The Enigma of  Myoshka, is as equally revered as he is renowned within both the tattoo and art world alike. Inspiring a generation of practitioners, as well as collaborating with the likes of Thomas Hooper, Tomas Tomas and Xed Le Head, he has earned his name as a Geometrical genius: capable of  boggling the mind and altering planes of vision through tesselative drawings, designs and Gif Files. Hundreds of dedicated followers of his complex style  have shown permanent appreciation through both tattooing and scarring alike, allowing this realm of adornment to constantly have its boundaries tested and pushed forwards. 

SB: How would you define Myoshka?

M: Myoshka is me now. It started off when I was designing stuff and there was a collective of us working. The name was created then with a creative partner of mine at the time. It came from the word Matryoshka; so it was taking about ideas from ideas and a combination of things making the complete entity. Post rationale, I liked it because it was Japanese (laughs). I’ve gone through various transitions from working as an art director, to working as a designer to then doing some freelancing. I’ve been doing advertising for 15 years, but that’s what taught me all the stuff which means I can do the art. At times there’s a little bit of hidden meaning in my work but other times is simply for aesthetic.  At the moment, for me Myoshka is the Geometry. I never use my real name; not sure what that says about me. People don’t really know what I am or what I do: I like that.

SB: So how did you discover Geometry? Was it through your day job, or through the likes of tattooing?

M: I actually discovered it through Tomas; I knew about Geometry and had been designing before, but not in those ways. As soon as I saw his work, I was just drawn to it. There was just an energy between us and we started sharing stuff. It wasn’t a case of him sitting me down and telling me how to do things, it more me doing it on my own and then us catching up. The blog(s) started and we starting sharing things through that. He’s still a big inspiration for me now. Through that I met Xed and it really opened up for me.

SB: Would you say your life revolves around your art?

M: Yeah!  If I’m not doing my day job, I’m doing this stuff: that’s how the Maharishi thing has come about. I’ve met some nice people along the way, like the blog said. A lot of them I’m proud to call friends; I wouldn’t have met Xed if it wasn’t for that, Matt Black… Jondix, even Thomas Hooper. Even though we haven’t met in person, I still feel as if we’re part of the same family. Tattooing is one of those things where it works in a similar way that I do in that it isn’t a job, its the tattooer’s life. So I’ve kind of drawn parallels in that respect.

SB: So what is the creative process like in constructing such complex patterns?

M: It can be any number of ways of working. Sometimes I see old patterns I like that I want to recreate, learn from and then create something new from that. Other times….it depends what mood I’m in. All of the patterns already exist in so many different ways, I just connect the dots. Some nights I’ll work and get nothing done. Other nights, I’ll just keep going or I’ll start something and 6 months later or 8 months later I’ll open that file again and I can see what it was, or what I was starting to get at.

SB: How far back does Tattooing go, within your life?

M: I think my earliest memory of tattoos was when I used to swim in my early teens: I used to train a lot. Every Friday we used to have to share the pool with the public, and there was this old boy and he would come with his full bodysuit and I just thought it was incredible. I thought the concept of it was amazing- Old School, sailor style tattoos- very, very heavy work. After that, it was when I was swimming for the England team, and was ill. They didn’t want me to infect the rest of the team so I had to sit on my own on the plane back to England. This guy turned up; tattoo artist and really crazy character. He was covered; I think they both planted the seed in my mind…

SB: Lets talk about the work you have on your arms; are some of them your own patterns?

M: I couldn’t be as so bold to suggest so (laughs). Its all geometry that already exists; its mainly a mix of Islamic and Japanese work. I got my first tattoo when I was around 15/16; Japanese Kanji, so I stuck with a theme there. Then I got this fella here, from the Soloman Islands… I think they were a few years apart…

SB: Interesting evolution; did Tomas (Tomas) do all of the more recent work?

M: Yeah Tomas has done most of the dotwork; we’re working on my front at the moment, which is one of my designs. Tomas and I learnt a lot during it; I’m still interested in the way that Tattooing works and is applied to the body, and so I can understand more what is achievable to the skin via my patterns; still working in 3-D. I know I have my fun on Photoshop, but applying to skin is not simple in any way. When we started it was a case of saying that we can get this pattern just to wrap, but once I started understanding that the arm isn’t completely cylindrical, then I began to fully understand the complexities. Xed and Tomas are the masters who are cracking this sort of stuff; they’re masters and they’ve dedicated their lives to it.

SB: With this style of tattooing as well as tattooing in general gaining such a larger social awareness, are you happy to see such a progression?

M: Yes; I mean tattooing for me is a very personal thing anyway but I think that its good overall that  its growing: its another art form. But me being me, if everyone was getting tattooed I’m not sure if I would be so attracted to it . It still has a very different reaction socially, depending on where you are.  Rarely do I leave the city, so I don’t get such negative reactions. If I was to go back to Singapore, where my mums from I know her family would have a very different view and it wouldn’t be as acceptable.

SB: I’m always interested when people dedicate their whole body to a specific style. For instance those who have full Geometric bodysuits, but have no attraction to figurative tattoos, script etc. How was it in your case particularly? 

M: For me, this was the work I was attracted to and it’s about the relationship between me and the artist. It’s the art that spoke to me. I remember going through the flash book for my second tattoo, and then bang!- this one from the Soloman Islands hit me; it spoke to me and that’s what I ended up getting, but I had no idea what it was or what it meant. Years later in Amsterdam, a guy in an art shop, fully tattooed, asked me if I knew where my tattoo came from. When I said no, he scurried out the back of the shop and he came back with a big book and said to me that it was what the ancestors used to carve into the paddles, from the Solomon Islands- which was weird for me as my Granddad was from there. I did my selections differently in the beginning, but I changed how I approached tattooing as time went on. For my back I just said to Tas I wanted a dragon, and just let him rip. With Tomas with the last couple of pieces, we’ve been working more collaboratively and we’re learning along the way which is good fun.

SB: Seems like a great co-existence of styles.  I came across one of Iestyn (Flye’s) latest clients who had one of your designs scarred on his face; what was it like to see your work like that?  

M: The pattern that got cut into that guys face’ is one I’ve loved for ages, but never been able to get it right and then suddenly a few month ago I opened up the file again and got it!  I just have the biggest amount of respect for things like that. I didn’t see it being done; I wish he had kept the skin, that could have been my next art project (laughs). Iestyn has done a few of my patterns; a guys hand, face- those are my favourites.

SB: What creative background did you come from, before you began your journey with Tessellations and Geometry?

M: Well I didn’t go to university; I did a B-tec in Media and got my work experience at a Graphic Design company where after two weeks, they gave me a job, which I turned down because I needed to finish my course, but began working there in my free periods. I did 18 months with them after I finished. I then applied for Central St Martins, but didn’t get it in the end- I was absolutely gutted. After doing flyers and youth orientated work for nearly two years, I decided that I’d try something  a bit more corporate, so I went into more grown up Graphic Design companies. While I was there, I taught myself Flash and built a portfolio in it, and I then settled in London and worked up to an Art-Direction level but at that point I realised that digital was all great, but really it was motion graphics which was the next big thing. Not a lot of people could see that then though.  

SB: How significant is dot-work within your art?

M: Well Dotwork is something that I discovered through Tomas’ work and was something he was using to express himself, which I and other practitioners have adopted over time. For me its about the life and the energy, its about that balance of negative and positive: I don’t like it when its too dense, I like it to breathe and for it to have this life.

SB: What do you have planned for the rest of 2012?

M: Well I have the screen prints, so hopefully by June I will have 23 ready for an exhibition, which should be at the Maharishi store- alongside the clothing, and the collaborative work with the brand. I started a project with Tas, which the Tibetan skulls. Tas has kind of done flash for it, then I’m going to render my illustrative version of it, and then we will screen-print those and then Tas will paint the backgrounds. It should be a good year

www.myoshka.jp

Can you tell me about the first tattoo you got, where you got it and how old you were?

I got my first tattoo when I was fifteen years old in a little house in Saint Leonard’s which is in the other end of Hastings in East Sussex. This place was in a tiny little room in the tattooers home, me and my friends would all go on a Saturday afternoon. His name was Derrick Dellar and he tattooed all of my tattoos from my younger days.

My first tattoo was of a shark, and it was about the size of a goldfish and that’s just above the back of my hand. This was roughly about 1968. I would go with my cousin, and he would get the same as me. The style of tattoos I was getting then were traditional flash style. It’s all I ever knew about so I didn’t have anything to compare them too.

Tell me about the tattoos your Father had.

He has something similar to me and my cousin which was a flying serpent. He had a couple of others but the one I remember the best was of a half naked woman tied up to a stump of a tree with her arms behind her, underneath it was written ‘Daphne’. None of us ever found out who Daphne was. She must have been a woman he met before my Mother. He got all of these tattoos while he was serving in the Navy during World War Two. Him and my uncle were in the Navy together and they both got the flying serpent there.

My mother in law, Marlene had tattoos I can remember that she had a rose. She also had a memorial tattoo for her brother with a cross on her arm which she would have got in the early 1950′s. She lived in Hull around that time so she would have got them there.

How many tattoos did you roughly get when you were younger?

About eight… I did tattoo myself once though. Myself, my brother, my cousin and friend one night bought some Indian ink and pins and scratched the word love into our knuckles and rubbed the ink in on our left hands. We were all sitting around the table doing it and by the end of the night out fingers looked like sausages. Most of it stayed in and you could make out what it said up to twenty years later. So I suppose I got nine tattoos then. I recently had that covered up with HOLD FAST though.

After that you stopped for thirty years or so. Then started again when your sons Jordan and Caleb started to get tattooed. What made you want to start getting tattooed again?

Since I stopped getting tattooed in the late 60′s tattooing has changed completely. There was a lot more detail within designs and there seemed to be a lot more variety in subjects. How it’s all changed is quite amazing really but I suppose those styles never really interested me.

The boys dared me to get a tattoo and when I said I would I think they were very surprised. So they took me off to London to get tattooed by Thomas Hooper. I got a pair of shaking hands on my forearm with ‘Pals Forever‘ written around it. My sons have the same piece on their elbow, its a lovely tattoo. After that its become addictive, that was five or six years ago.

What did you think when your sons started to get tattoos?

At first I was shocked at how many they were getting. But I could never deny how excellent they were, I mean Thomas Hooper has done them all! If you are going to get tattooed you are going to want to get good ones so I think Jordan and Caleb are very lucky in that respect.

Since you have started getting tattooed again can you tell me who has tattooed you?

I started going to Frith Street and the first person who tattooed me there was Thomas Hooper. I went from him to Emiliano Liberatori he did a few of tattoos on me. Valerie Vargas gave me Ben Corday’s Annie Oakley on my back as well as the snake around my neck and others. Tim Hendricks had a guest spot a Frith a put a diving woman down the inside of my arm. Since then my son Caleb graduated from art school and has been tattooing. So now I have the luxury of being tattooed at my own home and I absolutely love it.

Flash tattooing to me is ageless. It can’t go in or out of fashion, they all tell stories and have meanings. Although I admire and respect a lot of modern tattooing I couldn’t say it was timeless. Where traditional flash tattooing has proved the test of time and will continue to.

Is there any apparent reason behind the fact that sets of brothers in your family have matching tattoos?

My Dad and his brother had matching tattoos because of them serving in the war together. So it seemed natural for me and my brother to do the same as we were close friends. As for Jordan and Caleb how they have gone about it is far more extreme but it was never planned as that deliberate outcome. Since childhood they were all ways very close and I think they both just loved the tattoos that either of them got! I have my Grandfathers name tattooed on me and the boys have their Grandfathers name tattooed on them. I also have my sons name’s tattooed above my hands. As for my son’s they have the words ‘Mother’, ‘Father’ and ‘Sister‘ tattooed on them as well as their Grandmother’s initials.

Do you think you’ll keep on getting tattooed?

I’m going to cover up any space that I have left. I keep on spotting new spaces that can be filled. I find myself looking through my son’s tattoo books and putting aside ones that I want. I do love them and I really do feel privileged by the people who have tattooed me. As far as I’m concerned as long as I’m around I’m going to carry on getting tattooed. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Images by Reba Maybury

Alix Lambert’s new exhibition is opening today at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut. Containing photography, drawing, sculpture, and film, as well as original research, the author of the incredible Russian Prison Tattoos aims her various finds at the uneasy city of Hartford in Connecticut.

Exhibited are a cross range of pieces which are almost unclassifiable as either art, or sociological found pieces. Russian criminals hand made playing cards are shown alongside sketches from courtrooms. This exhibition shows the mind of criminality in the most intriguing way.

Here is a trailer from the fantastic film made by Alix in 2001 The Mark of Cain too!

More information on the exhibition can be found here:

http://www.realartways.org/visualarts.htm

Other than bringing up these intriguing questions the film has been made in the most detailed and achingly stylistic way. The film also gives a voice to the tattooed and their own personal experiences rather than the hugely famous artists who created the images.

Watch it here:

Jeanne-Salomé Rochat: Where are you from?
Jack Donoghue: I am from Chicago.
Where is Salem from?
John and Heather met in high school up in Michigan, thats where they grew up. We all started making music together officially in Chicago.
How does your collective philosophy influence your practice?
We love each other, a lot of what SALEM is, is an expression of that love both fulfilled and unfulfilled.
And the other way around, what kind of impact does this entity have on your life?
Until recently SALEM had very little effect on my life… But now we are being flown all over, being set up in fancy situations and girls are skipping formalities.
What could break you?
Falling from a cliff on two hard rocks. Being rejected by something I truly give myself to… If I ever do that.
What’s the last thing you remember rejecting?
A kiss in NY a few nights ago.
What’s the last thing you gave? To whom?
A Givenchy shirt that was gifted to me, to a girl who it looked better on.
What car do you drive?
My dad’s old pick up truck but it just broke down on my way up to Michigan so I’ve been walking and taking the train.
You mentioned a matt e black Lamborghini.
Huh?
Yes. Or maybe I did.
I don’t know.
I don’t know either.
But it’s true that I do. In fact yes, I want a rich fan to buy me a 2011 matte black one with red tinted windows.
How does a fan lose its innocence?
Having expectations instead of unconditional love.
What does your workspace look like? How is it significant?
I was living in The Tokyo Hotel, downtown Chicago, but I kept having to travel and getting noise complaints so I moved my stuff back into the house I grew up in with my mom and her black Alsatian (Misha). My workspace when i am here is her dining room table with big monitors on it. I can work anywhere, but I like to have my room, and the places I spend time in set up in a way i like.
What would be served for breakfast at Hotel Salem?
Jello shots. Jello made with sparkling water. Lime green jello. Raw eggs.
If you had to invent the sexual position/act called “lime green jello”, what would it consist of?
The girl’s very jealous boyfriend watching while i bust her down.
What is your present screen saver?
A white pit bull. I love dogs.
How important is empty space?
Very.
What sets your music apart from others that produce similar material?
I never think about that. It’s not important.
Can you stand isolation?
Not really. I keep moving and try to stay busy and around other people because I don’t like being alone. I like swimming alone. I can be alone if I’m working on music, or walking… If I am moving, I can be alone.
How has solitude influenced your music? How does it clash with your culture?
John is really good at being alone, he is a much quieter person then me. He will push me to be still and I will push him to be more social and wild. Heather is in between and keeps it all together. I think those differences affect our music.
Would you like to move somewhere in particular?
I feel like living in a city on the ocean not in the 1st world.
Who would you like to do your voice over in the animated version of your life?
Naomi Watts’s mouth.
As a blonde or as a brunette?
BLONDE.
What is the last thing you bought?
Honestly DMT u_u… before that I guess a sexy air-freshener or Vitamin water.
What have you wanted to work on but couldn’t? What stopped you?
I would really like to work for Terrence Mallick, it just hasn’t happened yet.
What would Terrence Mallick listen to while watching you sleeping?
My rare heart beat.
Is car driving necessary for good music composing?
No but it is a good time for good music listening.
What have you buried lately?
We have been busy.
So what’s new?
John is going insane. He’s actually losing his mind.
When you decide to go insane too, what kind of intervention would it take to make you think twice about it?
Probably something about my mom or my friend Zulma.
What sense of yours do you wish was acute?
My ABs.
How do you like to dance?
Jamaican style.
How do you free things?
Let go.
Who influences you the most?
John.
What was the best garment you have received as a gift?
Givenchy Joker face shirt.
What is the lames t superpower ever?
Alex Mack, ROFL.
What virtual world would you have sex in?
I would be down to double team thousands of Hentai girls with Wolverine.
That’s old. What virtual world would you have sex in, in 2013?
Bratz da website.
Name a film that you wanted to like before you saw, but ended up not liking so much.
Forces of nature.
What do you wish could be found after you’re dead?
IDK IDC… I’ll be dead… Even bigger sharks? I would not want them to be found while i was still alive, sometimes I am scared of sharks : (
What else are you afraid of?
My birthday.
Is music deceptive?
I don’t think so.

view here

Betony Vernon Closet Interview for StyleLikeU.com from StyleLikeU on Vimeo.

LINDSAY LOHAN
A Richard Phillips Film
Directed by: Richard Phillips and Taylor Steele
Director of Photography: Todd Heater
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick
Creative Director: Dominic Sidhu
Art Director: Kyra Griffin
Editor: Haines Hall
Color mastering: Pascal Dangin for Boxmotion

Check out the rest of the interview on British GQ’s website.