Nicolai Veno's style stands out for the way he blends figuration and abstraction in dreamlike compositions reminiscent of surrealism and psychedelic art. These are disturbing visions, made all the more striking by the colouring talents of the 33-year-old Danish tattoo artist. Based in Copenhagen, Nicolai draws on meditation and his connection with nature to fuel his inspiration. He also draws on his past experience exploring psychedelic drugs.
Hello Nicolai, have you always drawn?
My name is Nicolai Venø Petersen and I am 33 years old. I am born and raised in Denmark and I currently live in Copenhagen with my girlfriend and my 6 months old daughter. As far as I can remember I have always been drawing. It also helped having a father who has been teaching art as a school teacher. The support has always been there.
What kind of things did you like?
i grew up thinking the concept art for Warhammer and Warcraft was the coolest thing and tried my best both to copy and to create my own stuff with inspiration from that. My dad also had a lot of fantasy paintings from the 80's which was a huge inspiration. I can’t remember the artist who made them now because it is so long ago but it definitely helped sparking my creativity. From there, it slowly grew up more and more into my own style of drawing which was more surrealistic. i don't remember being influenced to draw surreal stuff it sort of just came by itself.
What influences have fuelled your references??
I would say nature and meditation as the fuel power behind the artistic universe. They both give clarity and a relaxed and playful state of mind for ideas to emerge.
Are there any cult artists or works that you return to regularly??
i return to one comic artist named Sergio Toppi. I visit his work weekly. There is something about his style of both layout and the playfulness of his lines that really attracts me. He’s a real original in his way of doing comic strips.
How did tattooing come into your life?
One day, one of my dad’s friends came home with a fresh back tattoo and I thought it was one of the coolest shit I've ever seen. Even though I didn't think I was going to be a tattoo artist at that point the seed was definitely planted.
Your style veers between psychedelia and surrealism, because these styles give you a lot of freedom to work with shapes and colours?
Exactly. I feel if you would have to categorize my style it would be in one or two of those categories. iI don't really think about doing something in a certain style, it just happens to come out like that. I try to have as few boundaries as possible while still not going too much to the abstract side of the illustration. There has been some cases where I have felt the need to get down an experience visually from a psychedelic trip but often inspiration comes from either meditation or nature.
Animals are one of your favourite subjects, have they always been?
Actually I just happen to do a lot of animals because that's what people want to get tattooed although not to say that I don't like to do animals. i would rather do something imaginary than a specific animal. When I was younger i was more into doing monsters
Your work stands out for the attention you pay to colour to create the right contrast and depth? How do you go about this?
I start with a simple sketch, sometimes only putting in values without lines to get an overall idea of how tones should play together, but for the most part I start with a sketch which I refine until it’s ready to get some basic values. When the values are in place, I start doing details. When I'm done doing the details, I finish the drawing by using a color blending layer to put in the desired color without loosing any value. Overall, I want the illustration to look good seen in the size of a thumb nail. If the overall image works in that size, I know I'm on the right track.
The attention to detail is also evident in your work. Is it important for the tattoo to be so satisfying when viewed up close?
Yes, I really like that there are more than one dimension to a tattoo. It should both look good from a distance and up close.
The rendering of your tattoos sometimes leans towards painting and watercolour in particular, is this a technique you appreciate?
The reason why some of the tattoos lean more towards watercolor is only because the client wanted it to look like that. I myself am not really in to watercolor tattoo work although painting with watercolor is really nice. I have only tried doing watercolor a couple of times.
Which tattoo artists do you go to?
If i had to pick one tattoo artist, it would probably be my old colleague and friend @kennipoke. His work is amazing and also works very differently from me which I find very interesting.
On Instagram you share your enthusiasm for some of your clients' projects and the stories behind them. I'm thinking, for example, of a customer who came to get a tattoo of a jaguar after a bad trip on ayahuesca. Would you like to share some of them with us?
The guy who got the jaguar was one of my favorite clients. Both his stories and his way of thinking was really cool in that he was very controversial in the way he went about his life. We shared many similar interests. As far as I know, when he ventured into the trip and got in a bad spot, the shaman appeared to him as a jaguar and saved him from the hellhole he was in. The jaguar is a symbol of the protector of the forest and it was actually the only part that he wanted in the tattoo. I added the rest on his sleeve, just going from my own experiences with psychedelics.
Can you tell us more about it ?
I have endeavored quite a lot into the realms of psychedelics when i was younger which gave me great insight into what being creative should mean to me. That it was more kind of a dance my hands did leaving a trail the movements on paper and balancing it out with the understanding of shape dynamics and all the other structural parts that goes into making an illustration. Along with perspective of looking at your self as whole and being a part of something much bigger then we can fathom. I sometimes felt sad that I could bring a picture back from the realm so I tried to get some of it in to my drawings. If one would think that the reason why I draw weird things or surreal things only is caused by psychedelics they are wrong. I have been drawing that kind of stuff since i was a kid.
How do the drugs works with you creatively ?
They can give you a nice perspective or an idea but would never do it under the influence expecting to get gold out of it.
Is there a tension for you between figuration and abstraction and how do you deal with it ?
For me its an emotional balance. that i tend to lean up against the more figurative stuff even though i have started getting more and more interested in the abstract after getting in to the understanding that everything is just shapes that work with each other in different patterns working well with a balanced contrast between order and chaos.
AI, opportunity or danger for the tattoo world?
i think both although its hard to say what the outcome is going to be in the long run of ai i feel that at the moment it is both. i use as a great source of inspiration but that's all. + IG : @nicolaivenoe
