The Preface
Nunchka
Fascinated by the art of tattooing, I’ve started drawing tattoo designs.
The route
As it’s easier to find paper than skin, I’ve started drawing designs for tattoos. I’m developing a taste for patient, deliberate lines – the kind you draw without hesitation – and I end up keeping the drawing for its own sake, whether it serves as the basis for a creation or is a work of art in its own right.
My method is inspired by Zentangle: the drawings are built up pattern by pattern, circle after circle, without a specific plan, allowing myself to be guided by the repetition of a simple gesture until a shape emerges. It is an almost meditative way of drawing, where the regularity of the line becomes a pleasure in itself. It is from this method that my ‘flower-cells’ are born, an imaginary species that populates my series — ‘Abysses’, ‘Cavernes’, ‘Cosmos’, ‘Variations’, ‘Scène’ — as if they were all environments in which it might exist.
It comes naturally to me to use inks to add colour. I apply them to a damp surface, which creates a random effect that I’m particularly fond of. Finally, I trace my outlines with a black felt-tip pen, bringing out the drawing and giving it a slightly ‘new school’ tattoo-like look.