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 A new genre and concept that is becoming increasingly popular in the tattooing world, ‘science’ themed tattoos are symbolic of the ever-growing affection and acceptance of getting ink done; an increasing understanding of just how flexible, diverse and personal tattoos can be. If you can conceive an image, it’s most likely you’ll be able to get it applied to your body.
Thus we have new, rising generations of science graduates, postgraduates, doctors, chemists, physicists, biologists, discovering a very emphatic way to show their loyalty to their hard work, their research and their complex passions. There’s certainly a whole new set of judgements for your average layman to apply when a pretty girl lifts the corner of her shirt to show you – not a little pink love heart or a pair of dice - but a diagram of molecular structure. There are some lively and really rather fascinating blogs up and running which efficiently catalogue some of the best of this new niche in tattooing. Think tattoos of the structure of DNA, a forearm upon which the entire periodic table is branded, mathematic formulae running across a man’s back.
It’s an example of what is artistically somewhat effortless but results in a design that the tattooed can be sure many people won’t have, won’t understand, and will always make for the telling of a good story, a precise way to define their identity. The variety within this genre, also, is as infinite as the different corners of the scientific calling. Think anatomical tattoos, the musculature of an arm drawn out on skin in blood red and black; Einstein’s equations; spiralling geometrical patterns.
My favourite pick of the vast array of tattoos currently to be found? Thanks to a brief background in biology, I have a love of ‘neuron’ portraits; renderings of the structures within our bodies that are responsible for organizing our movement and directing our thoughts. The very things that mean the tattoo artist can move his hand and control the tattoo gun; that permit the tattooee to tense and tighten their muscles at the sensation of the needle. Then again there are also the tattoos that depict linear maps of the solar system… take a look for yourselves. Proof that you can do anything in the world of tattooing. CREDITS: Article - Rachel Kennedy, Photo - Meg of Flickr |
