Wanted: Tattoos that should be arrested
The tattoo designs that patrons love, but artists think are a crime against their craft
When we got three leading artists together at Nosh Haus Cafe in Aluva to do a fun interactive video, we crafted questions that we hoped would lead to interesting conversations on their practice. While we got stories of a prisoner who took parole out to get tattoos from Pramod at Black Art Tattoo Studio, and of patrons who’ve become family from Rolvin of Inkredible Tattoo Studio, we didn’t expect to get the exact answer to our question of ‘cliched/overdone’ tattoos, in a united voice.
But it turns out that despite the growing popularity of tattoo culture, and the establishment of bespoke studios like them, a large number of people still choose to go for the cliched designs. This ranges from butterflies and phoenixes to heartbeats and names of significant others. But to get a grasp on just how common these tattoos are, we were prompted to do a quick survey with Pachakuth, Dreamcatcher and Inkredible.
From minimal line work to intricate depictions, common designs such as butterflies, moons, triangles, and sparkles dominate the request lists at all these studios. But they all echoed a caveat - to only get the popular designs if they resonate deeply with them, or even better, to modify them to make it their own. Syama Devi of Dreamcatcher shared, “While getting the typical heartbeat tattoo is still common practice, I try to make people do customised design variations at least. For example, someone brought the actual ECG of their parents and asked to get that tattooed, which held a deeper meaning.”
Perhaps the draw of these designs is their minimal nature or because they signify common human experiences, but Rolvin Devassy of Inkredible Tattoo Studios mentioned how doing some designs has become almost like doing “imposition in school.” He went on to say, “I’ve done very intricate variations on the concept of the phoenix for those who have gone through personal struggles and come out stronger. But a lot of people still come in with the same first image result on Google that you can get when you google the term and at this point, I could probably do the design with my eyes closed.”
All the different artists that we talked to during this ‘tattoo edition’ of The Leap, agreed on the worst idea and all echoed verbatim, “Do not get the name of your partner or friends tattooed on your body. People change and relationships do as well, and the number of tattoo cover ups we’ve had to do because of this is something that wants us to declare these as sold-out designs.”
A quick Google search later, we realised that ‘sold-out’ tattoos are commonplace today, with even images online of studios bearing signages of their sold-out designs. While the tattoo artists in Kochi don’t have such signages up (yet), they are steering their patrons away from the overdone designs. Though we have a handle on the tattoo artists’ perspective, we have yet to gain those from the side of the patrons. If you’re someone with tattoos on our graph, you might have more answers than we do. So we ask,
If you’re getting a popular design and you have access to a talented tattoo artist, why not make it bespoke?
Why not get a design that is not an antithesis to the intent of personal expression that people seek through tattoos?
Why not get designs that you might outgrow as you get older, and would require a cover-up work?
Perhaps it is the fact that these designs are all that depict universal human experiences, but does that mean that the tattoos have to be the same, universally accepted design?
Our questions are many, and still resounding. If you’re someone with these designs or know those who might, why not share this story with them?
We’re always looking to take The Leap into new learnings after all.
