Tag: TATTOO EXHIBITION

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LadiesLadies! Art Show 2019

LadiesLadies! Art Show

Opening reception and silent auction

Saturday, October 26, 2019, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m

 Three Kings Tattoo, 343 E 10th St. New York, New York 10009

International female tattooers participate in benefit fundraiser for Planned Parenthood NYC

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The 6th installment of the groundbreaking LadiesLadies! Art Show, a female-only collective exhibit showcasing the fine art of international female tattooers, curated by Elvia Iannaccone Gezlev, a tattoo artist, author of “Ladies of tattooing” and photographer, whose work has appeared in numerous tattoo magazines and tattoo blogs, and Kate Archer, unapologetic artist and representative of the queer side of female tattooers.

The 2019 show will present a selection of art from cutting edge tattoo artists, some of them identifying as queer; they represent the changing landscape of inclusivity within modern-day tattooing. What was once a male-dominated industry has evolved thanks to female and LGBTQ artists, who are creating safe and creative spaces for people of all genders, identities, races and body types, to get tattooed. Together they keep the tradition alive and kicking!

50 artists are donating their art (originals and/or prints) to the fundraising event. Tattooers and artists include; Claudia DeSabe (who also designed this year poster art!), Sunny Buick, Anka Lavriv, Zoe Bean, Linn Aasne, Lara Scotton, Lorena Morato, Drew Linden, Rosie Evans, Kati Vaughn, Marina Inoue, Jen Carmean, Tara Zep, Tina Lugo, Baylen Levore, Karrie Arthurs, Michela Bottin, Kate Collins, Amy Shapiro, and Dawn Cooke.

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Holly Astral: ‘The Art of Tarot’ Project

After seeing sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes pics from some of our favourite tattoo artists taking part in ‘TAROT the art of Tarot’ we couldn’t help but be intrigued!

We caught up with Holly Astral, the woman behind ‘TAROT the art of Tarot’ and Gravity Tattoo Studio to find out more about the project and how you can get your own piece of it… 

Poster for Tarot, The art of Tarot project by Holly Astral

What inspired you to start the ‘TAROT The Art of Tarot’ project? It just came up spontaneously! Me and the girls in the shop love reading tarot, and one day we started talking about how fun it would be to design some tarot cards between us, and the idea for the show just clicked into place! Since I got the keys to the building that is now Gravity Tattoo Shop I’d always said I’d like to hold an art exhibition in the ground floor reception area, and this seemed perfect!

You’ve taken part in exhibitions at galleries across Europe and America, was this part of your motivation for the tarot project? Totally! Before I was a tattoo artist I was a toy designer, and ran my own line of designer toys. During that time I put on a couple of collaborative art shows in London, and one in LA. Each one showcased toys which has been customised by other designers in the industry and were so much fun to put on. My main motivation for this show and those that I’ve organised in the past is to showcase the talent of those around me – I figured I’d put on the kind of shows I’d like to attend.

Poster for the Tarot Tattoo Project

What message do you hope to spread? I’m interested to get the conversation going about tarot cards, and how people view them. I am relatively new to the concept, having dabbled a little as a teenager. I had a very rough start to this year and got into it as I was looking for answers. I don’t believe in divination or mediums, rather my take on tarot is that whatever you latch onto within a reading is your subconscious trying to tell you about a part of your life you need to look a little deeper at, or maybe an answer that you already know and need permission to bring to the surface. We all have the answers to our problems inside of us and activities like tarot reading can help us to bring the answers to the surface.

The Tarot project aims to raise funds for Hula Animal Rescue, does that charity mean a lot to you? Absolutely! We raise money for them throughout the year, and last year put on a flash day to fund raise for them. Gravity is a vegan tattoo shop and animal welfare is important to us, Hula are a wonderful small charity doing great things for animals.

Sneak peak at the Tarot Project Exhibition

You’ve brought together 78 individual artists for the tarot project – how did you pick them? Well at first we were going to do just the 22 major arcana from the tarot deck, so we asked some friends if they’d like to design a card for the show and it just got bigger and bigger! Before I knew it we had the entire deck being created, we were just blown away by the response.

Is there a wide variety of styles, mediums and interpretations? It has been incredible seeing all the artwork come back for the show! We left it up to the artists how they wanted to create their cards – any medium was okay, the only proviso being that it needed to fit in an A4 frame for the show layout. We have paintings, drawings, digital artworks and even a couple of embroidered pieces in the show. Seeing how everyone interpreted their card’s meaning has been so fun to see, with so many unique and interesting designs coming back to us. All the pieces they’ve created for the show were available to purchase for £100 each (a steal!)

Will they only be available to purchase at the show? First dibs on purchasing artwork from the show will be given to everyone who attends on the night of the party (August 24th 6-9pm) with any remaining artworks sales being opened up to the internet in the weeks after the show.

Sneak peak at the Tarot Tattoo Project

Will tarot sets be available to purchase too? We can’t wait to do a reading with them! Yes! Pre-orders are now closed but were available through our big cartel: gravitytattoo.bigcartel.com/product/tarot-cards.

Celebrating the art, design and creativity of tattooing will the tarot project be exhibiting anywhere else before the pieces go to their new owners? Nope! Tarot is a one night event!

Holly Astral - The Art of Tarot Tattoo Project

You used to create your own plush toys ‘Cavey’ and even exhibited at ToyCon, was this integral to deciding to create a physical product from the exhibition? My background in product and the toy industry definitely helped, and I also recognised that not everyone can afford £100 for an artwork and wanted to make an item that everyone could afford, so they can still contribute to the charity. Making the deck of cards seemed like the perfect idea, and a great way to showcase all the great art from the show! We enlisted the help of a local printers to help us make the cards as fab as possible.

This is your first exhibition at your studio Gravity Tattoo Shop, has doing the Tarot project given you a taste for curating tattoo art exhibitions again? Absolutely! We’ll be doing another, different show, next year!

Tarot Tattoo Project Poster

Don’t miss the launch of ‘TAROT The Art of Tarot’ on August 24th at Gravity Tattoo Shop in Leighton Buzzard from 6pm- 9pm or follow over on Instagram for more information!

Interview by Amber Carnegie originally posted on the Barber DTS Tattoo Supplies blog. 

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Natural History Museu​m ​of Los Angeles: ​Tattoo An Exhibition

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This November, The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles showcases an exhibition 5,000 years in the making. The art of marking skin with ink spans cultures, continents, and has evolved over time. We find ourselves with a mysterious fascination with both ancient and modern tattoo practices. Are they considered a part of sacred ritual or an act of rebellion? A sign of belonging or expression of individuality? In the special exhibit Tattoo, you’ll explore the history, technique, motivation, and sheer artistic genius that are connected to one another by ink.

19th November – 15th April 2018

The Natural History Museum, LA

Buy tickets here 

The exhibit will feature more than 125 images and objects, ranging from historical artefacts to intricate contemporary designs tattooed onto silicone models of the human body. Each tells the story of this unique and diverse art. The Museum will enhance the West Coast incarnation of Tattoo with objects from the Museum’s expansive collection, as well as features specific to the rich tattoo cultures of Southern California, from Ventura to Los Angeles to Long Beach and Orange County.

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#100hands NMMC

The 100 Hands Project, curated by our editor Alice Snape, forms the centrepiece of the exhibition Tattoo: British Tattoo Art Revealed at the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall, which runs until January 2018. Here Alice talks about the innovative installation and what it means for contemporary tattoo culture. 

It was the stunning work of tattoo artist Claudia de Sabe that made me fall in love with tattoos. From the moment, I discovered her work, I knew I wanted to be heavily tattooed. I wanted to turn my own body into a work of art, become a collector of delicate, beautiful work by an array of different artists. So, of course, Claudia was the first tattoo artist I put on my list when I was approached by National Maritime Museum Cornwall to curate the 100 Hands Projects.

Alice Snape 100 hands

Curator Alice Snape standing in front of the 100 Hands at NMMC

For me, there is absolutely no denying that tattoos are art, that’s not a question up for debate. Of course, all tattoos are not created equal, some are “good” and some “bad”. Tattooing is another medium and tattoos can be analysed in a way that any other works of art can – watercolours, sculptures, sketches, oil paintings. This means that some are worthy of being housed in a museum. The problem is, of course, tattoos simply aren’t objects that can be put in a frame or housed in a cabinet. They are on the skin of living, breathing people, which means ordinarily they disappear from existence once the wearer’s life is over.

The 100 Hands Project is a way of representing the three-dimensional, living nature of the tattoo. I have handpicked 100 of the best tattooists all working in the UK right now providing a snapshot of the work tattoo collectors are currently getting inked onto their skin, from black and grey and geometric to neo-traditional and colour realism. My selection includes the most respected, talented and popular artists. And they have each created an original design on a silicone arm.

100 HandsNMMC

“For my submission I simply tattooed something that I would love to tattoo in real life, for a customer,” said Claudia de Sabe, when I asked for her inspiration behind the piece she created – a stunning Japanese peony in purple and red. And the reason she wanted to be part of it? “There’s still a lot of misconceptions on tattooing and every exhibition can perhaps be of help in establishing a secure space for this art/craft within the artistic community. Ten years ago, an exhibition like this would have taken place maybe at a tattoo convention for three days, but not at a museum for this same length of time, which is incredible.”

Tattoos are so much more than just beautiful designs, they’re reminders of the unique stories that can be told on human skin. So, bringing an intimate and personal art form into a museum space gives the practice a new, institutional legitimacy and a special kind of accessibility, dispelling outdated misconceptions and showing just what is possible when artists put ink into skin.

And now the exhibition has finally launched, seeing the arms come back together inside the museum is a spectacle to behold. After hundreds of painstaking hours, 100 blank arms are now works of art that have become part of tattoo history. No matter what the inspiration or motivation behind each piece, each work of art has become one to make an installation that  will have an impact on the future of this thriving, creative and magical industry.

100 hands

List of 100 contributing artists:

Louie Rivers, Travelling tattooist,  Exeter

Joe Carpenter, Five Keys Tattoo Studio, Norwich

Ricky Williams / The Family Business / London

Jo Harrison UN1TY / Modern Body Art, Shrewsbury / Birmingham

Caleb Kilby, Old Habits / Two Snakes, London / Hastings

Kate Mackay Gill, Private Studio, West Sussex

Jake Galleon, Studio XIII, Edinburgh

Paula Castle, Broadside, Swansea

Meg Langdale, The Burton Tattoo Collective, Leicester

Joanne Baker, Grizzly Art Collective, Coventry

Han Maude, Infinite Ink, Coventry

Antony Flemming, World of Tattoos, Ruislip Manor

Sophie Gibbons, Tommygun Tattoo, Plymouth

James “Woody” Woodford, 1770, Brighton

Pauly, Second City Tattoo, Birmingham

Dexter Kay, King of Hearts, London

Mike Stockings, Legacy Tattoo, Haverhill

Jondix, Seven Doors, London

Olivia Dawn, The Tattoo Company, Wilmslow

Matt Difa, Jolie Rouge, London

Kathryn Kirk, Addiction Tattoo & Piercing, Bangor, Northern Ireland

Tamara Lee, The Circle / Two Snakes, London / Hastings

Aaron Hewitt, Cult Classic Tattoo, Romford

Louis Molloy, Middleton Tattoo Studio, Manchester

Abbie Williams, Lost Time, Peterborough

Amy Savage, The Warren, Canterbury

Araceli Forever, Death’s Door, Brighton

Anrijs Straume, Bold as Brass Tattoo Company, Liverpool

Allan Graves, Haunted Tattoos, London

Neil Dransfield, Oddfellows Tattoo Collective, Leeds

Dominique Holmes, Black Lotus Studio, London

Chrissy Lee, Colchester Body Arts, Essex

Lucy O’Connell, Red Tattoo and Piercing, Leeds

Delphine Noiztoy, The Lacemakers Sweatshop, London

Gibbo, Oddfellows Tattoo Collective, Leeds

Sway, Sacred Electric Tattoo, Leeds

Harriet Rose Heath, Crooked Claw Tattoo, Sheffield

Little Andy, The Church Tattoo Studio, Birmingham

Lal Hardy, New Wave Tattoo, London

Dane Grannon, Creative Vandals, Hull

Hannah Keuls, Good Times, London

Akuma Shugi, Wolf & Dagger, Hove

Ché Crook, Level Crooks, Bristol

Miss Jo Black, Black Inc, Frome

Philip Yarnell, Skynyard Tattoos, Westcliff-on-Sea

Lucy Blue, Cobra Club, Leeds

Clare “Goldilox” Deen, Incandescence, Birmingham

Alex Candela, Black Market, Leicester

Matthew “Henbo” Henning, Redwood, Manchester

Jack Goks, Cloak and Dagger, London

Jelle Soos, Swansea Tattoo Company, Swansea

Matt Finch, Atelier Four Tattoo Studio, Truro

Dan Hague, La Familia, Newquay

Paul Hill, Vagabond, London

Dawnii Fantana, Painted Lady Tattoo Parlour, Birmingham

Kerry-Anne Richardson, Cock A Snook, Newcastle

Chris Jones, Physical Graffiti, Cardiff

Kat Abdy, Cloak and Dagger, London

Touka Voodoo, Divine Canvas, London

Rosie Evans, MVL Tattoo, Leeds

Joao Bosco, Parliament, London

Claudia de Sabe, Seven Doors, London

Emma Kierzek, Aurora Tattoo, Lancaster

Tacho Franch, Follow Your Dreams, Sheffield

Justin Burnout, Ghost House Collective, Derby

Mitchell Allenden, Dock Street Tattoos, Leeds

Lewis Parkin, Northside Tattooz, Newcastle

Mister Paterson, The Fifth Chamber, London

Charissa Gregson, Bath Street Tattoo Collective, Glasgow

Otto D’ambra, The White Elephant, London

Holly Ashby, House of Thieves Tattoo, Birmingham

Fidjit, Dharma Tattoo, London

Deryn Stephenson, Tenacious Tattoo, Sheffield

David Corden, Semper, Edinburgh

Sarah Whitehouse, Redwood Tattoo, Manchester

Fil, Broad Street Tattoo, Bath

Radu Rusu, Atelier Four Tattoo Studio, Truro

Ella Bell, Dust’n’Bones Tattoo, Plymouth

Ashley Luka, The Square Tattoo Studio, Solihull

Danielle Rose, Sanctuary Tattoo, Dundee

Matt Youl, Painted Lady Tattoo Parlour, Birmingham

Liam Sparkes, Old Habits Tattoo, London

Sadee Glover, Black Chalice Tattoo, Swindon

Jemma Jones, Sacred Electric Tattoo, Leeds

Gemma B, Black Ink Rebellion, Newquay

Kodie Smith, Edshead Tattoo Studio, Chelmsford

Billy Hay, Bath Street Tattoo Collective, Glasgow

Henry Big, Rain City Tattoo Collective, Manchester

Freddie Albrighton, Immortal ink, Chelmsford

Daryl Watson, Painted Lady Tattoo Parlour, Birmingham

John Anderton, Nemesis tattoo, Seaham

Hanumantra, UN1TY, Shrewsbury

Just Jen, Den of Iniquity, Edinburgh

Iain Sellar, The Black Lodge, Bristol

Olly Streeter, La Familia, Newquay

Cally-Jo, New Wave, London

Sophie Adamson, The Projects Tattoo, Plymouth

Loz Thomas, One By One, London

Kayley Henderson, Northside Tattooz, Newcastle

Tasha Pollendine, Physical Graffiti, Cardiff

 

 

 

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Tattoos: 150 years of body art

Susanna Kumschick, a Swiss anthropologist, has curated an exhibition in Hamburg charting 150 years of body art. “I started with skin, because I really think if you are studying tattooing, you need to look at human skin closely too,” Susanna explains. She believes that the tattoo industry has not been represented enough when discussing anthropology in relation to art and design and after much research she “was surprised that it wasn’t actually a subject in art and design museums until recently.”

Thea Duskin, Untitled 2011

Kumschick discusses how tattoos have been represented throughout history in artists’ work, “They were always inspired by the aesthetics, from early on – the human body has been a subject in art for a long time, and so is painting on the body.”

The artist Fumie Sasabuchi adds tattoos to photographs taken from fashion magazines using traditional motifs taken from the Japanese Yakuza mafia. “Tattooing is more fashionable because we show our skin much more than in the past, so it’s more of a communication medium. We should look at them closely, because it depends where you have them on your body – you’re saying different things by the location you choose. It’s normal to have one today but it’s still a statement if you put one on your face, unlike one on your chest or ankle.” The image below was created from a photograph taken from children’s magazine Vogue Angels.

She also looks at how tattoos can stigmatise certain people.  The photographer and filmmaker Christian Poveda spent a year with members of the Mara 18 gang in El Salvador, who cover themselves in tattoos marking the numbers of people they’ve killed or commemorating the death of a fellow gang member.

The exhibition is at MK&G in Hamburg until 6 September 2015.