After almost 30 years of tattooing, 20 of which were devoted to Japanese tattoos, Matti Sandberg - aka Horimtasu - decided to put his tattooing on hold to devote himself entirely to painting shunga - erotic Japanese prints - which he creates digitally under the name Senju. A discipline in which the Swede has invested himself with the desire to fully realise his potential as an artist. Five years on, he takes stock of this period which, while opening up new creative perspectives, led him to return to his machines. He explains why in this wide-ranging interview.
After five years devoted to painting, you recently announced your return, and that of Horimatsu, to tattooing. Can you explain to us the reasons behind this choice?
In 2019, I was given the opportunity to show my shunga paintings in Tokyo as part of a group exhibition dedicated to erotic art. I had done some exhibitions at tattoo conventions before, but this was the first time for me to exhibit solely as a painter. It was a very inspiring thing for me. By then, I had been tattooing for 28 years straight (20 of them dedicated to irezumi only), and I was beginning to feel depleted and frustrated.
Why ?
Depleted, because tattooing is hard and time consuming work when you do it for that many years, and frustrated because I had acquired a vast amount of knowledge and insight of Japanese culture, history, religion and art. There was simply no outlet for all the creative ideas that were swirling around in my mind. My paintings were mostly oriented around sexuality and erotica, and there were very few clients that requested tattoos that corresponded with what I painted. As the pandemic struck, and tattooing suddenly become a very difficult way to make a living, I decided to put my all my creative eggs in the painting basket.
How did this happen?
The first couple of years went fairly well. Meta and Zuckerberg hadn’t destroyed Instagram completely yet, and due to the pandemic, everybody was looking for ways to fill up the endless days of lockdowns and social distancing. There was also a genuine feeling of support from people everywhere in the world. I managed to make a meager but creatively satisfactory living from selling prints online. For me as a painter, the pandemic was a wonderful and surprisingly busy time.
What happened then ?
In early 2022, I began work on a very serious and big shunga project titled ”36 Views Of Mount Fuji”. It was a celebration of the great Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s famous ukiyo-e print series bearing the same title. My creativity was at its peak, it felt like, and I spent almost a full year completely engulfed by this project. Right about when I began work on that project, the pandemic ebbed out, Russia started it senseless war in Ukraine, inflation took hold of the economy, and Fuckerberg seemed dead set on really destroying Instagram as a place for creative people. Times shifted, and selling prints now really demanded more than superhuman efforts. Somehow, I managed to pay rent and food every month, but it was rarely more than that coming in.
What became of the ‘36 Views of Mount Fuji’ project?
The ”36 Views OF Mount Fuji” was exhibited in Tokyo in August 2023. It was my first real solo show in a proper art gallery, and for me it was a really big thing. What I didn’t know at the time, was that the exhibition would be the end of 10 years of painting highly erotic pictures inspired by shunga, and the beginning of something new. Or rather a surprising continuation of something old. After completing a large series of paintings, it always leaves you a bit sad and empty. I was trying to think of what to paint next, but had a hard time getting started. After a series of failed attempts of coming up with something new, I realised that I had subconsciously set up a large amount of rules for how I should paint, and those rules were now holding me back. I was desperate to get going, so I began working with things I was really familiar with - erotica and irezumi. I threw all rules overboard and started to trust my instincts instead of my intellect.
Two themes you know well.
Yes. I began painting nude, sensual women wearing full bodysuit Japanese tattoos. Slowly, slowly a fire began to burn. I felt a bit like a fool for not having come up with this idea before. Even if I had included irezumi in some of my shunga work, it was more as decoration than really, really making an effort to create something that was seriously tapping into my heritage as a tattooo artist. In the beginning, due to the constrictions the poses I chose of for the women presented, I found it really hard to design good irezumi designs for them. Over time, I realised that these restrictions were also pushing me to come up with new ways and new design solutions. After about a year of painting these tattooed ladies, I felt a growing curiosity as to what I could achieve tattoo-wise in real life with the help of my newly opened eye for tattoo design possibilities and how these could work on real skin and on real people. I felt an urge to go back into irezumi and this time I would use everything that I had learned and all my artistic skills and pint them in one single and focused direction. Tattooing, painting, photography and writing would all circle around irezumi, and the exploration of the culture out of which Japanese traditional tattoos has been continuously growing up until now.
Was it a difficult decision to make?
It took months before I arrived at a clear decision and then to communicate this to the world. I must admit that I felt nervous about how my return to irezumi would be regarded by the tattoo community and to the art community to which I also belong. In retrospect, I really feel that I made the right decision. I am now full of creative energy, and coming back into irezumi has made me come alive in a whole new way!
You said in your last message that you'd be coming to Germany to tattoo, but only a few times. Why so few?
Because of the pandemic we couldn’t afford to keep our studio in Umeå, Sweden open, and since I was focusing so much on painting there was really no urge to open a new one. Besides that, I really never had a large clientele in Sweden. I don’t really know why that is. Most of my clients were travelling from all over to get tattooed by me. For a decade now, I have been continuously visiting my good friends Pino and Marijana Cafaro, and worked at their beautiful studio The White Fox Gallery in Braunschweig. I really feel at home there. So I talked to them and they extended an open invitation for me as a guest there. I am really grateful for that, since I really love working there. I will slowly add to the list of studios to do guest work at, and I am sure that I will work a lot more than I now have planned for. I will be at the White Fox gallery for about 9-10 weeks in a year.
The last few years of painting will have an influence on your future tattoo pieces?
I most definitely think so. During this whole time I have been going deeper and deeper into Japanese culture and history, and used everything I have learned in my paintings. I think I have become much better at applying my collected knowledge into new irezumi designs. All Japanese art forms have valuable treasure that can be used to not only maintain tradition, but also to bring it into the future. One thing that I will work hard on is to bring many more designs into my irezumi world. In Japanese culture and history, there is an endless supply to take from and I feel that irezumi has just began to scratch the surface of that. If you learn a thousand things, there will be another ten thousand things waiting behind those first thousand. And the one hundred thousand. Truly, the more I know, the more there is to learn.
Anything else ?
I am also dedicated to designing for the female bother much more consciously. I am learning a lot about that through my painting. I want more women to go for bodysuits, and I want to design things that fits beautifully, and there need to be a whole new way of thinking around that. Until now, female clients have been few and far in between. I want to change that. In the beginning, I am quite willing to work at very reduced prices when it comes to female bodysuits, and if someone reading this feels that ”Hey, this is something that I really want and to be a part of”, they should contact me.
One of your aims in painting shunga was to reconnect with a certain nobility of sensuality and sexuality in comparison with degrading commercial pornography. From the reactions you've received, do you feel you've achieved your goal?
My answer is definitely YES! It is true that I started with shunga and erotica as a counter movement against the porn that has been overrunning the internet for more than a decade now. It has very little to do with human sensuality and sexuality, and has been commodified by strong and money hungry forces. It has also really twisted peoples ideas of what sex is. There is an alarming amount of young boys that think that force has a vital part to play in sex, and a huge amount of girls that feel that they have to put up with it on order to be accepted. That is very sad and that is bullshit! I began painting shunga because I realised that most likely the first view of sex my kids would have, would be internet porn. I wasn’t prepared to accept that. I am not trying to be prude or moral about sex. There is however a very big difference between consensual play and the dominating brutality often found in what sites like Pornhub peddles as the ”real” thing. I believe that there is a possibility to create great pornography. In fact, there are a few photographers, directors and writers that actually do that. However, when money becomes the prime driving force behind it, the human mind enters a slippery slope. And the internet is a very powerful thing.
What feedbacks did you have ?
Over the years, I have had so many great conversations around what I painted, and the feedback has been fantastic. It is quite something that I can paint fully uncensored pornographic scenes, and people say the word ”beautiful” more than anything else. That goes to prove, that not only is there a demand for good pornography, but there are also possibilities. Create your own! In order for sex to be really good, it requires intimacy and vulnerability. This is the true human heart.
Your stylistic approach has evolved over time, particularly through the work on the realism of the bodies but also the softer colours - I find them almost nostalgic. How do you see this evolution?
It is true that lately I have moved away from painting bodies in the traditional ukiyo-e style, and instead began making them more realistic. The main reason for this is that the tattoos didn’t really come alive until I did that. So much of the beauty of irezumi actually lies in the body on which the images and patterns are tattooed. Irezumi is best viewed on a body that moves around doing everyday things. The shift of light during the day, or candle light at night, these are just a few things that can make a bodysuit tattoo go beyond mere imagery and enter a sublime state. For anyone that has ever got tattooed it is very clear that the tattoo becomes YOU. Not a part of you, but actually you yourself. Like it has always been there. It’s quite fantastic, and even now, after more than 30 years of tattooing, I am still amazed by this phenomena.
Something even more true with Japanese tattooing.
In irezumi, it is even better. The complete coverage of the skin turns it from an everyday thing into a sort of silk brocade. The skin becomes something not out of this world. It is truly wondrous! This sensation is what I am striving for in my series of tattooed beauties. When it comes to colors, I am always trying to use the traditional colours of Japan. The range of subtle tones is very rich, and there is so much that can be achieved by not using just any old red or green. I also experiment with ”fading” the colours, letting them become old and a bit washed out. Since I paint digitally, I have the choice to imagine any colour after perhaps 30 years of hanging on the wall, getting bleached by the sun. it’s not that I use any special digital magic trick for this. It’s just from looking at thousands of Japanese artworks over a very long period of time. Even though I paint digitally, I use very little beyond paper, colours and brushes. I usually say that I paint digitally in a very analog way, if that can make sense.
I wonder about the erotic value of tattoos. Are they sensual or sexual in your opinion?
The answer is ”yes”, but it also comes with a reservation. Tattoos in themselves are not automatically erotic and sensual. It’s more complicated than that. When a tattoo, and it doesn’t really matter in which style, be it tribal, realistic black and grey or traditional irezumi, is done in such a way that it takes the persons body and shape into account fully, then it can become very sensual. Just a stamp smack dab in the middle of an arm, or work that completely disagree with the body’s shape and contour, is rather a negative than a positive when it comes to the erotic side of things. However, tattoos done the right way can definitely transform the body into a very sensual thing.
The Japanese painter Kaname Ozuma (famous for having worked with the models of numerous tattoo artists, author of several books) also liked to paint tattooed women, nudity and sensuality. Do you feel close to his work?
Ozuma is of course a great inspiration for me, and has been for many decades. When his work started to emerge, there had not been really anything like it before. It was quite a revolution to see his art. I still study his work, especially when I run into obstacles and can’t seem to move ahead with a painting. Believe me when I say that that happens practically all the time (laughs). If you are going to steal from someone, it’s better to steal from the true masters of their craft. Studying his work has saved my day many, many times.
Did you ever meet him ?
I actually had the opportunity to met him in his studio and hang out with him for an afternoon. It was back in 2010, I think. Japanese tattooer Horiren accompanied us and made the proper introductions. He was very warm and casual. One of his female models was also there. We drank beer, smoked cigarettes and talked about his way of working. I still have some great portrait photographs I captured of him laughing and smoking. He smoked a lot, as did I. It was a very memorable afternoon.
What about the other activities you've developed a taste for, such as writing, publishing art books and sculpture? Does photography hold a special place among these other means of expression?
I actually discovered photography by chance back in 2006. I was about to travel to Japan for the first time, and I was planning on doing it completely alone. A few days before departure, I got nervous and thought ” I desperately need a travel companion”. On a whim, I decided to buy a camera. It would be my friend, and I could hide behind it so that nobody can see me. This was the way I was thinking. I read the camera manual on the plane over, and started using it the first morning in Tokyo. and you know what? It actually worked! I discovered Japan through that lens, and I think I would have missed out on so many things if I hadn’t made that snap decision. I suddenly found myself spending an hour trying to capture sunlight coming through papered windows. I spent hours in Buddhist temples, mesmerised by wood grain and gold leaf.
You kept on photographing then ?
Photography quickly became very central to me, and I went back two times in 2007, and then in 2008. Always with my mind on capturing Japan through my lens. A camera can help open doors and start conversations. It’s a wonderful creative tool. In 2009, I went to Japan with Alex Reinke, and we really photographed our way through Yokohama, Tokyo and Kyoto. It was when spending a lot of time photographing Horiyoshi III that I came up with the idea for our first Kofuu Senju book publishing project. Without photography, I would have never thought of starting our own book label. As my painting became more central to me, the camera now stayed more and more on the shelf. Perhaps I needed a break from it. Photography will be an integral part of my continuing journey into irezumi, that is for sure. And writing, of course. I really love to write! I love to share what I have learned, so writing and photography will be two pillars on which I can build a stable foundation for my future tattoo work. I am very excited! + IG : @senjushunga https://www.senjushunga.com/
