Celtic Tattooing, re-imagined.

What lies before you is a selection of some of my recent works in Traditional Celtic Blackwork tattooing. There are a mixture of different explorations of Celtic tattooing. Some more traditional, some where the Celtic style is accenting and adding to another style of mark making, some where I’m pushing into more Northern styles of art like the Mammen Norse style.

I have been exploring my own expression of Celtic artwork for some time, and the more it develops and evolves, and the more I learn of the history and the tradition of my ancestors, the more I feel motivated and exciting it is to push this exploration further. I have so many projects in my mind that are waiting to drift through from the plane of the imagination, to the four dimensional space of the material world though paper, pencil, ink and skin. Perhaps one day one such imagination will find itself realised upon your skin.

Some of these projects are smaller, some larger. Some of them are completed works, and some are still ongoing. There are some pictures which are more polished, and some which are much more raw, in-the-moment photos. I feel it is important and interesting to view tattoos not just as they are fresh, but also healed, and even mid process, showing the journey we will undertake together.

Tattooing involves discomfort. Tattooing is not without sacrifice, I feel the raw, in process photos illustrate this often suppressed part of the journey.

Enjoy.