artsculture

Blood Sweat and Ink

To the best of our knowledge Blood, Sweat, and Ink is the first exhibit to feature fine art from Central Florida’s most talented tattoo artists. The opening reception will be at the infamous Slow Gallery on Saturday, November 21^st at 8:00pm. I interviewed the brains behind the operation, Mark Gilliam, aka Deps, a veteran graffiti artist, tattoo apprentice, and the curator of Blood, Sweat, and Ink to keep you in the know.  

JS: What made you decide to curate a show of fine art made by tattoo artists?

Deps: Working at the tattoo shop exposed me to some incredibly talented artists who have never had the chance to show their finer art. I knew a show featuring their art should be done and I was the one who would actually do the work to put it on. Tattoo artists are used to having to create exactly what their clients want so they can’t always be as creative as they’d like. I want to give them a chance to do whatever they want and really express themselves while pushing the limits of their skill.

JS: What kind of response have you gotten from the community about this?

Deps: The word has been getting out and people are excited. This hasn’t been done before and I keep meeting more and more artists who are interested in showing their work. I’d like to turn this into a yearly event that keeps on growing. I’ve been getting a lot of support and I think everyone who’s involved will benefit. I want people to come out to the show and see what tattoo artist have to offer besides tattoos. I would love to see this as the best selling show Slow has done.

JS: Can you tell me a little about your apprenticeship and your decision to expand into tattoo art?

Deps: A tattoo apprenticeship usually takes a year. I’m in my fourth month right now and I’ve been doing well. Around July I’ll be able to draw on you. Everybody had been telling me that I should get into tattooing but my focus was on graffiti and I didn’t think I wanted to do it. Over time I became exposed to tattooing as an art form and after learning more about it I knew I wanted to make it a career. You can’t really make a career out of graffiti art and tattooing is just as free and creative of an art form.

JS: What are some of the main differences you’ve noticed between tattoo and graffiti art?

Deps: Tattoos don’t get buffed haha. Actually the more I learned about tattooing I realized they are pretty much one and the same. Doing graffiti has actually helped my process of learning tattooing. In both you have different sized tips or needles and pitch is always important. You have to make sure your instruments don’t get clogged with ink or paint. You have to be careful about the depth of your needle in the skin and the distance of your can from the target. In the end it’s just two very different canvases.    

JS: When did you start doing graffiti?

Deps: 7^th or 8^th grade, I was in Miami and I saw it everyday and it just interested me. I always wondered who did this? How and when did they do it and why? I realized I would only know if I did it myself so I started tagging alone.

Did you tag along with anyone else? (Inward chuckle)

Yeah, I moved to Melbourne in 2001 and met Jeff Nobel who was a graffiti artist as well. I met him in 10^th grade and we started tagging. We had art class together and collaborated constantly and found others who were interested as well. I met Slow through Jeff and everything just snowballed since the Guinness thing.

JS: As in Guinness Book of World Records?

Deps: Yeah, a teacher of mine put it together she wanted to break a world record for graffiti. Jeff and I came out and helped. The goal was to do one thousand feet of graffiti over the span of a month. We bought tarp in 250ft sections; zip tied it to the fence, gratified the entire thing and broke the world record. I’d love to break the record again because our work has advanced greatly since then. I’d like to do it again on something more permanent, like 1500ft of wall.

JS: I’ll see what I can do about finding you that wall. What do you enjoy most about being an artist?

Deps: It’s the place I go when I’m actually composing the art, a place where nothing else exists. Who else gets that kind of time? Also meeting people that I never would have known without art. I meet people from different sates and countries and it opens doors. When art is involved it’s a good time, period. Whether its serious or fun its always the extreme of both. When it’s serious it’s really serious, when it’s fun it’s fun as hell. 

You don’t miss Blood Sweat and Ink. Put in it you planner. Now. November 21^st, 8:00pm at Slow Gallery. Be there.