Ned Vena
Tattoo Painting with Dragon, 2017

Artist
Ned Vena

Title
Tattoo Painting with Dragon

Year of creation
2017

Technique and dimensions
Acrylic and UV-cured paint on canvas, 260 x 190 x 4 cm

Year of acquisition
2017

Ned Vena's painting Tattoo Painting with Dragon (2017) comes from a series of works in which the American artist deals with the relationship between the image and its wearer. The motivational starting point are the tattoos that Vena has on his own body. He took these using an iPhone and digitally printed the photos on a canvas. In the next step, he photographs the resulting painting and prints it again onto the fabric, creating overlays and duplications. He also applies layers of paint, creating monochrome, abstract fields that break the legibility.

For the art critic and theorist Isabelle Graw, the genre of painting has a special position in art because the person of the artist is automatically inscribed in its products and they are thereby brought to life. In Vena's case, this vitalization process takes place through the subject of the picture and its origin. The tattoo of the Asian-looking dragon was not made by the artist; for this she was literally stabbed into his skin. When transferred to the canvas, the painting surface and Vena's body shell collapse into one another. However, this tautological equation is further enhanced: when the image is overprinted with its image, the motif that was first printed is transformed into the carrier of itself.

(Sven Beckstette)