Weekend Argus

Art that’s only skin deep

The world’s top tattoo artists are drawn to Cape Town. Report by Kowthar Solomons, pictures by Matthew Jordaan

GETTING inked is not only for hard-core tattoo lovers – and the growing popularity of the Cape Town Tattoo Convention is definitely proof of that. The fourth annual event of its kind, on this weekend at the Pavilion Conference Centre at the V&A Waterfront, the convention has attracted some of the world’s top tattoo artists to the Mother City.

BODY ART: Milo Marcer, of Mr Lucky Tattoos in Cape Town, works on Pippa Tshabalala’s left thigh.

Southern Ink Xposure (SIX) is the lead organiser behind the event, and PR and marketing manager Jon Monsoon said this year’s turn-out had been fantastic. “The convention gets better every year, and we see the numbers grow to reflect that.”When they started, he admits, people mostly visited “out of curiosity, to gawk at the tattooed”. “But now we see those same people come in with ink of their own.”

Some of the artists in this year’s line-up are Spain’s Robert Hernandez, Thomas Alvarado of the US, and Dermadonna of the Netherlands.

The event is aimed specifically at adults, but for the children there are temporary tattoos stalls and a tattoothemed putt putt course.

Among the celebs who have popped in are 5fm’s DJ Fresh, Roger Taylor of the legendary rock band Queen, and members of Joburg rock outfit Shadow Club, who will perform at the after-party tomorrow evening.

“It’s great that tattoos have become more mainstream and aren’t just associated with bikers, gangsters and negative stereotypes,” Monsoon said.

The event ends tomorrow night. Tickets are R120 for adults and entrance is free for children under 16.

kowthar.solomons@inl.co.za

Comments

Change

I been thinking about change this morning, and the old cliche comes to mind, "the only constant in life is change" and I think it probably is true, but I wonder if it is also true about the very essence of you, can you change after all you have seen, experienced and lived through, this sets patterns in your life, and I wonder if therapy could even change those ingrained patterns. Of course I will admit that all those things cause your growth, and that in essence is change, but after years of that growth there is a whole bunch of things that cause you to act, react, and feel, and that forms patterns of behaviour and I wonder if this can ever be truly changed or worst case scenario modified? All that, got me thinking about just what I let into my life, and how those things are going to change how I act, and worst of all, will I repeat the errors I made before in the handling of these things because I haven't actually changed at all. The truth for me I'm afraid is dark,

When to contact the studio

"Cape of Storms"

So much for summer, damn the rain, wind and cold that's blown in.... just as I was really starting to enjoy the weather. Even Laika jumped up on the bed and curled up against me, ok she is a husky that likes laying in the sun, so she didn't like the wind and cold either. We live at one of the most dangerous seafaring places in the world, many factors combine here making it a passage feared by sailors. The violent, rampant winds and the hundreds of reported shipwrecks along the coast earned it the name "Cape of Storms" and later changed to the Cape of Good Hope. The Peninsula, in occupying this latitude, is first in line to be affected by the extreme winds and huge Antarctic swells which conflict not only with the South African anticyclone but also the powerful Agulhas current, descending from the Indian Ocean. This all makes the ever changing weather a pain, that's what you get when you live on an island with a lighthouse....lol Oh good heavens, baby

Milo "Mr Lucky" Marcer

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