blackwork tattoo vincent

For this book, we kept it simple with the title "Black Tattoo Art: Modern Expressions of the Tribal" to encompass the various designs and aesthetics that have sprung from the Neo-Tribal movement; a movement which took root in the late sixties, flourished in the eighties and nineties, and pollenized the beautiful offshoots of today.

The title is deceptively simple, however, because what really is "modern black" tattoo art?

It's not a book on traditional tribal tattooing. There is a chapter that looks at a few artists today reviving their ancestral tattoo arts, but this is a very small part of this monster volume.

It is a book that looks at how today's tattooists have taken the tenets of tribal arts -- the soulfulness and harmony with the body -- and applied it in contemporary, imaginative ways.

To see sample pages of their work in the book, check the Black Tattoo Art Flickr set.

I hope to see y'all at Tattoo Culture. If not, this month I'll also be selling the book at the Paradise Tattoo Gathering September 17-20, and at the London Tattoo Convention September 25-27. More convention dates to come.

And now, gotta rest up for Thursday's party.