Since moving back to his home town of Aradeo in south-east Italy, Vlady has been enjoying the change in people's appreciation of tattooing. An object of disgust in the 1990s, his neighbours are now proud to see tattoo artists arrive from all over the world to pay him a visit. In truth, Vlady can't blame them too much, as he himself had little interest in the subject at the time. Thirsty for art, which he discovered freely as a self-taught artist, it was finally the mechanics of the machine that got him hooked. Trained in the studio of Roman tattooist Gippi Rondinella, the first to open a professional studio in the Italian capital in 1986, he also imbibed his taste for Asian style. Since then, he has specialised in this iconography, using its bestiary and in particular the dragon motif as the basis for his visual experiments and his research into the treatment of materials.
Can we start with a brief introduction?
Hello everyone, my name is Vlady and I come from a small town in the south of Italy. I'll be fifty this year and I've been tattooing for 31 years. Sometimes I get confused and pretend I'm 31 and I've been tattooing for 50 years. I used to drink to get drunk but now I drink almost exclusively for the taste. Thanks for welcoming me to the group… I'm joking, of course. But most of the information is true.
Have you always drawn?
Let's just say yes, I was the classic child whose school teacher asked him to draw a picture to keep him calm. Even at lycée, all my friends asked me to draw one for them in their newspaper. But the real turning point came with the tattoo, and from then on I drew practically every day.
What graphic references did you grow up with that have shaped your graphic universe?
At the time, the Internet didn't exist and as I didn't study art, I didn't have many references. I drew my inspiration from comic strips and record covers, until friends introduced me to artists like HR Giger, Hajime Sorayama and Boris Vallejo, as well as painters like Egon Schiele, Salvator Dali and Jérôme Bosch. I think I was so thirsty for knowledge that I didn't neglect any visual or non-visual art form that came my way.
What other artistic influences have fuelled your world?
When I was young, I was involved in punk circles, so certainly posters, graphics or drawings in fanzines or anything that revolved around that world influenced me. I think it was from that period onwards that I tended to use a lot of lines in drawing, and also to blur the lines with the hatching technique. After I left school for a short period, I did some sculpture, using a stone quarried in my region, and this no doubt had a considerable influence on my tendency to work with volumes in drawing. For the rest, I had a sort of giant Pinterest, made up of newspaper cuttings, photos and notes on all sorts of things that had struck me.
How did tattoos come into your life?
When I was 18, I saw for the first time a tattoo that could be described as beautiful. It was done by Marco Pisa. Up until then, I'd been convinced that they were shapeless blue spots, the result of boredom on the part of certain people. And to be honest, I was pretty much indifferent to tattoos. Later, I got a very small one, but my attention was first drawn to the machine. I wanted to build one, without knowing that it would be the start of a long journey.
I recently spoke to Gippi Rondinella about his career as a tattooist. Not only was Gippi the first Italian tattooist to open a professional studio - Tattooing Demon - in Rome in 1986, he's also an important figure in your life. Can you tell us about him?
I met Gippi and the guys from his studio at a convention in Bologna in 1994. In 1996, I moved to Rome and two years later I went to get a tattoo with Gabriele Donnini, who worked with him. At the time, Gippi was moving to Thailand. I was at university at the time, but when they made me this offer, I gave up my studies to follow my dream path. I remember feeling like the chosen one, even though I was actually the kid in the studio and was given the most unlikely tattoos and the most absurd clients. I stuck it out for a while, until Gippi and the whole TATTOOING DEMON STUDIO welcomed me completely and taught me everything there was to know about the work, on an artistic, professional and ethical level.
Gippi is a former hippie, a keen traveller who spent a lot of time in Asia. Would you say that you inherited a certain state of mind, as the name of your boutique Positive Vibrations suggests?
Gippi has always been a free spirit by instinct, not by etiquette, but when I met him many people described him as gruff. Even when he was saying that everything was changing for the worse, which made him look like a pain in the arse, but he was on the right track. With age, and wisdom sometimes coming, his hippie soul has resurfaced. So, to cut a long story short, yes, he had a big influence on my professional and non-professional life. But, as you do with a father, I've taken the 'best' from him (most of it) and filed the 'worst' away in what you might call experience, because it's useless even if it's right. The name POSITIVE VIBRATIONS is for me a reminder that hope does not give up.
Tell us a bit about where you live and work, in the south of Italy. How does living in the peace and quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of the big cities, benefit you ?
After living in Rome for ten years, I returned to my home town of Aradeo, perhaps out of a desire for redemption. It's a place where, in the early years, when I said I was a tattooist, people would ask me what your real job was, with an expression of disgust. Today, on the other hand, I feel the pride of my fellow citizens in welcoming enthusiasts and artists from all over the world who come to visit me and fall in love with the place where I live. Aradeo is the place where I love to live. The times and relationships are still full of humanity and, when I need something else, I travel, by plane or on the web.
Have you always been interested in Asian style or has this interest developed gradually?
In the 1990s, subjects such as goblins, biomechanics and tribals were very fashionable. But among the things I inherited from my years in Gippi's studio was definitely an aptitude for Asian art subjects and representations. There were paintings, drawings and works by Horiyoshi III, ED Hardy, the Leu family and other artists from all over the world hanging everywhere, almost all in this style. This was undoubtedly decisive.
Among the Asian motifs, the dragon seems to be an inexhaustible source of inspiration for you, why is that?
For me, the dragon is the king of the attitude I was talking about. In fact, I think it's a kind of obsession with looking for the good, the ideal. Without forgetting the rules of construction of this subject. I'm attracted by the search for balance in imperfect shapes.... which seem more natural to me.
You were recently tattooed by Mick (formerly of Zürich, Switzerland) and I get the impression that his influence is increasingly present in your dragon representations. Is this the case?
For me, Mick is the one who best represents the ideal dragon. In the tattoos and especially in the paintings, he manages to give the dragon a 'character', to define the material it's made of, its age and maybe even its history. He does all this with shapes, textures and details that make them natural, "interesting to understand". After meeting Mick, I started painting with acrylics... mostly dragons. When I do that, I feel good. But at the same time I get very nervous, I suppose it's the famous search for the ideal and it becomes more hectic and frenetic. I'd like to add that it's a great pleasure for me to spend time with him, and I hope to see him again soon.
The wave motif is also very present: what pleasure do you get from working with this motif?
Yes, with waves it's also a perpetual search, but with a different attitude. I find it relaxing to create the initial flow and then accompany or counteract the dynamic that is created. I take into account the material they're made of, water - not yoghurt or anything else - and the energy they create, and the pencil frees itself. I think that graphically it's a very good element to accentuate or contrast the dynamic in the drawing or the body to be tattooed. Whatever the case, I always treat it as a real subject and never as something to fill in.
I also see it as an expression of a psychedelic sensibility. Has 1970s culture had an influence on you?
I'm fascinated by the 1970s as a period and in particular by the different forms of expression from that era. I find the term 'psychedelia' (as a distorted vision of reality, with or without help) very interesting, it often stimulates new readings of subjects we're used to, or to put it simply, it sometimes seems to legitimise these unlikely interpretations.
Among all the projects you've done, there's a very special one, the exceptional collaboration you did with Filip Leu on the tattoo artist Alexandre Abreu. Can you tell us more about how this project came about?
I'll tell you how this tattoo came about: a month before we decided to do this collaboration with Filip and we promised to exchange drawings and ideas to prepare for the day. When we saw each other and compared our drawings, we realised that many of the ideas were too similar to each other and therefore perhaps too obvious. At one point, Filip said the magic word: "GIANT". That was the trigger and half an hour later we started drawing directly onto Alex's body. Everything was perfect, starting with Alex's enthusiasm, which somehow seemed to fuel the situation with energy.
What influence has the Swiss master had on you?
Filip is a person who exudes energy; I think it's impossible not to feel his 'natural radiance'. But from the very first moments of our friendship, one thing struck me a lot: his sincere curiosity, his desire to understand and perhaps even learn from others. I saw him take an interest in things (not just in the world of tattooing) that others in his position would probably have snubbed or remained indifferent to.
How do you feel about modern tattooing?
That's a very complicated question to answer. I think we've reached a very high level of artistic quality, but unfortunately it's not as 'romantic' to be part of this world as it used to be. Achieving that goal used to come with a sense of being 'special', but belonging to that world also meant defending it and respecting it unconditionally. Today, instead, I see people (perhaps even very good tattooists) who are self-proclaimed judges and teachers, who feel entitled to ridicule and piss on the tattoo world in order to achieve fame and personal glory. That said, I still love what I do. + IG : @vlady_positivevibrations
