Saber (born Ryan Weston Shook, 1976, Glendale, California) is an American graffiti artist and muralist best known for painting a large mural along a Los Angeles River bank.
Saber | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ryan Weston Shook 1976 Glendale, California, U.S. |
| Education | San Francisco Art Institute |
| Known for | Graffiti Social commentary Spray paint art |
Notable work | Los Angeles River Mural |
| Movement | Street art |
Saber graduated from Thousand Oaks High School. He then attended the San Francisco Art Institute.
Saber has painted in the Los Angeles area and in San Francisco, and was interviewed by Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine for the July 2007 issue.[1] The same magazine interviewed Saber and fellow artist Zes in 2015 about their collaboration production on a large wall in downtown Los Angeles to talk about how much the area has changed since they began in the late 1990s illegally painting downtown LA.[2]
He is best known for a large piece he painted on the concrete bank of the Los Angeles River in 1997. Known not only for its size, Saber's LA River piece was complex and remained at the site for 12 years. In 2004, Saber recreated the piece in a diorama of the river for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County exhibit, L.A.: light / motion / dreams.[3] In 2007, the piece was included in the KCET project Departures: LA River.[4]
In 2010, Saber filmed a video of himself painting an American flag and words over it. Saber, one of 20 finalists in a health-care video contest run by Barack Obama’s campaign, painted a mural of an American flag splattered with health-care graffiti and discussed the work with news networks, including Fox News and MSNBC.[5]
He took his craft to the skies in 2011 to skywrite in protest of a mural moratorium after hiring five skywriters in airplanes.[6][7] Saber told KCET that the venture was mostly funded by himself but that other artists, including contemporary artist and activist Shepard Fairey, helped with the undisclosed amount.[8]