Highly imaginative and visually nonsensical, Gifford Kasen’s diabolical creations ooze horror film nostalgia. His petri dish of biomech will leave you simultaneously disturbed and curious.
Upon first glance, one may think “What the fuck am I looking at?” But with further inspection you’ll find his works display the frivolities of Grime and the mechanical exuberance of Guy Aitchison. Kasen often uses bright tones sparingly to create abstract focal points amidst the chaos of his renderings. Every line is scrutinized despite its spontaneous appearance.
Owner of Logan Square Tattoo in Chi-city, this daily obsession is up for anything and open for business. http://logansquaretattoo.com/
Black work. Everyone and their sweet mothers are attempting “purposeful” and “deliberate” configurations in this relatively new and emerging style. Unfortunately, most of today’s simplistic symbols are vapid and meaningless to everyone but the wearer.
Through the clout has risen a pair of storytellers that create a visual language of legends in this otherwise feral style. I speak only of the duo known as Thieves of Tower. When they’re not playing sorcerers to the black-work realm, Houston and Dagney are building a brand that’s changing the medium. With a style that ranges from an amalgamation of basic lines and negative space to wood block style illustrations, these two are creating a multifaceted passion play.
This daily obsession is somewhat allusive. Thieves of Tower could be based in Greensboro, NC one day and gone the next. They might be concocting new skin art or mind-melding with other brands on illustrative endeavors. Who the fuck knows, but don’t let it stop you from immersing yourself in their visual lexicon. http://www.thievesoftower.com/gallery/
Kelly McGrath lives in an alternate universe that makes Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory feel like the DMV and Lisa Frank look like Martha Stewart.
Her aura of colors makes my inner child jump for joy and lick the ink right off her canvases. And although her compositions may seems simple and amusing, each one is crafted with passion and loaded with meaning to both wearer and artist. The bejeweled adornments she has begun to focus on in the last year appear viscerally three dimensional. Ol’ girl is without a doubt finding her niche in the industry and taking names.
You can find this daily obsession tucked away at Art Alive Tattoo Studio in the sleepy hollows of North Carolina. Get a chuckle out of more of her beloved musings at http://www.artalivetattoo.com/#!kelly-mcgrath/c22sl and catch her before her wait list goes vamoose.
If you’re a tattooer you want to be him. If you’re the average joe blow, you envy the fuck out of him. That’s right, the man in question is the one and only Jes Strickler.
I’ve yet to meet an artist more humble and more versatile. His line work is so exquisite that the detail makes most artists squeamish. And although his portfolio is filled with a variation of styles, my heart melts when his executions lean into the dot & line genre. He crafts each composition with attitude and dynamism, leaving no minutia unturned.
One of two boss men at Madison’s heavy hitting Iron Quill, Strickler brings together an arsenal of artists including Joe Anderson and Nhia Eastmead. Homeboy holds down the fort with tough love and challenges his crew to evolve their game while maintaining a personal/professional balance.
You can find more of this daily obsession’s whimsical wonders at http://ironquilltattoo.com/ and
Mr. Mark Blanchard has me at a straight “what the fuck?”
His imagination is crawling with fleshy beasts riddled with eyes and hair. His neo-traditional abstractions are done in such a pronounced high gloss style, that despite the subject matter, you just can’t help but loose yourself in their abhorrent nature. There’s no doubt that this master of the absurd is one of Paul Booth’s disciples. But homeboy’s grown up and now has a shop/gallery all his own called Eridanos in Cambridge, Mas.
I dare you to feast your eyes on more of this daily obsession’s sideshow contrivances at http://www.markblanchardtattoo.com/ without feeling at least a bit green in the gills.
Since the birth of Undefinedink, no artist has evolved and pushed their limits quite like Mr. Fabian De Gaillande.
This ink slinging storm trooper has been upping his hit list exponentially with an expansive repertoire of full color depictions. It’s extraordinary how homeboy switch hits between photo realism and neo-traditional. And every visual concoction reflects an unparalleled energy. If you dig back into his archives of four years past, you won’t remotely find the same level of finish and detail as in the works of today.
There’s no doubt that this daily tattooligan from down under is becoming a well sought after gent, so let his rabid Instagram bite your eyeballs and suck you in. https://www.facebook.com/Fabztattoo?fref=ts
This girl…oh holy Moses, has cut my tongue out and served it back to me on a golden platter.
The raw talent of Nomi Chi simply escapes me. Her skeletal process of exposing sketch lines within a final composition is simply other worldly. The newest member of Gastown Tattoo Parlour, this Canadian mistress of story book figures is molding her own category at an exponential rate.
Although this daily obsession is currently not taking any new clients, keep her on your radar for when she opens the floodgates of submission. And in the mean time check out her enigmatic musings at http://nomi-chi.com/home.html and http://nomi-chi.blogspot.com/
Losing yourself in the faceted concoctions of Mátyás Csiga Halász is futile. His prismatic techniques bring drama to his work and force the viewer to spend time with the subject. Halász unleashes an unapologetically bold palette that brings Neo Traditional to the next level, with an intense emphasis on “negative” space.
This daily obsession can be found expanding his repertoire out of Dark Art Tattoo studio in the profound city of Budapest, but rumor has it he likes to worm his way around the globe doing guest spots from the far east to the red west and blue. http://www.whoismatyashalasz.com
Curiouser and curiouser I find myself as I slide down the visual rabbit hole that Mr. Azivaras Ly has crafted. A mixture of abstraction and patterning, his work is a virtual bomb of enigmatic color.
Raining magic out of Totemas Tattoo in the heart of Siauliai, this fine gent surely views the world through an original lens. His lines aren’t perfect and it appears that his ink sits a little deep, but each creative revelation takes on a life of its own when inked to fruition.
To get more of this daily obsession’s WTF-experience, take a gander here http://instagram.com/aivaras_ly
If anyone has come close to immortalizing Lisa Frank in ink, its definitely Ms. Anna Belozerova. With a palette that’s whimsically extravegant, this Russian master takes femininity to the next level. Influenced by fantasy realist Konstantin Vorobjev out of Barnaul, her natural versatility has evolved this category of tattooing and quite possibly superceded her predecessors.
I long to see more of this daily obsession’s convergence of style with line work and abstract paint-like rendering. Belozerova has quite the glimmering future ahead of her, so stay connected to this virtuoso at https://www.facebook.com/people/Anna-Belozerova/100007073078493
