Tattoo Amsterdam 2011

7th Int. Tattoo Conventiom

RAI, Amsterdam, June 3-5, 2011

The 7th edition of the Benelux’ largest international tattoo convention The World and Beyond was a colorful and crowded event with more than 170 tattoo artists. Their art crosses borders of countries and even of continents. Often famous and excellent artists from the worldwide tattoo scene took part in the event, hailing from Australia, New Zealand, Borneo, Japan, China, all over Europe: from the UK to Russia, from Norway to Portugal, the U.S.A. , Argentina and Brazil, Samoa and Tahiti. Of course the large Dutch tattoo scene was represented well: by 19 shops such that of Jan Born from Rotterdam, who has 30 years of tattooing experience and a shop with 6 artists. The famous mr. Dan Gold of London Ink had been signed to work as a guest in this shop for a week. We stopped by Tattoo Centre Alkmaar where Ron Rijks owns a shop in which not only he and the Rumanian artist Icon Transylvania are active but also Ron’s two beautiful daughters Louella and Désanka. Icon is a graduate from the Rumanian art academy. The gracious Louella was just getting her left arm tattoed with a beautiful complex design of a saxophone and Marilyn Monroe: a joyful design on a pretty skin. As a lover of black shading and Celtic motives I was drawn to the shop of Eus in Leyden. Being a formal graphical designer and drawer of advertisements Eus has been a versatile tattoo artist for the past 23 years, who was won many contests at international conventions. At Tattoomania the shop of the always cheerful Gerrit, from Apeldoorn, who is famous for his portraits and a lot more, we learned to our grief that this artist is fully booked until April 2013. This did not come as a surprise, however, since last year the cue had been just as long. We discussed the pros en cons of the booming business with Phil Kyle of Magnum Opus Tattoo from Brighton, UK. His booth advertises "Black metal flash tattoos" and that is because Phil is a black metal adept himself. When we visit his booth the sound of Behexen welcomes us. Phil is world famous from his appearance in London Ink a 16-episode TV show about a tattoo shop on the Discovery Channel aired all around the globe. He has been tattooing for 20 years and is a strong believer in the ‘old school’ traditions of tattooing and respecting it. “Tattooing is a craft that needs to be learned properly through a long apprenticeship; not from experimenting with cheap, inferior equipment, like you see happening often nowadays”, is his opinion. The use of proper hand crafted tattoo equipment is also important, he says. Phil thinks that -in terms of quality- tattoo art might be better of “returning to the underground, where it belongs”.

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Photography & text by Chérie, Metalphoto