“On canvas, on paper and on everything inanimate I express my imagination or my state of mind. But when I put on my ‘tattoo artist’s hat’ I do just one thing, ‘tattoos’. Davide Andreoli is the author of a new e-book for Tattoo Life featuring true and pure traditional.
A return to the classics of this style, with reinterpretations of designs passed on from one generation to another with great respect for their origins. As Davide says, the substantial distinction between a tattooer and a tattoo artist is very subtle but at the same time very big.
Davide let’s start from the new ebook you prepared for our platform tattooebooks.com? What did you collect and how did you build it?
For this e-book I selected some of my favourite flashes. Drawings by Jessie Knight, Rich Mingins, Les Skuse, Tattoo Peter, Hong Kong Swollow, Stoney St. Clair and many others, most of which are from the European tradition and some from the American tradition. It is a collection of traditional tattoos in which I have endeavoured never to distort the root of the original design while respecting its canons and simplicity.
TATTOOING. ITALIAN ROOSTER SKATCHBOOK VOL.3
In this collection of 66 plates Davide Andreoli, renowned interpreter of the most classic Traditional, presents the subjects of the great historical masters of this style, redrawn by him in outline only and (in the same plate) in the colour version.
Why did you want to go back to the great classics?
I have noticed that in recent years, new and even old tattooists confuse what comes from the Tattoo tradition with ‘modern tattooing’. They classify a tattoo marked by bold lines and a simple design as ‘traditional’. The European traditional as well as the American traditional is based on designs from the masters of the past.
One cannot invent a design from scratch and think it is a traditional tattoo just because it conforms to the aesthetic standards of a ‘traditional’!
Tradition is a blend of memories, news, testimonies and in our case designs passed on from one generation to the next.
The substantial distinction between a tattooer and a tattoo artist is very subtle but at the same time very big, I think.
What do you mean?
I am saying that today there is a lot of confusion between what can be tattooed and what can be drawn for a tattoo. Everything can be tattooed but not everything is a ‘tattoo’.
We see paintings, graphics and crazy ideas tattooed on people’s bodies but there is a big distinction between what is tattooable and what is ‘A Tattoo’. I totally agree with what the great Gian Maurizio Fercioni says: ‘people are not canvases and you must have great respect for their history and their skin’.
The tattoo artist must be at the service of the idea and personality of the person who wants to get a tattoo.
Instead, we currently see more of the artistic expression and ego of the tattoo artist rather than of the person who decides to capture that moment for life on his/her body. On canvas, on paper and on everything inanimate I express my fantasy or my state of mind, but when I put on my ‘tattoo artist hat’ I do ‘tattoos’.
How much does drawing influence your work and how much time – with so many years of experience in tattooing – do you dedicate to it?
Drawing and research are always in the foreground for me. Not a day goes by that I don’t draw or paint. It’s almost a physical need for me! I will try to keep the flame of traditional Western tattooing alive. The poetry and strength of the drawings from the past never cease to make me live with passion what I have been doing for almost 30 years now.
I would like to close with something very close to my heart considering the direction my world is taking. To those who approach this wonderful way of life and those who truly want to respect this world, I say ‘Yes to contamination’ but NO to ‘colonisation’.
Let’s respect and honour all traditions and cultures far from our own, but first and foremost, let’s lovingly protect our Past and our great tattoo tradition. The oldest in the World.
