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Why Tattooing Is a Major Art Form

— with a thought toward David Hockney —

In his book Secret Knowledge, David Hockney proposed a radical idea: that the great masters of the Renaissance — from Van Eyck to Caravaggio — did not rely solely on brushes and the naked eye, but used mirrors, lenses, and camera obscura setups.

Optical projection, he argued, was the hidden technology of their time — a silent engineering of vision that transformed how we see and represent the world.

That idea — that art reinvents itself through technology — is worth revisiting today. Because we may be living, without fully realizing it, through a similar moment. Not one that follows a Renaissance — but one that precedes it.

Tattooing, in the hands of contemporary artists, is no longer ornament or counterculture. It is medium. It is language. It is major art.

A European Line

Today, some of the most innovative tattoo artists emerge from European contexts deeply rooted in visual culture and art history. Europe carries a dense legacy of symbols, gestures, craft, and revolutions of form — and these artists carry that lineage forward. Not onto canvas, but onto living skin. Not into galleries, but into a hybrid, mobile, breathing medium.

  • – Abel Miranda (Spain): emerging from action painting, he transforms the human body into a gestural sculpture. instagram.com/abelmiranda_tattoo
  • – Valentina Ryabova (Russia): creates hyperrealistic portraits, painted live on the client’s skin. instagram.com/val_tatboo
  • – Mattia Calvi (Mambo Tattooer) (Italy): inspired by printing press aesthetics, he turns the body into a colorful plate of visual humor and graphic composition. instagram.com/mambotattooer
  • – Mikaël de Poissy (France): reinterprets medieval stained glass through gothic ornamentation. instagram.com/mikaeldepoissy

Other important European voices include:

Not a Canon, but an Opening

And precisely so this text is not read as Eurocentric — because tattooing today transcends all schools, movements, and geographies — it is important to acknowledge the international dimension that technology has made possible.

Some of the most visionary artists working today are based in South Korea, where technique, minimalism, and emotion meet in singular ways:

Across the world, tattooing defines the next chapter of art. This article does not propose a canon. It opens one.

Conclusion

Tattooing today is a major art form. Because all the arts — painting, photography, design, sculpture, performance — converge in this medium born directly on the living body.

It is no longer marginal. It is global.

And perhaps, quietly, deep within the pigment, a new Renaissance has already begun.

— George Mihai Vasilescu
Museum of Contemporary Tattoos, Berlin, 2025

(This article draws conceptual inspiration from David Hockney’s Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters (Thames & Hudson, 2001).)

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