Visual art allows anyone to confess their truth—no matter how different or inconvenient it might be for someone else. The likes of painting, photography, and film acts as a vehicle for exploring identity, reflecting on history, and celebrating culture. Of course, this isn’t specific to a race or society, but it is helpful, at times, […]
Author: Sara Barnes
Fine Line Tattoos in a Vintage Illustration Style by A-B M
A-B M is an interdisciplinary artist whose creative endeavors include tattoos. The illustrative pieces are influenced by their formal education in painting, after which time they began “learning and sharing skills of the trade” with friends. What draws A-B to tattoos is the bond formed between artist and client. “The necessity to integrate this intimate […]
10 Fascinating Photographers to Follow on Instagram
When Instagram launched in October 2010, it was billed as an app for photo sharing and championed pictures captured through a lens. Within a square (and only square) frame, users could share their lives with selected filters that altered the photo like a pair of rose-colored glasses. With the focus on photography, it’s no wonder that […]
Striking Animal Tattoos That Reveal the Predator Within
As humans, we like to define ourselves by what’s around us. Our belongings, our friends, and our affiliations help us relate to contemporary culture. They also reveal the essence of who we are—or at least who we think we are. The “spirit animal” is one mechanism in which we label ourselves. Whether we’re a tiger, bear, or giant […]
Japanese-Inspired Woodblocks Imagined as Tattoos by Brindi
Maxime Gautron, better known as Brindi, is an artist based Toulouse, France. Inspired by Japanese art and tattoos, some of his most compelling pieces recall the culture’s traditional woodblock prints. Specifically, they seem to reference the ukiyo-e genre, albeit more surreal and updated for current times. But, the single panels displayed in flat color capture the essence […]
Optical Illusion Tattoos Reveal Worlds Beneath Skin by Jesse Rix
Specializing in color realism, Jesse Rix uses rich hues and crisp lines to create optical illusions on the skin. In honeycomb and cube shapes, Rix uses them as visual transition points between the skin and fantastical scenes that lie below. Each tattoo has its own grand reveal, in which the wearer seemingly reveals another part of […]
Tattoos by Mowgli are Tiny Microcosms on Skin
Mowgli wants his tattoos to perplex you. “Nothing should make sense,” he says. “You should break the rules and break the norms and surpass expectation.” This is evident throughout his work. Inspired by portraiture, geometry, nature, and science, he can’t focus on just one interest. His tattoos are a fusion of those fields—realistic-style faces overlap […]
10 GIF Artists Sending You into a Trance with Addictive Loops
“Choosy developers choose GIF,” developer Steve Wilhite once said about the new file format when it was introduced in 1987. The catchy tagline was a riff on the then-popular JIF peanut butter commercial. Today, GIFs are ubiquitous. They are widely shared and even the news is delivered with little snippets of the compressed animation. But […]
Something’s Gone Wrong in Tattoos by Louis Loveless
Based in both London and Paris, Louis Loveless applies a comic book-style sensibility to his tattoos. Working almost entirely in black, stylized subjects, his dramatic pieces contemplate the horrors of life, the calmness death, and the false prophecies that we cling to. To convey many of these sentiments, Loveless uses glitches to fracture his subjects. This […]
Nature Illustrations that Venture “Into the Woods” and Beyond
In Stephen Sondheim’s critically-acclaimed musical Into the Woods, characters from several iconic fairy tales are intertwined as they each venture into the one place they’re all unsure of—the dark woods. This is the place where Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (from “Jack and the Beanstalk”) and others have to leave their comfort zones and […]