Art Meets Taboo in the Tradition of Japanese Tattoos

A dragon, its powerful body covered in colorful scales, writhes and coils, bearing its razor-sharp fangs and claws. A shimmering koi leaps gracefully through roiling waters. Richly striped tigers stretch open their dangerous maws to boast crimson tongues and long teeth. And peaceful and wrathful deities alike command their surroundings with outstretched arms, robes flying. These are among the common artistic motifs of Edo period Japan. They adorned the sumptuous robes of the kabuki actors, filled the woodblock prints for which the period is famous—and appeared intricately, indelibly inked onto the bodies of (mostly) men. In celebration of the remarkable art and tradition of tattooing in Japan, and its links to the more well-known and admired arts of kabuki and woodblock printing, Ronin Gallery presents an image-laden exhibition, “Taboo: Ukiyo-e and the Japanese Tattoo Tradition.”

The gallery has said of its subject, “simultaneously representing both belonging and non-conformity, [tattoos] are complicated cultural symbols.” Through its exhibition, it highlights both the beauty and complications of this very particular art that flowered during the Edo period. The works on view are a mix of old and new: 19th-century woodblock prints from such masters as Utagawa Kuniyoshi and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi share wall space with the contemporary paintings of mixed-media artist and tattoo master Horiyoshi III (whose own body is covered in ink), Masato Sudo’s photographs of heavily tattooed bodies, and Daniel Kelly’s mixed-media prints.