Is Tattooing Art?

Tattooing is not art.  Not really.  Not usually.

It's a bold statement to be sure but first we have to understand what exactly art is before we can categorize tattooing one way or another.


Art is free expression; an application of skill and creativity by an artist that compels the viewer to experience an emotional reaction within it's beauty.  This ain't tattooing.  I also never call tattooers 'tattoo artists', rather I refer to my peers as 'tattooers' (one who tattoos) or 'tattooists' (one who makes shitty tattoos). 

The reason why tattooing is really not true art is because the tattoo is almost never a free expression of creativity of the tattooer.  The customer always has final say over the appearance of the finished product.  Because of this limitation, the artist's expression is never truly free.  A tattoo is an expression of the customer, designed through the skill set of the tattooer but is limited to the fancies and whims of the person commissioning the piece.

Every day a battle of wills is waged between tattooers and their customers at the front counter of the tattoo shop.  The customer fires their first volley, professing their ideas and concepts, flicking through Pinterest pages on their cell phone as reference.  The tattooer explains why some of the client's ideas won't work because of technical limitations and he returns fire with suggestions of what would work or perhaps new ideas are introduced.  The customer weighs their sense of trust in their 'artist' or relapses to cynicism and it's a case of "I'll think about it" as they turn heel for the door.


So what has tattooing been all this time, if not art?  It's been a craft.  There's an enormous difference between art and craft.  Craft is workmanship.  Honing ability.  The creation of something functional but beautiful.  Craftsmen builds ships and clocks and furniture but as beautiful as craftsmanship can be, it's realm is function.  With tattooing we create images that express the personality of the customer and their desires.  That is tattooing's function. Tattooers are Craftsmen, not artists.  Not when we tattoo.

I submit to you, however that tattooing has needed to be a craft all this time because I think as an international community of tattooers we had to build our technical foundation for tattooing to eventually have the potential to become fine art.

A tattooer who's created a successful reputation for themselves is someone who is sought after by sophisticated customers whom understand that who does their tattoo is just as important as what they get tattooed.  With reputation comes inherent trust that your artist will deliver.  I think it's possible to leverage that trust and make a simple but enormous leap into a new realm of innovation in tattooing.



I've created a gallery of simple pencil illustrations of tattoos that I want to do.  Each image I made is based on my own personal expression and unadulterated by client whimsy.  Each tattoo design is meant to be tattooed once and once only.  It's not custom work because it's not created with a customer in mind.  Anyone wishing to adopt a design and have it tattooed does so knowing that its beauty lies in it's ambiguity.  Although size and placement is negotiable, there are no alterations or substitutions. Its take it or leave it tattooing.  No one is going to force you to get something you don't want tattooed on you but if you can dissolve your need to control the process and allow a tattooer as an artist to express themselves with you as the canvass I think a wonderful change in tattooing can happen. 

Inevitably this type of tattooing is what I plan to do exclusively.  Although I really do love the collaborative process and I enjoy being inspired by my customer's ideas, I think the future of tattooing, at least my tattooing, is creating my own artistic invention.

Adam Sky,
Rose Gold's Tattoo
San Francisco, California