Tommy Montoya has witnessed in first-person the underground and the mainstream of the tattoo scene. Recognized for his persistent 20 years of West-coast black-and-gray tattooing, Montoya, a California-based artist rose to global fame for starring in television shows like “NY Ink” (2011 – 2013). In 2019, Tommy Montoya and Ryan Ashley Malarkey headlined the “Feather […]
Category: Celebrities
In just a few years Ryan Ashley Malarkey has soared to international fame by winning the 2016 “Ink Master” and starring on the 2017 reality show, “Ink Master: Angels.” In 2018 she was the most sought-after tattooist—headlining conventions in many countries including the United States, Mexico, England, Spain—and on the cover of top magazines Tattoo […]
We met up with tattooist Nikko Hurtado at the end of a warm-winter day at the conference hall, a building located across the Golden State Tattoo Expo in Pasadena, where he and other prominent colleagues Joe Capobianco and BJ Betts conducted workshops to aspiring artists. Hurtado, the event co-host and studio owner of Black Anchor, […]
Graffiti artist Nychos grew up in the forested state of Styria in Austria. His dad and grandfather were both hunters; smelly animal corpses, guts and bones were commonly in sight and part of the artist’s everyday life. He once killed a fox, but it was the first and last time, as Nychos was not destined […]
Using thick layers of paint and plastic, Marie-Lou Desmeules performs “surgery” on her models, turning them into living, ephemeral (and oftentimes grotesque) canvases. With an eye for truth and a touch of satire, she explores identity, beauty, and the public image. Featured here are some of her newest works, which include creative icons such as […]
Based in LA, Kazuhiro Tsuji (from Japan) has made a name for himself in Hollywood, working as a special effects makeup artist for 25 years. Just to name a few things he’s done: the aging makeup on Nicole Kidman for her role in “Hemingway & Gellhorn” and subtly transforming Joseph Gordon Levitt into a younger […]
What makes art controversial? Could be politics, or perhaps it’s to do with the subject portrayed or the themes explored. But very often it is because of nudity. There is something about seeing the human body in all its naked splendour that whips elderly churchgoers into a frenzy. This is very often the case when it […]
The delicate, pastel-tinted illustrations of Irish artist Denise Nestor are a joy to behold. Her speciality lies in rendering celebrity portraits in light colours and hand drawn pencil, as you can clearly see on this page. Her portrait of Joaquin Phoenix for “The New Review” and of J-Dilla for “This Greedy Pig” bear testament to her […]
Dutch artist Rik Reimert explains to me how he loves to see his drawings come to life as soon as the eyes are completed. His expressive portraits are shaded in linear and cross-hatching techniques; inked with Rotring Rapidograph pens. Reimert has focused on black and white art, most of his illustrations taking 6 to 10 […]
Although Robert Pattinson has been included in this list, most illustrators tend to choose celebrities who have more wrinkles, or a big nose, or just facial personality that isn’t too symmetric and pretty. An example of this is literary Noble Prize winner Jose Saramago (who I met once at a book signing) whose face works wonders […]