Above (artist) - A Chronological List of Above's Travels and Artworks - (2008)

(2008)

In May, 2008 Above composed a 10 minute video called South Central tour showcasing many of the paintings and experiences he did along his 5-month long south central tour featured on New york city based website Wooster Collective After the completion of the south central tour in Mexico city, Mexico in May, 2008 Above was invited to go Europe to participate in the first annual Fame Festival in southern Italy.

During the 1st annual Fame Festival in southern of Italy Above painted along side other artists such as Blu, Bo130, Ethos, Erica il Cane, Connor Harrington among other international artists. Later that summer Above traveled to Lisbon, Portugal where he painted his "Giving to the poor" stencil commenting on social issues of homelessness. Above is quoted on his website "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 obvious social and economic clash inspired me to make this piece." The 'Giving to the poor' stencil marked the start of Above's interest in doing multiple colored social and political stencils. Later in December 2008 Above decided to make a giclee non-profit art print where 100% of all the profits were to be donated to 2 homeless shelters. In October 2008, Above returned to his home in California, USA and continued to evolve with his stencils. During the month of October, 2008 the New york stock exchange took a drastic crash, making many businesses go bankrupt. One U.S. bank in particular, Washington Mutual especially was effected so hard the bank had to file bankruptcy. Above stenciled on the exterior of a Washington Mutual bank a replication of the NYSE bar graph with a downward sloping red line that went all the way down into the street gutter, mimicking the same results that occurred just a few days prior on the New York Stock Exchange. Above's word play artworks from 2008 and stencil works appeared to address and comment on more social, political, and time sensitive current affairs.