TATTOOING MEETS CONTEMPORARY ART
“The accumulation of myths due to overlapping temporalities in History is the inexhaustible source and the foundation of my artistic statement. Retentions from the individual memory are adding and overprinting to the collective memory, more or less censored, and are analogically creating an universally featured but personal aesthetic. My research is essentially one of virtually experimenting with the Sacred through several disciplines, generally by actualizing repetitive patterns of civilisation within archetypal but contemporary structures. Sometimes Religious, sometimes Greek and/or from the First-Nations, the individual myth is growing, fed by instinct, dreams, beliefs and education. My perceptive tools of fantasy, intuiton and imagination are vividly alive and not checked by the reason. I make no distinction between the real and the unreal, therefore my presence is splitted; the body operating and creating in a cartesian paradigm while the spirit is surfing the collective memory and flirting with mythology. Biographical allegories are emerging from this unstoppable stream of thoughts, framing my psychic experience of inpiration into a sometimes futuristic, sometimes actual but always primitive aesthtetic. Possible manifestations of our First-Nations cultural heritage or again, witnesses of my belonging to the powerful and millenial Tattoo tradition as a bodymodification practicioner myself, the created pictures, objects and environments infiltrate, ponctuate et animate different states of the deritualized and ordinary life.”
AESTHETICAL CONSIDERATIONS
“Any genuine form of tattooing deserves the utmost respect and all my admiration. It may be tribal styles or age-old traditions, such as Japanese or typical American tattoo art, though the latter is far more recent. These expressions have all bred and fostered their own technology, symbolism and frame of thought. Naturally, and to some extent, I draw from these styles, which have been handed down for centuries, even millenniums. However, I tend to consider tattooing as an experimental and infinite art form. The plastic qualities of my work in corporal modification have been enriched with the integration of scarification techniques, using cutting, ink rubbing, by themselves or combined with tattooing. This allows me to explore the “tangible” effects of these multiple interventions on the skin, acts that are reminiscent of engraving or textile motifs, as opposed to other trompe l’oeil effects traditionally associated with tattoo art, i.e. shadow casts, reflections, volume. I primarily choose to work with line sets, texture study, and a near exclusive use of black pigment and perhaps solid color, when needed. My rather diagrammatical drawing approach hovers between the figurative and the abstract, allowing me to step away from the accepted notions. In that sense, the patterns generated by scarification are purely abstract and their purpose is to render textural effects. The relation with the body often involves work that is widespread without being necessarily massive. While I usually have complete freedom in my work, I still collaborate closely with my clients to convey their best ideas.”
Emilie Roby was born and raised in Abitibi, part of Northwestern Quebec. She studied visual arts at Université du Québec à Montréal, where she particularly stood out in drawing, video, digital and performance art. She lives and works in Montréal.
