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Grime
Stunt Double
Interview by Crash |
Crash: So what's the meaning behind the body suit painting you did for the NewSkool show?
Grime: I guess it was a reaction to the seemingly banal imagery that I was seeing from modern tattooers. It was as if they caught some damn virus that only allowed them to tattoo wings, dice, candles, coffins, skulls- you get the picture. Not that those images aren’t some of the best to do and hell- I love to do them too- but so many of them seemed to just throw these elements together in some haphazard fashion and call it good. So I painted my rendition of it, if you will, and as the punch line called it, "Look Mom, I’m a tattooer"- as if anyone would have to guess. The art is nothing but direct tattoo iconography- and nothing outside of that.
How pertinent do you think this topic is to tattoo today? To whom is it addressed?
Ha, you want to talk about "Biters"...
Well, how serious of a problem do you consider that to be?
It's a big problem; it's horrible and it seems to be all over the place. There just doesn't seem to be anything that's very novel
in the new work that's happening. Everything is so borrowed,
or Stolen! There seems to be a real dearth of originality in the tattoo community and if there is something new and appealing it is copied almost immediately- send in the Internet!!
Why do you think this is?
I think it's because a lot of tattooers seem to lack a philosophy regarding their tattoos and tattooing. It appears they don't have much to say, or they have the inability to express it, in their tattoos.
How do you mean? Can you give an example?
Like you have the bandage thing with the blood on it, you know, and the part of the rose and the wing and a coffin and whatever the hell else is popular this week. And it's everywhere. I look in a magazine and I see four tattoos with daggers and a bottom jaw ... what the fuck? Why a bottom jaw? I wonder where that idea came from...
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