When you look at a tattoo, you can see a gateway into the mind of its wearer. The designs can be a veritable portal into a whole other realm of imagination and ideas. A fresh dimension created with the skillful application of ink into the skin.
Erik de Haan uses this medium to create flowing and harmonious pen drawings that transport the eye into a graceful, swirling, and majestic world of wind and water, of ornate motifs, of demons and gods.
Utilising tattoo design traditions, Erik de Haan is able to transfer the powerful energy and imagery of Tattoo Art onto paper. There, the aesthetic is expanded upon. Almost alchemically, Erik uses his pen to etch a sense of transference into his works —we are taken just a little further than the limits of a tattoo.
Often performing gestures which hearken back to portraits and paintings of antiquity, the figures depicted in his work float alone on the paper, free of background or spacial context —they simultaneously act as canvases and as vessels for the designs. Designs of which seem to take on a life of their own.
There is another world present in Erik de Haan’s drawings —one which tells the story of an artistic process. The story of time, skills, and effort. Peer closely and see the markings of the strokes left by the artists hand. These fine details give an indication of tireless dedication to creating works of cultivated expression and of flawless execution.
Kintaro Publishing will now be releasing a total of three reproduction prints by Erik de Haan. One of which will be a numbered and signed limited edition.