After a first career abroad in contemporary art, El Nigro, a young 39-year-old tattoo artist back in his native Naples, continues to explore his favourite themes in black: melancholy, folklore, witchcraft and Victorian aesthetics.
How did you get into tattooing?
Thanks to my wife. At the time I was still working as a contemporary artist, doing solo and group shows in galleries and museums (under a different nick name) and I had a bad experience with an important Museum with whom I was planning a solo show. Something went wrong so I decided to cancel the show and, after that, I’ve been demoralized for a while but always looking for something new. In the meantime my wife suggested me several times to start tattooing but it really wasn’t my intention. So one day she just bought me my first machines and asked me to give it a try. I’ve always been fascinated by this world and surrounded by tattooers, I used to spend time in tattoo shops even before getting my first tattoo done at the age of 20 but I would never imagined to be a tattooer.
Did you do art studies?
Yes, I’ve done all the “Art Path”. My father used to draw and paint in the spare time and he introduced me to these practices when I was 7yo, as I was saying before, then I went to the Art High School and, after that, to the Academy of Fine Arts here in Naples. During those years, from 13yo to 26yo (roughly) I’ve been doing graffiti, worked as a scenographer for a Theater company and experimenting different techniques and media.
What place does drawing have in your artistic training?
Drawing, to me, it’s a need. A necessity. It’s like going to the toilet, you can’t hold back for long. I’ve started drawing and painting when I was 7 and, basically, I never stopped.
You said you were doing contemporary art, what did you do?
I took part at the my first group show in 1999, when i was 17yo. At the time I was still painting with oil colors and working on a huge body of work where I was portraying serial killers and criminals in large scale. Few years later I’ve started working with new media such as photography, Video Art and Installations. I had a lot of fun and I’ve learned a lot of new things and techniques but I knew that it wasn’t really my element. My real need has always been painting.
From contemporary art to figurative illustration, not a problem?
I just felt a bit “rusty” with drawing when I had to restart but, in general, I never been too far from a figurative dimension. I can easily say that the human being has always been the “Fil Rouge” of my whole production.
Your universe navigates between cursed folklore, witchcraft and fantasy. Has this always been the case?
Folklore and witchcraft for sure, even before focusing on the so called blackwork, when I was still into neo traditional. Never been really into fantasy, if with this term we mean dragons, warriors and elfs.
Italy is rich in magical and mystical folklore, do you feel your universe being part of this cultural heritage?
Of course. Naples is a city soaked into folklore and superstitions. Inevitably, I carry with me also this part of our cultural heritage and it reflects into my work for sure. When I came back from London I was having a chat with my father and I discovered that part of my family, by his side, were from Benevento. I knew already all the stories about the infamous Janaras (the witches of Benevento) but I decided to study a bit more this topic and then I decided to include them into my work. Other figures of the Neapolitan folklore has been included into my work such as the Hunchback, which is symbol of good luck.
Can you tell us more about this story of the witches of Benevento?
Sure. The witches of Benevento (Janaras) are actually real witches (at least real persons) whose persecution started with the preaching of Saint Bernardino of Siena, in the 15th Century. The publication of MALLEUS MALEFICARUM in 1486, which explains how to recognize witches and how to try and interrogate them using the cruelest tortures, gave a final incentive to the Witch Hunting. In the following centuries their legend took form. Beginning in 1273 reports of witches gatherings began to cirulate in Benevento, based on a statement of another woman put on trial for witchcraft in 1428, Matteuccia de Francesco. She stated that these rallies took place under a Walnut tree, the Superstitious Walnut Tree of Benevento. It was believed to be the tree that had been cut down by Barbatus, perhaps restored by the work of the Devil. Numerous writers, musicians and artists have took inspiration from this legend during the centuries such as the Italian Composer Niccolò Paganini. On my social pages there’s an original unframed illustration I have dedicated to Matteuccia de Francesco.
Your work is impregnated with references to the past, to which past are you looking at ?
Victorian Era, mostly. I’m a big fan of that period and I love the aesthetic of literally everything has been made under the guide of the Queen Victoria, especially dresses and the sentimental/mourning jewellery. Since the Queen became a widow quite early and she kept the mourn for the rest of her life, the whole aesthetic of mourning was brought to another level. Victorian literature is definitely another side of the Era which I really like. I’ve read Dickens’s Oliver Twist for the first time when I was about 14yo and it gave me a mix of emotions and feelings that I can still remember nowadays. In this early example of social novel, Dickens satirises child labour, domestic violence, the recruitment of children as criminals and their presence in the streets and exposes the cruel treatment of orphans in London at the time. Many years later, in 2017/18, thinking about this novel I’ve started the series titled CHILDHOOD MEMORIES.
The mourn theme, the melancholy, folklore, witchcraft, is that specific to tattooing or common to your whole creation?
When you start working on a something that you feel from the belly, you just do it. I've been working on these kind of topics since forever but they seemed to be quite random and natural to me. Just recently I've realized how present and connected they are, and they've always been in my life. Themes as melancholy, mourning, death are part of my life. Melancholy is my temperament, as stated in my website too, and a weird sense of death has been with me for a while now but I'm still working on it, psichologically talking. Folklore and witchcraft are part of my cultural heritage, as I said, and I think you can still find on YouTube a video titled JANARA I've done with some friends in 2005/2006 with a very poor quality camera. So, these topics are with me for a very long time.
Have you always worked in black and white?
Not really. As I was saying before, when I started tattoing I was into color neo-traditional and I’ve been working in that direction until 2016, basically all my years in London. Even during that time my compositions had a lot of solid black because, basically, I’ve always thought that the black gives a good structure and stays better than other colors on the skin. When I moved back to Italy and I had to rebuild my clientele I’ve realized it was the right time to quit colors and start working with the black only. It opened me a new whole world. I felt immediately a new freedom with the compositions and the topic I could pick up from all my interests. I genuinely think it was a more personal and honest work since the very beginning and I’m sure it reached a lot of people for that reason.
You like to give captions to your images, what pleasure do you take in creating stories in your images?
Maybe it’s because of my background, basically a life dedicated to Contemporary Art. As drawing, it’s a need. I always try to give titles and build up little stories around certain series or characters. I would feel the work incomplete without. Although this need, usually I prefer to give just a hint of the story, leaving the reading key open to the observer. Suggestions, not explanations. If you explain an artwork it dies, it doesn’t have a reason to exist anymore.
Are tales an inspiration for you?
Inevitably. Folklore is based on traditional and superstitious tales, in the same way literature and poetry are basically tales. What I’m trying to do, even if not so explicitly at the moment, it’s to give a glimpse of tales that doesn’t even exist. Not yet at least. Like a trailer of a movie that han’t been made yet or like a story your brain can build up when you find and old 19th Century picture with an hand written note on the back.
Can you tell us about your other influences?
I don't want to sound rhetoric but I literally find inspiration all around me. Apart from what I have already said, other important "elements" to me are music and cinema. It's not a coincidence if you can find a title of one of my work that refer to a song or a movie. HAVEN'T HAD A DREAM IN A LONG TIME is a title of one of my mixed media painting which clearly refer to “Please, Please, Please lei me set what I want” of The Smiths. There are always hidden references in my work but I won’t say more. I’d rather people to find them. + IG : @elnigrotat2 IG : @ blackbile_studio
