An Approach to Tattooing Built as a Constructed Image

A tattoo is not simply a motif placed on the skin. It is a constructed image, designed for a specific body, a specific area, and for the time that will pass over it. This is the approach that guides my work today. What interests me is not just the drawing itself, but the way it sits on the body, follows a line, a posture, a movement, and how it will continue to exist in the years that follow.

In Avignon, requests can be very different. Some people arrive with a clear idea, others with a vaguer feeling, an atmosphere, a reference, an emotion, or simply the intuition that a project should occupy a certain space. In both cases, the work begins the same way: understanding what should remain, what should evolve, and what will allow the image to become right on the skin. A tattoo can look good on paper and lose its power once transposed onto the body. That is the whole challenge.

This is also what I explored in my article on artistic identity in tattooing.

Working from Images, Including Paintings

I often work from personal ideas, visual references, fragments of images or projects built entirely to measure, but I also sometimes start from paintings. Certain works already carry a tension, a construction, a way of guiding the eye that opens up very strong directions for tattooing. It is not simply a matter of reproducing an image as it is, but of understanding what creates its presence and seeing how that force can be transferred onto the skin.

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Arm project inspired by Art Nouveau and the world of Mucha, adapted to work on the body.

Artists like Alphonse Mucha, for the fluidity of lines and composition, Tamara de Lempicka, for structure and the strength of forms, or Édouard Bisson, for a certain pictorial softness, naturally feed my thinking. Other references, more marked by light and contrast — Caravaggio, or Dalí for his sense of the surreal — can also come into play depending on the project. What interests me in these worlds is never the gratuitous reference, but the way an image can be transformed, displaced, reinterpreted to actually work on the body.

Between Art Nouveau, Colour and Neo-Traditional

My work often sits at the intersection of several directions. Art Nouveau for its fluid lines, its movement, its ability to create organic compositions that follow the body well. Colour for the depth, the contrasts, the light and everything it opens up in a piece. Neo-traditional for the structure, legibility and solidity that remain essential when thinking about a tattoo over time.

These influences are not there to confine the work to a label. They cross differently with each project. Some pieces will be more constructed, more decorative, more fluid. Others will have something more direct, more defined, more grounded. What always matters is the coherence of the whole — the way an image holds together, breathes and keeps its presence.

Projects Designed for the Body and for Time

I am particularly drawn to projects that give the composition enough space to develop. The back, arms, thighs or larger areas allow something more complete to be built — with more rhythm, more breathing, more balance. These formats are often what give a tattoo its full scope.

Thinking about a tattoo also means thinking about how it holds over time. The legibility of a piece, the space left for certain contrasts, the balance between masses, the circulation of the eye — all of this matters as much as the original idea. A tattoo does not need to be heavy to be strong. It needs to be right.

Getting Tattooed in Avignon

Projects are carried out in Avignon, at Graphicaderme, 29 rue Thiers, 84000 Avignon, by appointment. Graphicaderme is also where the Shane O'Neill seminar took place, two days on portrait realism and image construction.

If you have a clear idea, a reference in mind, a project inspired by a painting, or simply a direction you would like to explore, you can fill in this contact form.

Looking for a tattoo artist who thinks about longevity from the start? See my work in Avignon.

Based in Avignon. Open to guest spots.