Drawing & Designing Tattoo Art - Buchanan, Fip [SRG] (2024)

Current problems in dermatology

Tattoo as art, the drivers behind the fascination and the decision to become tattooed

2015 •

Kari Kjelskau

For many people, getting a tattoo is like purchasing art, and many professional and famous tattooists are artists who are acknowledged by colleagues and authorities. The history of tattooing goes back for thousands of years, and the reasons for getting tattooed are many. These permanent markings are always personal, they can be plain or elaborate, and they serve as amulets, healing and status symbols, declarations of love, signs of religion, adornments and even forms of punishment. Drivers behind the fascination of acquiring a tattoo may fall into four main groups, namely healing, affiliation, art and fashion. © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.

University of Sunderland

Beyond the Epidermis: a practical investigation into contemporary western tattooing

2021 •

Adam McDade

Academic focus on contemporary western tattooing is primarily from the disciplinary perspectives of the sciences, economics, history, and anthropology. With few exceptions, attention is placed on the modified body and the recipient of the tattoo rather than the tattoo producer or the processes of production. Though tattooing is an important creative industry, the occupational role of the tattooist and the processes and development of practice is yet to receive academic investigation from a practice-centred perspective. This has led to understanding of tattooing that is either absent entirely, partially informed, or flawed, from a range of perspectives. This AHRC/NPIF funded research is conducted in partnership with Sunderland (England) based tattoo studio Triplesix Studios, where the researcher has worked as a tattooist. A multi-method methodology was created with practice at its core combined with a contextual overview and autoethnography to contribute insight into tattoo production, the role of the producer and stylistic development that is largely absent in academia. It is suggested that the processes of tattoo production are inherently collaborative between tattooist and client. The tattooist’s role is proposed as both material (provision of medium) and non-material (provision of service). The material facet of the tattooist’s role in the provision of the medium is presented as contingent in accordance with the tattoo brief. Autoethnographic accounts of tattooing practice are utilised to generate insight into the non-material facet of the tattooist’s role in the provision of service. Stylistic development with tattooing as a medium through practical investigation that is informed by design training is then presented, illuminating factors that affect the approach of the tattooist. This is the first piece of research to be conducted using tattooing practice as a core methodological approach and demonstrates that understanding of contemporary western tattooing more broadly can be enriched as a result. Through the contribution of a novel methodology, frameworks and documentation offered by this research, it is proposed that tattooing may be better understood from the perspectives in which it has previously been studied and be introduced into broader arts and design scholarship.

Craft Research

The contemporary western tattooist as a multifaceted practitioner

2019 •

Adam McDade

Although tattooing has been vaguely discussed in an academic literature for over a century, it has only received serious scholarly interest in recent decades. The literature that exists is primarily within the contexts of art history, economics and dominantly, social sciences. With few exceptions, the emphasis is placed on the modified body or the recipient of the tattoo as the focus of the study, and not the process of cultural production. Tattooing from the perspective of the practitioner, and thus the methods, processes and actions of the tattooist, is yet to have gained sufficient focus. As a result, understanding of a creative medium that is a dominant form of cultural consumption is limited, largely deductive and lacking in informed internal voices. This article aims to offer insight into the multifaceted and contingent nature of the role of the contemporary western tattooist, which may be understood as a tattooist working in a western context in the twenty-first century. Conducted by a researcher who is also a professional tattooist, the article is informed by a multi-method methodology combining a contextual review with practical research and autoethnography. Drawing upon professional practice to provide elucidation, a lens for partially understanding the contingent role of the tattooist in pragmatic multiplicity of a visual artist, a designer and a craftsperson is proposed. Specific attention is paid to the notion of craft in accordance to the criteria of the supplemental, material and skill proposed by Adamson to exemplify when the tattooist can be understood as performing the action of a craftsperson. The role of the contemporary western tattooist has been either assumed, ignored or studied without the necessary resources or methodologies within conventional disciplinary approaches. In introducing an insider practitioner perspective into the current dialogue, tattooing may be better understood and researched in the avenues in which it has previously been studied, while also being introduced into the broader craft, design and arts academic discourse.

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

TATTOOS -HISTORY AND ACTUALITY

2014 •

Gabriela Stoleriu

Tattoos have been practiced for thousands of years and remains a common practice in various cultures and countries. Tattooing has gained popularity in Western society where about 10% of the population has at least one decorative tattoo. Lately the same phenomenon can be also observed in Romania. Metal salts or organic compounds are the pigments used in tattooing to achieve a different color. The introduction of various substances into the skin can cause side effects such as: acute inflammatory reactions, contact dermatitis, photoinduced reactions, lichenoid reactions, granulomatous reactions, pseudolimfomatous reactions, discoid lupus erythematosus, and bacterial infections (pyoderma, leprosy, tuberculosis) or viral (warts, moluscum contagiosum, hepatitic virus, HIV). In parallel with the emergence of new ways of tattooing, new ways of removing them have also developed. Currently, Q-switched laser is most commonly used to remove tattoos, however, without guarantee their complete removal.

Designing new tattoos: relations about technology and tattoo design

Breno Bitarello

The development of new technologies allows the design of responsive dynamic tattoos. What we call New Tattoos (NTs) anticipate novel methods of communication, transforming the skin into a new source for interactive interfaces. Our purpose is to present a preliminary approach of some materials and technologies to be used in near future to design and produce the NTs emphasizing how the design of tattoos is affected by the development of new technologies.

The Journal of Somaesthetics

Occupy your Body: Activating 21st-Century Tattoo Culture

2017 •

Karen Leader

In: James D. Wright (editor-in-chief), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Vol 24. Oxford: Elsevier. pp. 32–38.

Tattoos and Body Modification

2015 •

Marin Kosut

This article examines tattooing as an ancient and contemporary form of body inscription and modification. It frames the popularity of tattooing in the Western World in relation to other modern body modifications and within the landscape of consumer culture. Showing parallels between the motivations and meanings of contemporary tattoo practices, a historical overview of tattoos in premodern and non-Western cultures is presented. The divergent ways in which scholars have approached tattooing is examined, juxtaposing research in the behavioral sciences that links tattoos to deviant and antisocial behaviors with ethnographic and social–scientific studies that place tattoos within cultural, symbolic, esthetic, and prosocial frameworks.

Complications arising from artistic body tattoos: our experience

2010 •

Graciela Pellerano

American Journal of Sociology

Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community by Margo DeMello

2001 •

Clinton R Sanders

Plastic Surgery and Modern Techniques

Preserving Tattoos During Cosmetic Surgical Procedures, Our Approach in Modifying Coded Techniques to Unique Body Art

Luigi M Lapalorcia