“My art has become a history lesson for me,” refl ects San Francisco artist
Shawn Barber. “I’m constantly learning about the tattoo industry, the people
that have defi ned it, and those who have changed it.”
The 37-year-old painter has devoted the past three years to creating
Tattooed Portraits, a bold collection of paintings of artists with tattoos, tattoo
artists, tattooed art, and tattooist materials. The pieces, which average about
30 inches by 40 inches, reveal Barber’s talent for capturing a raw sense of
simplicity existing in a swirl of intricate designs, patterns, and colors.
He creates more than 100 paintings a year, and those have been collected
into two books, 2006’s highly successful coffee table tome, Tattooed Portraits,
and the recent follow-up Forever and Ever, which contains “The New York
Experience,” a two-and-a-half month project for which Barber photographed
and painted the hands of 25 respected New York City tattoo artists.
“Hands are an artist’s primary tools, the thing most connected to your work,
the most intimate part of your body,” Barber muses. “Hands are totally unique,
and to show the difference between them is fascinating.”
The New York native became interested in tattoos during his teens (he fi rstgot inked when he was 16). But it wasn’t until he developed a more sophisti-
cated art appreciation while attending art school in Florida in his mid-twenties,
and after graduation, when he move to San Francisco, that he began to under-
stand the tattoo as fi ne art.
“I’m a heavily tattooed person, and fascinated by portraiture and art history,
so spending the past three years in San Francisco, the mecca of the American
tattoo, brought all of these things together and really inspired me to document
tattoo culture,” Barber says.
The next chapter in Tattooed Portraits is a solo show documenting the
Los Angeles ink scene, which will be displayed at Billy Shire Fine Arts in Los
Angeles in July. “I’ll probably continue to work on this series for the rest of
my life,” Barber refl ects, “constantly trying new things and exploring different
aspects of documenting the artists and culture of contemporary tattooing.”
Barber is even trying his hand at tattooing. He’s been working through an
apprenticeship for the past year and a half with Mike Davis at Everlasting Tattoo
in San Francisco. He admits it’s tough. “I’m still surprised at the awkwardness of
the medium. ... It’s much more diffi cult than you’d expect.” —Jessalynn Kellershawn
barber
inked people
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