Tavar Zawacki

Tavar Zawacki (born 1981, California) is an American abstract artist based in Berlin, Germany. Known for a practice spanning public space and studio painting, Zawacki has spent more than two decades developing a visual language through repeated forms, systematic processes, and a disciplined, process-driven engagement with color and geometry.

Beginning in the late 1990s and working under the pseudonym ABOVE from 1996 to 2016, Zawacki first introduced his arrow motif in Paris in 2001, shortly after relocating from California to Europe at the age of 19. The arrow functioned as a visual extension of the ABOVE name, becoming a recurring device within a wider body of murals and public works realized across more than 45 countries, and reflecting themes of rising above fear, challenge, and limitation in pursuit of personal growth and aspiration.

Since transitioning to studio practice and exhibiting under his birth name, Zawacki has presented more than ten international solo exhibitions and developed a body of work centered on process-driven abstraction, employing geometric forms, color relationships, and transparency through layered and overlapping hues. His work has been associated with Minimalism, Color Field painting, and Hard-Edge painting.

In 2025, he presented Connected, a series of large-scale paintings produced in Berlin that extend these long-standing concerns, structured around a process in which overlapping colors and forms generate a third visual form through interaction.