It's no secret that a lot of tattoo artists can't draw. They are not bad to repeat someone else's picture or photo but do not know the artistic skills and tools. Fortunately, I don't write about them. I'm writing about Havva Karabudak, an artist who has confused the concepts of painting and tattooing in my head, skillfully manipulating both brushes and needles.
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/d5/6d/d5/d56dd50a536fd5fc144352c56a730efd.jpgThere are two kinds of visual arts that delight and approve of the unsophisticated public: when something familiar is rubbed to the ground, or when "wow, look, the niches seem as if they were real". That's why there is such a demand for copies of famous works among the buyers of paintings, and realism is so common among tattoos. The struggle of modernists with a certain utilitarian art fell to the death of the brave under the pressure of the values of shirnarmasse.
However, not all artists are hungry, are they not? If there is demand, why not reciprocate? Especially when you are talented and able to bring to this vicious circle a lot of interesting and creative, no matter what. Havva (Eva) Karabudak has found her original niche: she makes realistic works and copies of great masters in miniature - and all this with a tattoo machine! Subtlety worked out details (up to the strokes) can't help but make you wipe your eyes in an attempt to clarify whether this is really possible.
As a tattoo artist, Eva Karabudak began her development in her native Turkey, which is doubly surprising, given the low popularity of tattoos in this country and the religious aspects of women's work. She studied art history in Ankara and it is immediately readable in her works, and she has always been engaged in drawing.
Eva became a professional tattoo artist in 2011, skillfully adding to this knowledge and a well-formed artistic taste. Like most eminent tattoo artists, at the beginning of her career, she looked for her own style, drawing on the work of others, experimenting with form, style, and technique - from doing work to watercolor, from geometry to realism.
Her first tattoos were very far from what she was doing now, but even then she wanted to stand out among most masters. For example, Eva was fond of cross embroidery and used this technique to implement the conceived image, often mixing different styles in the same tattoo. It turned out, I must say, very convincing and tasteful.
Today Havva Karabudak is known for her miniature tattoos, usually in the form of a circle with the whole world inside it - and I do not exaggerate. Her small works are surprisingly sucked inside themselves. Perhaps the reason for this is the striking detail because when you look at all the subtly written details, you unwittingly dive into the very reality of the painting. Or maybe it's all about the object of the image itself - fantasy plots, landscapes with infinite perspective, often written off from life, and sometimes a carefree person immersed in them. And this very fine frame around it also makes you go beyond it - on the opposite side, to the world where everything is so colorful and attractive.
You have probably noticed that I use vocabulary, which is usually applied to the description of artistic works performed with paints on canvas. But this is the main trick of this artist's work - it does not work with paints, all the tiny shades, halftones, smooth transitions and strokes that create an image and such a stunning realism, applied by a tattoo machine needle. This is an aerobatics!
After a while Eva Karabudak moved from Istanbul to New York, prudently considering that it will benefit her talent and demand, and now successfully works in the studio Bang Bang Tattoo with several other cool and diverse tattoo artists. It's not for nothing that I've focused on Eva's colleagues. I believe that this should be the real environment in any creative team - a heterogeneous, multi-faceted environment, where everyone can bring something of their own, where there is constant mutual influence. It gives growth and nourishment for development.
Believe me, it is simply impossible to meet a picturesque masterpiece of 5 x 5 cm on the skin and not to be amazed by its execution. And the longer you look at it, the deeper you get into the plot, feeling yourself a part of it. Really, friends, it is impossible not to talk about such works in the words of an art critic.
I've been watching this girl's work for a long time, but every time I'm amazed, my brain is trying to find a trick: what if it's a quality printed photo glued to my skin? Well, it is impossible to understand how the needle applied scattered light, reflection, reflections, glare, northern lights, how each blade of grass is prescribed, how not only the foreground, but also the background is worked out - and it is so natural that the effect of presence is created. On these few centimeters of skin!
I should also add that, unlike many other colleagues in the workshop, Eva Karabudak draws her sketches by hand with pencils and thin brushes, and does not use any tablets or electronic feathers. This probably helps her to feel the needle and its possibilities so subtly, and also allows her to "rehearse" and think through all the color steps in advance.
I don't want to say that the second way to create sketches is to be cheerful, but there is something less artistic in it, or something more like a layout for advertising design than a drawing. However, both variants have absolutely equal opportunities later on to decorate, and foul the body.
In addition to his own sketches Eva (does not turn the language to say) stuffs copies of paintings by famous masters of different eras - also in miniature. Here again I want to exhale admiringly "ah!" and hold your breath, going deep into the familiar details. Yes, they are all in place. But how? Paganini remembers at once with his virtuoso performance on a violin and superstitious suspicions arise. You see the strokes, but they are not there, you can smell the oil, covered with dammary lacquer, but it is not there!
And the best part is that in these copies there is no vulgarity or vulgarity, which is so often inherent in works based on famous works. Still, the appropriate education is accompanied by a reverent and skillful treatment of the classics.
Unfortunately, Havva Karabudak's masterpieces are not given to be as immortal as the paintings that she so skillfully repeats with a needle. And this, paradoxically, applies to permanent images. No matter how well you heal the tattoo, no matter how awe-inspiringly you take care of it, it will not last a century of thin lines and tiny dots. And if in other styles and works it is not so critical (and to pure realism - so even for the benefit), then in the case of miniature sooner or later, all the beauty and uniqueness of the picture will come to naught, the lines will slightly stretch, small details will merge and turn into a stain, and the color combinations - in a gradient. No, they will still be able to learn the former story, but the sophistication, mysteriousness will not remain ... So behold the beautiful, before it dissolves!