Russell ‘Yay Abe’ Abrahams illustrator & art director who comes from a lineage of painters / drawers, shares his story of becoming. Russell, (like many of us) grew using Hip-Hop as a string board that allowed him to shape his views of the world. The early 2000’s & 2010’s were the golden age modern age breakdancing & crumping, with reference to movies like Step Up, Stump The Yard and You Got Served. 

Russell who’s adopted the alias ‘Yay Abe’ as a celebration of his family name as the umbrella for his dreams, describes taking on art as a subject at a very late grade in school, grade 11. Through the emblems of learning and becoming, he cracked the gates to the cooperate world quite early. At the age of 19, his illustrations were living through juice box’s in Woolies for many years and this time spent in cooperate South Africa, redirected him to his lifelong purpose of wanting to play with colour, captivating visual language and make murals that speaks for a colourful tomorrow. 

‘Yay Abe’ has grown to have its own distinctive identity and has been apart of many ground breaking projects and conversations. Here’s a window into who’s the human being behind the art.