Despite his busy schedule, French tattoo artist Henrik, well known for his spectacular large format pieces, kindly agreed to put down his machines for this interview for Inkers readers. A long interview.
You are a rather discreet artist, attached to his quietness but also a hard worker. I imagine that the period of confinement was rather positive for you, from a creative point of view I mean. How did you experience it?
Yes, it's true, I'm quite attached to my peace and quiet. I like to work in a quiet environment, so I can concentrate on my projects. It's also true that I don't expose myself at all outside of the tattoo frame on social networks, the confinement was for me, like everyone else, an extremely strange period. It was the first time in my life that I took such a long break professionally. It allowed me to spend more time painting, and I took the opportunity to do a series of paintings. It also motivated me to give more importance to painting in my artistic career.
You seem to devote a lot of energy to it, what place does it occupy today in your artistic life?
It's an activity that requires a lot of time and it's not always easy to organize myself in order to conciliate my other activities (illustration, tattooing, different projects in gestation of technical trainings and books that I have in mind for years...). I work on different media, both digital and traditional painting. I like to work with different mediums, whether it is watercolour, oil or acrylic. I sometimes mix the different techniques. Sometimes I start a project with acrylic and then come back to it with oil. At the moment I'm experimenting with new things, I'm working on the collage of materials. I am working on canvases on which I add different elements to create several planes. I'm at the experimental stage for the moment but the results are very nice, I think I'll be tackling different large format projects very soon.
How does it satisfy you?
Painting is a medium of artistic expression that has, from my point of view, no codes or limits, it allows you to make different attempts, to experiment, and to express yourself freely. Artistically, I think it's the medium that gives the most freedom. You can add textures and materials, you can cut your colours with sand, paper or cotton, you can model with plaster, you can even go outside the frame if you are mad ;)
If I remember well when we did your interview with Tattoo Magazine (14 years ago!), it was your wife who was painting.
Yes, 14 years already, that doesn't make us any younger! Yes, back then it was Vilay who painted. She was doing very well. She stopped a few years ago to devote herself more to music, but she's thinking of getting back into it, and I think that in the near future we're going to tackle some projects together.
Did painting help you to become familiar with large formats, the ones you are known for in the tattoo world?
No, working on a canvas and working on a human body are totally different things. A canvas is a flat surface delimited by a frame, the human body is a complex surface that moves and is not delimited by any frame. The approach in terms of composition and dynamics has absolutely nothing to do with it. The composition in tattooing is much more complex and requires a lot of research work to make the project work properly.
What benefits do your tattoos get from your painting?
Even if the rules and constraints are different, tattooing remains a medium. In other words, no matter which medium you use, you will always get something out of it. After that, if you want to make a shortcut between painting and tattooing, I think that watercolour is by far the closest, because of the transparency of the successive layers... and the impossibility of going back ;)
Stylistically, you are still closer to cartoonists and illustrators. Please tell us about your influences.
Thank you, I appreciate the comparison very much. I consider myself above all an illustrator. I am extraordinarily lucky to meet people who are willing to let me express myself as I see fit, and I am eternally grateful. I'm interested in a lot of different artists, in very different registers. Of course I follow some tattoo artists, and I appreciate the work of many of them, but I'm more interested in painters, draughtsmen or graphic designers. This is for several reasons. Firstly because I have a generalist vision of visual art, I try not to confine myself to the tattoo world. But also because I think it's dangerous to get too wrapped up in tattoo imagery, because it can restrict your field of vision to one frame, and in that sense standardize everyone's work. As far as tattoo artists are concerned, I really appreciate the western Canadian school, Steeve Moore or James Tex for example, who are for me above all exceptional illustrators. I also appreciate the neo-Japanese approach of South Korean artists like Hajin or Gen. And if we join the world of tattooing to that of painting, obviously my friends Guil Zekri, Dimitri HK or Julien Thibers, in very different registers are excellent painters. I really like the work of one of my clients called Clément Verdiere and I encourage Inkers readers to look at what he does.
The themes you deal with have remained more or less the same (Asian, comic, custom, etc.) but from a technical point of view, they have been enriched by a work on realism. What interest have you found in this?
I remain on a definitely Asian guideline, but my approach is very illustrative. Realism in itself is of little interest to me. I tried to do it at one time, but I find it artistically castrating. Once I have assimilated the basic construction techniques, it becomes purely methodical. I am not denigrating the artists who specialise in this field, and some of them have an impressive technical background, but personally I find it creatively reductive. On the other hand, the study of realism allows you to assimilate the work of volumes, depth and light, and learn a lot about the management of values and colour. Working on realism opens the doors to understanding 3-dimensional subjects, and allows you to approach the work of lighting. My friend Kore Flatmo calls it the dramatic aspect. Trying to find a certain accuracy without making a reproduction is an exercise that requires a lot of work and time. As far as I am concerned, this is the aspect that I find most interesting in the creative work.
Large tattoos don't necessarily mean more detail, why the simplicity?
One thing I've learned over the years is that simplicity is the most difficult thing to master. When I first started to really work on my compositions, I was in a position where I wanted to build cathedrals. By that I mean that I was looking for complexity at all costs. One day, a good ten years ago, I tattooed a musician. This guy was extremely interesting. He asked me to do a project for him with hands and guitars and to incorporate the word "simplify" into it, explaining that learning to simplify was essential in an artistic process. It took me years to understand what he really meant, but today I am convinced that he was right. This has led me to cultivate a certain paradox, the more I am asked to do large format, the more I try to simplify the composition. This may seem strange, but it is ultimately logical. When you make a backpiece, the key is that the motif is legible at 50 feet, but that there is subtlety and detail in the light and contrast work as you get closer to it. Working in complexity creates interference in the reading of a composition, too much detail kills the detail. The eye gets lost and the brain has difficulty analysing what it is looking at, this is where it becomes counter productive. It is in this frame of mind that I now approach all my projects.
In this past interview, you said: "The most important thing is the movement. It has to click and turn with the body". Do you still agree?
Yes and no. The very dynamic composition is very effective if it is uncluttered, in other words, it works if it is not parasitized by too many external elements. Basically a huge wave that wraps around the body is very effective, but if you add a pattern in front of it and another behind it, you completely overwhelm the effect. Again, this works if your composition is simple. A dynamic movement has to breathe. If you look at Filip Leu's work, which is unanimously recognised, you will see that he often uses large openings and large movements in these backgrounds, and the result is unmistakable.
This attention to dynamics explains the very particular points of view adopted for the scenes of your tattoos, these plays of volume which give the spectator the impression of being in the heart of the action?
I think what you are talking about is more related to depth than dynamics. By that I mean that working dynamically is about creating movements that wrap around the body. When you try to approach a composition as a scene (interaction between two characters for example), you look for something else, depth. It is the perspective and/or the angle of view that will influence your perception of what you are looking at. These are the methods used by filmmakers or cartoonists.
For some tattoo artists, doing one-shot pieces is satisfying, but not you. How do you enjoy it?
I like to work on large formats, I must admit, but I'm starting to accept smaller pieces again. On the other hand, I don't do any or very few one-shot designs. I understand that it is pleasant, because of the fact of realizing a project and to achieve it directly. I personally prefer to work over several sessions, on the one hand because it allows me to take a step back, and on the other hand because I use more and more work methods where I first work on my volumes in black and grey and then come back to them in colour, and it is extremely traumatic for the skin to work by successive layering over a single session. It's doable, but the healing can be a bit rock n roll.
How long do you spend on a big piece? Like the one with the mushrooms, pretty crazy.
It's totally random. It depends on the pattern. I did a coloured buttock back on an English client in 3 days in a row, as the composition was large and simple, and I spent up to 6 sessions on ultra detailed colour illustration cuffs, so it's hard to answer that question. For my potty Ludo's shiva project, I don't know exactly, but I think there were 6 sessions.
How many large pieces do you currently have in progress?
I have quite a few projects in progress, and with my schedule and the 3 successive closures due to covid, the number of large pieces in progress is quite substantial. That's why I don't post every day on social networks (laughs).
You now have the luxury of choosing your projects, how do you proceed?
I receive all new project requests via a contact form on my website. I take the time to look at all the requests and I select the ones that inspire me the most or that deal with subjects I want to work on. This sometimes takes time, and I really thank people for their patience, as I work very long days and have little time to devote to it, so it can take several long weeks to get an answer... + www.henrik-tattoo.com instagram.com/henriktattoo facebook.com/Henrik.Tattoo
