Custom tattoos, artist flash and live tattooing extend Sketchy Shona’s drawing practice onto a person’s body and into the life they carry.
A mark changes when it enters skin
Tattooing is not a smaller painting and it is not merchandise. A drawing has to work with a body, a person, its placement, the passage of time and the fact that it cannot simply be taken off a wall.
That permanence changes how I think about the mark. A tattoo can be strange, funny, tender or difficult, but it has to be clear enough to live with and open enough to keep changing as the person changes.
Flash is an active archive
Artist flash is often treated as a menu. I see it as a living archive of forms ready to leave the page. Creatures, bodies, objects and short forms can be chosen, moved, combined or made specific to the person who will carry them.
The flash sheets connect to the wider Sketchy Shona archive. A figure can move from sketch to painting, painting to tattoo and tattoo to room without becoming the same thing twice.
The permanent decision in public
Live tattooing makes a permanent decision visible. The room watches preparation, conversation, concentration and the moment an image becomes part of a body. It is a different kind of live art, with the same interest in trust and attention.
In Berlin, it can happen inside the culture of clubs, artist-run rooms and temporary events. It belongs to the same public world as live drawing, even though the responsibility is much more intimate.
An enquiry with a body behind it
A serious tattoo enquiry starts with the reason for the image, placement, scale and relationship to the existing body. I am not interested in making every possible style. I want to make the Sketchy Shona language specific to the person who will live with it.
The result should feel permanent without feeling frozen. That is the standard.
Credits
- Original Sketchy Shona studio editorial based on the Ink archive and documented tattoo practice.