how to put 2 and 2 together, I was outside trying my best to do the same!
2. You recently completed your 6-month word tour. Please speak about this project.
The South Central Tour was an intense 6-month long tour starting in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil and ending in Mexico City, Mexico. I was fortunate to have many contacts in most of the major cities thru south and central America that helped out with a floor to sleep on and who knew the city. The South Central tour was a progression from the SIGN LANGUAGE TOUR (2006) as during the South Central tour I was still doing Word/Play's but instead I was painting them on the wall much much larger. The South Central tour allowed me to make longer, and more elaborate sentences, questions, and puns painted on the walls.
SOUTH CENTRAL TOUR 2007-08 (Full Length) from ABOVE on Vimeo.
3. I love the idea of your Sign Language Tour in 2006. How did you came up with the concept and how did you implement the idea.
The Sign Language tour was a progression from the 2004 U.S.A. tour. In 2004 I designed the idea of how to hang and install the wooden arrows high above the city streets. Since each arrow has 2 sides and is constantly spinning around that it would be unique to paint 1 word on each side of the spinning arrow. In 2006 for the Sign Language tour I was able to do just that. Each arrow had 1-word on each side so the concept was that when the wind would spin the hanging arrow that a silent "Sign Language" dialog would be seen from the viewer below. The most challenging part was since I painted the Word/Play on each arrow before the tour I would walk around any given city along the tour at night looking for the perfect match of location and the word/play. For instance hanging an arrow in a busy intersection that read "HONK/HORN" or in Amsterdam that said "RED/LITE" (for the red light prostitution district) or even in sunny Barcelona that read " HACE/SOL" (It's sunny in Spanish). My goal with making each arrow as relative and specific to the location/atmosphere was that the viewer could easily make the connection and relate to this silent message.
SIGN LANGUAGE TOUR (2006) from ABOVE on Vimeo.
4. What are your tools of the trade? Explain for example how you created the "Playground Valentines Day Special"?
The PLAYGROUND LOVE piece was created out of cut out stencils I made. My tools for the trade really depends on what surface I am working on as well as what type of message I want to get across. For instance I felt like making this piece with a stencil because there was a lot of small and fine detail that if I were to paint that piece with spray paint the detail would get lost. As an artists I want to try and take on new mediums and applications so i can learn and work on my weaknesses.
PLAYGROUND LOVE from ABOVE on Vimeo.
5. How do people react on your work? Have you every got any trouble because of your graffitis?
It seems like they either love or hate it. Trouble because of graffiti, Yeah. I've been arrested more than I would like to talk about.
6. What, for you personally are the pros and cons of being an artist?
PRO'S: Being able to travel, meet new people, experience life at it's fullest and being challenged to try new things.
CON'S: Little/no Money, and going to jail about 2 times a year.
7. How does your job as an artist and designer influence your life? Do you feel that you see things around you differently for example?
Traveling has had such an important impact on the way I look at things. When I am in a new country or city everything is new and there are no "filters" for what I am able to absorb visually. When I was hanging the wooden Arrow Mobiles from overhead telephone lines my perception and eyes were constantly looking "above" to see what type (if any) overhead lines were available to hang an arrow on. I remember being in Prague with some friends and I was extremely excited to see that in the center of the city there were a lot of overhead wires. My friends were confused as to why I was so happy and I explained to them it was because of these overhead telephone wires. They all looked up and said that they never noticed them being there, even thought they live just 2 streets away.
So yeah perhaps I do see things differently?
8. Can you give us example of your upcoming projects?
I am currently living in California, and I hope to go back to Europe for the summer, then return to Buenos Aires around the end of the year. I love it in Argentina!
SouthCentral Tour (PART 1 OF 4) from ABOVE on Vimeo.
SouthCentral Tour (Part 2 of 4) from ABOVE on Vimeo.
SouthCentral Tour (Part 3 of 4) from ABOVE on Vimeo.
SouthCentral: Part 4 (The Final Chapter!) from ABOVE on Vimeo.
9. What are your favourite 5 websites, and why?
hmmm, let me think.
Vimeo.com
NotCot.org
WoosterCollective.com
Wikipedia.com
Abduzeedo
because all of them have new content regularly.
10. Once again, thank you very much for the interview. As a final word, do you have any tips for upcoming artists and designers?
Not really, I think I have said too much already.
Where to find Above in the web
GoAbove.com - Portfolio
Vimeo.com/Above - Videos
Free Print Give Away
ABOVE is kind enought to give away one version of his limited edition "Put 2 and 2 2gether"-Print for the Abduzeedo Reader. Just leave a comment about what you like most in ABOVE's work. He will pick the winner in the end of the week.
You can get this Print for just 44 $ - and other great Prints - in his shop
More work of this artist.
SKOOL OF HARD KNOCKS from ABOVE on Vimeo.
About the author
Aloa is the moniker of the german/greek graphic designer/filmmaker & musician Alexis Papageorgiou. Im glad to share great artistic work with the readers on Abduzeedo. Contact me on aloa@abduzeeo.com or http://twitter.com/obstgemuese.
29 Comments
What a comeback Alexis, awesome post man, I'm a big fan of his works.. i'm coming back later on to check out the videos.
Great post!
The best thing about this work is the complexity and the work plays off of real life items/situations
great post, i really like his work and the way he has his own style and broke away and started his own style. i like the way he brings his surroundings ino his work and thinks about it before he does it
good work man keep it up!!!!
What I like best about Above's works is that they take a while to figure out. What I mean by this is that it will take more than a simple glance to truly appreciate them. The longer you look at it, the more you will see, and the more you will understand about the purpose of the piece.
What I like the most about ABOVE's work is the blend of graphic design, traditional graffiti, typography, and stencil work to create something fresh. Right now there are way to many artists who are doing just one thing, who are scared to mix and match because they feel like it wouldn't work. ABOVE's work is a culmination of everything positive in the current art world. As an added note, there's such a lack of letter construction in a lot of current graffiti writers I think they should look to ABOVE's work for a display of proper letter form. (Which is lost to not just graffiti writers but designers as well)
The colors, absolutely.
His colors are amazing!
Great post!
avisa cuando vengas a buenos aires y te ayudo a pintar!!!
What I like most is how Above is using the world around his artwork, incorporating it in to make it more powerful. The swans in the valentines day video make use of the water, and the man raking the leaves uses real leaves!
The mural (Putting 2 and 2 together) took me a few minutes to actually figure out (I feel dumb) but the fact it was on a school made me laugh.
Great article!!
properly gorgeous.. kinda love with this kinda art. even sometime it not at the right place.. but that what make it cooler.
niiice!!!! Each work of his is so creative and unique, its mind-blowing...whats not to like about it..!??! its like he puts a lot of thought in his work. I got introduced by my friend to Above not too long ago... so its pretty cool to read an interview like this one!!
ooo yea...i'll be in Buenos Aires (and Montevideo!!) for the holidays by the end of the year too so hopefully i'll see his work there!
peace!
I dont know what i heard this, but it was what made me fall in love with the grafitti culture but it was "grafitti art is there for everyone to enjoy, for free" and this is a great example of such work!
This is no tagging, this is not vandalism, its art!
What i like the most; has to be the minimalistic, but yet simple typography that you use, its unique! And it works great!
There is this legal grafitti zone here where i live, you should come to Malmö Sweden and paint the ""Put 2 and 2 2gether" it a 10m wall by 4m!
Laters
for me the 'lefthanders are never rite' piece is stunning, i cannot really intellectualize it but i think it is effective and it works. we are always on the move, to the market, to our jobs, to our homes and our friends that we only have a couple seconds to receive information and to think about it. that yellow, white, and black piece just works and i feel is very strong.
Lo que hace tiene SENTIDO.. dando asi un buen significado, facil de entender y sencillos.. sin embargo deja un buen mensaje siempre.
Creative and colorful
Awesome !!
nice typo graffitis but the other pieces look too mutch banksy-alike imo.
gets a little banksy-esque
Whoa! Stunning work... I didn't know it, but spent half of an hour seeing this images and videos, and I'm really impressed with the talent, simplicity and creativity of the work!
As already said it has some sense that is not common in this kind of art.
This print would be great in my office!
Congratulations...
For me, it isn't just about the art of graffiti with ABOVE's work, it is about the message and the art behind it. His typography is so clean, lines and form are all incredibly crisp.
Then the message created by the figure forms in various locations is unlike anything else you will see. Creating a message and also creating situational art, in which the true meaning and idea behind it comes out when someone interacts with the piece - The Bank robber is a perfect example.
Great work, I really loved the "One mans junk IS another mans treasure" Genius concept.
THIS IS SO COOL!
ABOVE - my favorite part of your work is the excitement of it all. street art and traveling and a sense of humor. its great!
My opinion on the ABOVE's works is that I think it found her way to have a good career.
The way you laway use the same "ABOVE" name with an huge difference between all.
I'm kind off out of time for now to leave a bigger comment.
So, good works out there and don't give up :D
The, "By the time you read this, I'll already be gone," concept is strong, and exposing it on the street is a great way to get people to stop and pay attention. It gets people to think in terms of time; Past, present, and future. They think about where they are going, where others are going, and how we all interact within that time. :D FANTASTIC!
Woha!
I loved the word play one. It sets it apart from the other grafitti that you can find on the net. It's much better when someone has to stop & try and understand what it means.
Really amazing work!
I my opinion, I think that ABOVE's art is what you should find in every encyclopedia when you search for the word graffiti... it's not only typography, colors, messages, tagging a wall, stencils, ...it's much more than that, the perfect combination of each element to create unique art scenes.
Great Post
Great Artist
Typography. Colors. Simplicity.
These are the three things I love about Above's work. LOVE his play on words combined with beautifully executed typography. The wooden arrows are a brilliant idea. When driving, people are more likely to move because the car in front of them is rather than to look up to see if the light is green. The colors used in his pieces are so vibrant and luscious! As far as simplicity goes, his pieces have a "classic edge" to them. They combine all the things people are familiar with and then he adds that little something to it.... Above is absolutely brilliant, love your work! Keep it coming!
I love clean and artistic typography, and I love grafitti!! Combine the two = awesome!!
Amazing use of colors as well!!
really like the typography.
images are... as mentioned earlier - too banksy ish...
not only the imagery but the content of the message as well...
like i awz say... its all bin done before..
but good job and great interview!
the best thing about ABOVES work is that it's free for me and everyone of any background to enjoy
thats wicked!!!!!!
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