Celebrated Skin
www.needled.com
November 20, 2006

I've been bad, I confess. An interesting and comprehensive exhibit celebrating the art of tattoo, past and present, has been on view in Austin, Texas for almost three weeks now and I've just been putzing around with Needled tees, contests, and freak links. My apologies. But it's not too late to check it out. Celebrated Skin will run until November 29th at the Butridge Gallery at the Dougherty Arts Center.

Christina Hiett, the show's young curator and trained art historian, told Austin 360, "The story of tattoo art doesn't begin or end with the tattoo shop...I wanted to approach the genre in a broader art historical context."

Nevertheless, the work of today's Texan tattoo stars are ever-present: The incredible Chris Trevino offers his paintings to the show, an eight-hour tattoo session is turned into a six-minute stop-motion Super 8 film on view by Gabel Karsten, and other media including photos, drawings, and sculptures are melded together to show the influence of tattooing on fine art and culture.

XL Arts
Exhibit shows tattoos' meaning more than just skin deep
By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Thursday, November 16, 2006

Richard Bryant - photographer
More than 70 color photographs in the Dougherty Arts Center exhibit 'Celebrated Skin' present the work of Central Texas tattoo artists such as Chris Gunn

'Celebrated Skin: Tattoo Art & Artists from Austin.'
www.celebratedskin.com

There was one thing Christina Hiett knew for sure before she set out to organize "Celebrated Skin," an exhibit of Austin tattoo art and artists.

"I didn't want it to be a freak show or a peep show," says the 26-year-old independent curator.

After all, tattoos find exhibit space (so to speak) on real, live people. And Hiett couldn't very well fill the Butridge Gallery at the Dougherty Arts Center with real, live tattooed people.

Besides, she wanted to investigate a bigger concept.

"The story of tatoo art doesn't begin or end with the tattoo shop," she says. "I wanted to approach the genre in a broader art historical context."

Tattoos offer plenty of fodder for cultural critics. They contain the semiotics of today's popular culture yet have a tradition that spans centuries and continents, from punk kids in San Marcos to Samurai warriors of ancient Japan. Tattoos have their own specific and individual visual vocabulary that's a creative expression of both the tattoo artist and the tattoo bearer — a collaboration not found in most art forms, which require no relationship between creator and owner. Finally, tattoos have a certain shock value, but they can also be deeply personal or take residence on an intimate part of the body.

More than 70 color photographs in "Celebrated Skin" present a dizzying display of Central Texas tattoo talent, from modest, small images on inner arms to entire tattooed backsides. There are red roses in lush detail, vintage cartoon images, praying hands, a map of Texas, a sprawling intricate tableaux of fish in the style of classic Japanese art. Paintings by noted skin artist Chris Treviño, a six-minute stop-motion Super 8 film of an 8-hour tattoo session by Gabel Karsten, along with sculpture and drawings by other artists round out the exhibit. It all works together to make Hiett's main point: That artists working in all kinds of media have fused their talents with or found inspiration from tattoos. Hiett, a trained art historian with a day job as an educator at Austin Museum of Art, hadn't originally planned to organize such an exhibit. But a friend recruited her for help on the project earlier this year, then had to back out because of other commitments, and Hiett found herself curating solo.

A lithe, energetic woman with straight red hair and not a single tattoo on her pale skin, Hiatt is the first to admit that she had to quickly establish her credibility when she started making forays into the tattoo culture of Central Texas.

But she discovered that her academic approach to skin art was welcomed.

"I found 70 new best friends," she says. "People who shared my interest in the artistic forces that went into creating a tattoo and the unique aspect of a piece of art that's a permanent — and powerful — part of an individual's body."

As she points out, unlike a traditional piece of art, tattoos don't travel from gallery to gallery in crates, they don't get collected by museums and assigned a catalog number.

"Tattoos are, well, people," she says.

BY SALVADOR CASTILLO

Having stumbled a few months ago across the Craigslist post asking people with tattoos to participate in an art exhibit, I entered the gallery warily. The space was essentially split, with photographs on one side and paintings, drawings, sculptures, and a video on the other. Similar to a tattoo shop, but with fewer choices and showcasing only the most complex designs, the photographs wonderfully display colorful tattoos. The finely rendered images had me wondering if my arm could use some inking. All of the works are visually arresting.

The other work in the gallery also demonstrates the degree of skill necessary to create such successful body modifications. The images pop from their pages as the energized lines electrify the bold colors. The flames, dragons, and even the flowers seem to breathe life. Although plainly graphic forms, the works vibrate under the mastery of the artists. It is no wonder the tattoos breathe independently of their bearers. The accompanying objects are as refined as the tattoos.

Yet for all the technical virtuosity, the element that shines the most in this show is the respect for tattooing. Even without thumbing through the binder full of articles, one can sense the amount of research that has gone into the exhibition. Looking at the photographs and accompanying works, one feels a reverence that recalls illuminated manuscripts. The negative associations of tattoos with outlaws and battle-hardened veterans of yesteryear melt away as these markings become more personal and jubilant visual communications. Even the rock & roll persona does not command attention. Instead, the newer understanding of tattooing as a creative outlet is presented. Ink no longer marks an individual as a member of some cabal. Instead, it is the sign of a shared pursuit: to acquire the most creative icon and the finest image.

The decision to display the tattoos in such a professional gallery format reinforces the idea of tattooing as an art form. A sense of higher standards wafts throughout the space. The artists practice their form to attain their best work. The curator, Christina Heitt, presents this exhibit with such understanding. The visual essay she argues is easy to absorb and takes us to a new ukiyo-e.