Léa Nahon has been at the helm of her ship for fifteen years. Sailing with raw lines, she intertwines raw eroticism with spontaneous instants in her universe, transposed all the way from her sketchbooks to her clients' skin. Over a passage on her rowboat, the "blackworker" tells us about her Belgium, her experience and her numerous future projects which are just like her: unique and authentic.

- You seem to have withdrawn for a while before you came back full power, is there a particular reason for this?

Withdrawn may not be the right word for it, but I had to slow down indeed. I had been on the road for years, in trains, planes and cars, sleeping in hotels and on friends' sofas, never really taking it easy at home. I was tired. Tattooing demands constant work and being on the road is great but I didn't have much time for friends and family. My mother had to book appointments with me to have lunch and my brothers and sisters were getting birthday presents via the Los Angeles post. It did not replace physical presence. So I decided to slow down. I stopped going to conventions for a year or two. I had to make a clear cut or else I would have made an exception out of every event. I re-discovered the pleasures of reading a book, watching a movie without drawing at the same time or going for walks. I also slowed down on appointments. I did not need to work that much, I was just scared of disappointing my clients. Tattoos and clients took priority over my relationships and even my health. One has to get out of the spiral to realise how mistaken they are. Since then I have started conventions again, I work less but better, and I have learnt to take time for myself and my family and friends.

- It's the road that took you to the sketchbook as your initial working medium ?

No, that's the heritage of the Boulle school [NDLR: The "Ecole Boulle" where Léa obtained her A levels in Applied Arts]. The teachers made it compulsory to keep a sketchbook daily, we were given marks for it at the end of the month, so we better had to be assiduous. I got into the habit of doing it and since then I have never stopped. It started when I was fifteen, I have quite a collection at home! And it is indeed practical when you travel. Easier to grab on a train than an easel and oil paint!

- Throughout your sketchbooks and tattoos, you grasp instants that could be found in Nan Goldin's photography or in Egon Schiele's self portraits for instance, what touches you in the works of these artists?

Their spontaneous aspect, precisely. Goldon's pictures freeze a moment that has not been chosen by the model, a bit like Schiele's portraits, as if no one was posing, or as if the models were not aware that they were being pictured or drawn. I work from photos, and apart from pictures by Thomas Krauss and a few others, I use my own pictures as a basis. Which means my friends and family. I take pictures all the time, and some, which could look like bad pictures, give me a great working basis. It is the absence of pose that I liked in those two artists and that I reproduced without really realising. I also like mistakes that lead to great things. But I have to admit that this technique is convenient, for tattoos in any case. If my client moves, no problem, we draw a line aside and here it is, it looks great! There is at least 50% of laziness, but I like the result better than if I were making it all polished, and my clients seem to appreciate it, so everybody wins!

-You have been collaborating with Thomas Krauss for a while, could you tell us what touches you in his photographs and what nourished your collaboration?

I met Thomas posing for him and seeing the result of his pictures with other tattooists. It's weird, even though he asks people to pose, he still manages to obtain a spontaneous feeling, as if the model was about to say or do something. It is never frozen. I like it even more when he takes pictures on the spot, when he hangs out for hours until we don't see him in the room and he comes back with fragments of life of which we were not aware. These pictures are hard to draw, but they are gold to me!

-Do your clients generally see the intention you have put in your sketches when they choose a tattoo?

No, that's precisely what I like. I never put a lot of intention in my drawings, there is nothing thought out, it all depends on the picture I find. That's why it's hard for me to follow a guideline for my drawings, because the theme does not really depend on me... If I see a picture pass by, whether it's in a book or online, and I like it (the angle, the person's expression, the position, etc...), I put it aside and I draw it. My clients sometimes find very deep things in my drawings because they remind them of something, someone, whatever it is. I prefer to let them come up with their own interpretation, their story will certainly be more interesting than mine!

-What's your outlook on the tattoo world and its evolution since you started 15 years ago?

I come from the old school where you have to know how to do everything to survive in this job. A good tattooist should be able to answer all types of requests. We did not come to tattoos because it was cool and made money. It was rather the opposite. Years of cleaning without getting a cent, hours welding needles, inhaling acid fumes, doing the dishes, sterilizing tubes, and after all that, hours of drawing, in all styles. No time to work on one's own style or draw one's desires. It was hard as hell, nothing to do with the glamorous side associated to it today! I'd like to think that I contributed to the fact that tattoo artists dare to get out of imposed codes and try new things on people's skin. I managed to develop this sketch "style" after having drawn a lot, after having studied various objects, animals and human bodies, in all styles. I have only been tattooing my own drawings for two years. Colleagues like Yann Black and Joe Moo (to name but a few) are great designers, and they decided to come back to this clean style that we are familiar with. I think that a lot of young tattooists do what they know how to do and call that their style, out of disappointment rather than choice. But paradoxically, crazier and crazier styles come out of these new tattoo artists' work, ideas that nobody had before because they were too stuck in a "tattoo" set of mind, and I think this is great. I am surprised everyday by new things I see online and I ask myself what they will come up with next, how far it will go? Tattoo has completely changed these past ten years, but in a good way. And people get more and more tattoos because they were waiting to be offered such things, not just because tattoo is on TV.

-What aspects of your experience have comforted you in your choices, and what things won't you do again?

I am comforted by the idea that hard work pays off. I am not talking about money but about standard of living. All these years on the road not knowing where I was going, meeting a maximum number of people and attempting to gain recognition in a quite peculiar universe, have shaped me. I can afford to work a little less (I went down from 4 to 2 tattoos a day, yesss!) I can (almost) only tattoo my drawings, I work with people I admire a lot, all of this would not have been possible without all these years of continuous work. And I have a lifetime of memories! There is nothing I would not do again, let's say that in some cases I am happy that ridicule never did anyone harm!

-Could you talk about your link with Belgium?

It is a strong link I entertain with Belgium! During years of travelling, every time I came back to Paris, I was telling myself it was still the most beautiful city in the world and I had never found anywhere where I felt better. Until I went to Brussels. I grew up in Belleville, a very popular neighbourhood. But cities change. And I found in the Marolles (the old Brussels where the Boucherie Moderne is), the atmosphere of the Belleville of my childhood, with the old market and the grandpas' drinking white wine at 8 am. Through going there back and forth, I ended up settling there. And then the city also changed, and I followed my bloke to Liège where I found this outdated atmosphere, with cobblestones, old factories and an incorrigible punk atmosphere that make Liège the city of all dangers if you have a tendency for alcohol and drugs. It's not called ToxCity for nothing!

-Between your boat, the Factory and England, you have lots of new projects in store, could you tell us about them?

Yes, a lot of projects indeed!!! Let's take them in order. First the boat: I have bought a superb "small" 18.5 yard tug last may. The initial project was to have a tattoo shop in it, since I didn't have a shop to work in, in Liège. But the works may last at least another year hence the next project of the Factory. We worked on it all summer, having barbecues on the docks (bathing in the canal to freshen up), so I can't wait for warm weather to start again. I haven't abandoned the project of tattooing in there. I really want to do some mobile tattooing with it as soon as it will be in water, but first around Amsterdam and this area. And then the Factory will open its doors in June 2016. When I saw the place for rent with my friend Sabina [editor's note : Sabina Patiperra - Psychodermo, Namur] who tattooes in Liège, we had a crush on it. If it were an umpteenth tattoo shop in Liège we wouldn't have done it, but this place comprises a gallery separate from the tattoo space and that is what we really liked about it. So from June onwards, exhibitions every two months, tattoos, and finally a bit of stability! And as soon as stability won't be a novelty any more, I intend to cross the channel to settle in Brighton for a while, where I regularly work. There, the boat will become a home. But we are not there yet...

-So, a new challenge with the management of a gallery. What are your objectives with this opening? What would you like to defend?

I think we are going to take things as they come. Logistic problems will come soon (communication, repainting the walls after the artists have ruined them, etc.). But indeed there are things that are important to us. We will put on an exhibition every two months (our agenda of conventions does not allow us to have them more often). A small percentage will be taken on the sale of artworks, and it will be entirely donated to a different charity each time. This side of things is very important to us. I find that the world of tattoo makes enough money so that we can make things change, even at our little scale. We have walls, and therefore a space open to free speech, which is already a powerful weapon, if we can also lift people out of poverty while partying, everybody wins.

-You are signing the opening exhibition with Köfi, who are you planning on inviting next? Artists from the new generation?

After this exhibition, there will be another one in August with lots of artists from Liège, tattooists or not. A big melting pot of all that is made here, in all styles. And from the beginning of the school year, Piet du Congo, Franky Baloney from the Requins Marteaux, and Elzo Durt. It takes us to 2017, so after that we'll see. So everybody is welcome, new and old generation. And if we can make people discover new talents, even better!

-With all these projects, are you going to keep on exhibiting in Europe in an intensive way, as you have done over the past years?

Yes, sure! The fact I'm based in Liège will allow me to draw more, so I intend on continuing with exhibitions and guest tattoos a bit everywhere. It's the perk with being two to open the Factory, we can take turns. The next exhibitions will arrive quite quickly after the opening, I will be in Nantes at Turbo Zero in October, and then in Toulouse at the Dispensary (probably in collaboration with Thomas Krauss) in December, and in Portsmouth, England, at Play Dead in January. And after, we'll see!

-What can we wish you for the future?

Let's talk about it when the shop is open? At the moment, nothing more, please!

www.leanahon.com

Texte et Photos : P-Mod / www.facebook.com/pmod.photo