Fusing the talents of contemporary tattoo and illustration, the Hope Gallery’s latest project, entitled Quick and Painful, features a host of today’s most elite low brow artists presenting their own take on the art of tattoo flash. Used widely throughout the last century, and made famous by the likes of Sailor Jerry and Doc Forbes, ‘flash’ is the name given to a set of tattoo designs printed or drawn on 11″ x 14″ paper.
Curated by Hope’s Nicole East, the exhibition features the talents of Alex Pardee, Amanda Visell, David Horvath, Frank Kozik, Craola, Joe Ledbetter and Ron English amongst others, with all of the participating artists work available to purchase as traditional 11″ x 14″ prints.
“After years of working in the low brow and pop art scene, I started to see how many fans were getting tattoos of my favorite artists. It seemed a natural urge to make sure it was done right…”
-Nicole East
Alongside the amazing artwork, the four part tour has also become home to some of the tattoo industry’s biggest artists, including Joe Capobianco, Eric Merrill, Julio Rodriguez and the recently confirmed Jesse Smith (featured in TTFiles here), who have been recreating the flash designs as real tattoos for a mind-blowingly cheap $40 a time.
With the first two legs of the tour opening to great success over the past month at Crewest (Los Angeles) and Hope (New Haven), famed art toy gallery Rotofugi (Chicago) is poised to host the third instalment at the beginning of next month, with appearances from illustrator Huck Gee and legendary tattooist, Christian Perez. The project will finish off at the Art Basel (Miami), with Tru:Teknology Files favourite, Jesse Smith, making a guest appearance at the three day event in December.
Here’s a quick preview of some of the shows entries-
Huck Gee
Ron English
Tokidoki
Craola
Joe Ledbetter
TADO
“Our piece for the show is a tribute to the awesome and infamous Name Neko Cats of 80′s Japan, created by Satoru Tsuda.
Herman the Cat has got in with these fearsome biker-cats and started running riot. To combat this we’ve created a rival Panda knife-gang to sort them out…. “
-WeAreTADO blog
Junko Mizuno
(Above)One of the many beautifully realised flash pieces from the legendary British artist / designer, Pete Fowler.
Prints of the flash art, along with limited edition t-shirts, are available to purchase at the show for a special price of around $25 each, with a general release through the Hope Gallery’s online shop from Sunday, October 9th at $5 more a-piece.
Quick and Painful part3@ Rotofugi Gallery and Shop, Chicago,IL
Saturday, October 8th from 7-11pm
Quick and Painful part4@ Art Basel, Miami, FL
Thursday, December 1st – 4th
Opening reception- Saturday, December 3rd
(photos/via- quickandpainfulblog)
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