Shawn Barber: The Tattooed Portraits – An Outsider’s View of Another World
Story and photos by Mitch Gurowitz
My trip to the Joshua Liner Gallery for the opening of Shawn Barber’s Memoir: The Tattooed Portraits Series was yet another door opening into another world for me. I went there to view the work of a fine artist who specializes in painting tattooers and tattooed people. While I’m no stranger to art or to galleries, I’ve only recently joined the ranks of the tattooed a few months earlier as a celebration of my 50th birthday.
My mind skipped between the excitement of seeing Shawn’s artwork up close and meeting him and the subjects of some of his work, and also concern that the reception would be a gathering of a very exclusive and private group of professionals… A group that may not appreciate an outsider walking into their world… (more…)
Chet Zar: Second Skin Group Show July 14th at Copro Gallery
By Chet Zar
I only discovered the tattoo community about 3 years ago when I was invited by tattoo artist Jon Lane to paint live at 2009′s Visionary Tattoo Art Festival. I was impressed from the start. Not only were these artists creating truly cutting edge art work on skin (conceptually, tattooing blows every other artistic statement out of the water, in my opinion), they were also painting as good as or better than a lot of well known contemporary painters I’ve seen. I was truly blown away at the variety of styles, techniques and ideas and wondered why I wasn’t seeing a lot of this stuff at the galleries I was showing at and going to, especially when a lot of the artists were expressing interest in showing at these galleries… (more…)
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