Tattoos are widely careful mankind’s oldest form of cultural expression. Early tattooing as it is done today is performed by inserting inert coloring in to the skin to create a desired image. The spurs for receiving a tattoo vary greatly through cultural and individual morays and borders. Tattooing can be done for religious ceremonies or as a coming of age ritual. Tribes both ancient and current would create tribal tattoo patterns telltale one’s place in society through specific tattoo imagery and tattoo designs.

The ancient Japanese were the first human culture to explore elaborate, artistic tattooing where detailed images within their tattoos shown tales from their folklore. Colourful full body tattoos read like a story within Japanese tattoos.

Dragon tattoos, koi fish tattoos and other iconic power animals like tiger tattoos and demon tattoos placed images on human skin when the intricate and robust robes of Japanese nobility became illegal to wear in ancient, feudal Japan.

Tattooing has always had connection to the spirit world by way of cultural ceremony; marking your flesh in memory of the dead or used as a ritual of significance. Although modern tattooing is mostly seen as a celebration of art and personal expression, the method of applying a tattoo is still based in the ancient system of inserting pigment in to flesh, bonding the experience of getting tattooed to the ancient rituals. Of course, getting a tattoo means confronting personal feelings and fears of solidity and discomfort, almost a self imposed coming of age ritual or a self created ritual of choking one’s fear. For many, this excitement is a very important process of getting a tattoo.

Tattoos hold a harmful stigma throughout our world’s culture. Tattoos are linked with social misfits, deviants and criminals. And this stigma is embraced in prison tattooing with tattoo designs of crosses on the face or hands, or spider web tattoos on the elbows signifying the years spent languishing in jail. Of course this stigma has allure to people who want to use tattoos as a signifier that they’ve permanently fell out of society. Traditional tattoos are grounded in this revelry of rebellion. Black panther tattoos are part of such underground symbols of rebellion while still allowing the wearer to go to a counter culture.

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Tags: Art, Body, Design, Tattoos

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