From Painting to Skin

When I first began tattooing, I was deeply inspired by fashion magazines and the many kinds of visual images I found in them.

The colors, clothing combinations, and atmosphere of the photographs all interested me. I would take the colors I felt from those images and combine them in my own way. If I had to describe my work at the time, many of my drawings were close to illustration or neo-traditional tattoo design.

Passing through many styles before finding one

After that, I naturally passed through many different styles while working with clients and drawing what they wanted. Fine line, black and grey, irezumi, dotwork, Western-style images, Eastern-style images. Rather than insisting on one fixed style, I learned to draw and tattoo in whatever way the work required.

Through that process, I became able to handle most genres of drawing and tattooing. But at the same time, I was not an artist with a clearly defined color of my own.

It was not that I loved only one specific genre. I found many different styles interesting. When I drew Western-style images, I liked their sense of volume and depth. When I drew Eastern-style images, I liked the line, the empty space, and the movement of ink. For a long time, I never felt that I had to choose only one style.

Discovering Korean painting by chance

Then one day, by chance, I came across a video by a Korean painting artist.

That was when I first became deeply drawn to Korean painting. The speed of the brush, the way ink spreads, and the way a single line can hold both form and energy left a strong impression on me.

I had never formally studied East Asian painting before, so I registered at a Korean painting studio on the very same day I watched that video. I began learning munin-hwa, or literati painting, and gradually became more immersed in brushwork and the world of East Asian painting.

Why I do not copy tradition

But I do not think that simply copying tradition is the same as preserving it.

To imitate old forms exactly can sometimes feel like stopping time. To truly continue a tradition, I believe it needs to be reinterpreted within the present moment and through the medium we work with now.

So while I respect the forms and atmosphere of traditional painting, I do not want to repeat them without change.

I also wanted to naturally bring in what I first learned from Western drawing: volume, depth, and the use of light and shadow. Rather than transferring old images flatly onto the skin, I wanted to reorganize them through a present-day sensibility and through the medium of tattooing, while still staying within the frame of tradition.

Tattoo is different from a painting on paper

A tattoo is different from a painting on paper.

The body has curves, movement, and direction. Each part of the body has its own flow. An image placed on the arm, back, leg, or chest cannot rely only on being visually beautiful as a flat composition. It has to follow the direction of the body and remain natural even as the body moves.

That is why, in my current work, I think as much about composition and placement as I do about the subject itself.

I focus on how the wing of a bird can fall along the vertical line of the arm, how the body of a tiger can follow the direction of the muscles, or how beings like Haetae and dragons can wrap around the body like a single current of energy.

What I want to draw — beyond classical subjects

What I want to draw is not a simple repetition of classical subjects.

Tigers, cranes, hawks, ravens, Haetae, and gumiho all carry old symbols. But I do not want the work to stop at explaining those symbols. I want their movement, energy, gaze, and weight to remain alive on the body.

I want the image to carry meaning, but also to move.

I want to borrow from traditional imagery without leaving it as something fixed in the past. Within the frame of tradition, I want to move freely, bring in methods from Western painting when needed, and rebuild the image through the language of tattooing.

Where my work stands now

My current work is based on Korean traditional imagery and the atmosphere of East Asian painting. But it is not about copying old paintings exactly. It is a process of reorganizing them so they can live again when placed on the skin.

I want to continue developing freely within tattooing, using traditional subjects and the sensibility of East Asian painting as my foundation.

So that an image does not remain only on paper, but can live and breathe with meaning on the body.