Six Pages in 2007

In 2007 the Polish magazine Tattoo Fest gave me six pages in issue 5/2007, and asked for everything: the studio, the work, friends, awards. Looking back, it is the clearest picture of where I stood before the turn toward Japanese tattooing.

A Way of Life

Asked whether tattooing was art or craft, I refused the choice: "I would say it's a way of life for me." I drew every day, mostly flash, as a daily exercise. "'Never stop learning' is the main point of my philosophy", I said, and I meant it as the only way I knew to get anywhere in art. I did not believe in a signature style yet: "I also don't think I do anything special, even though some people say about 'bardadim' style."

I was working mostly in black and grey, because colour was still not trusted in Russia, and clients often asked for deep realistic 3D effects. I enjoyed them. I also turned down requests to copy other artists' work in the styles that were fashionable then.

The Scene Around Me

The magazine wanted to know about tattooing in Russia, so I described it as I saw it. In Soviet times there were only prison and military tattoos; I knew their meanings because clients asked, but they never shaped my own work. Ten years earlier, St. Petersburg, a city of five million, had about twelve professional tattoo artists. Now tattoo machines were cheaper than a medium-size tattoo, and that worried me more than it pleased me.

I had been a member of the Alliance of Professional Tattooists since 2002 and was one of the founders of a similar association in Russia, because safety knowledge had to reach the people now buying machines. In the studio I was the only artist; my wife Yana carried much of the routine work. Taras Shevchenko, a tattoo artist from Sevastopol, I called my main influence across the whole career.

The Plan That Came True

The last question was about the future. I answered: "I would like to make more big tattoos, like whole sleeve or back piece, and hope I will have more customers who want to get it done by me."

That sentence became the whole practice. Today I work only in large-scale Japanese tattooing: sleeves, backpieces, bodysuits. The daily drawing and the habit of learning came with me.