Cutting edge of modern art is needle, ink and skin

Thomas Hooper's clients wait six months for the master of fine arts. Photo / Supplied

Like other top artists, Thomas Hooper has a signature style and can charge thousands of dollars for his best pieces. His name is known around the world and clients go to great lengths to seek him out for his vision, immense skill and keen sense of artistic purpose.

But Hooper, 31, born in Bexhill-on-Sea, England and now the toast of New York, is neither a sculptor nor a painter, but a tattoo artist.

For many, the difference between fine art and the cutting edge of modern tattooing has now virtually disappeared.

"A lot of my work is to do with our own mortality and what could be called our souls," Hooper said as he sat in his studio, New York Adorned, where rock star Lenny Kravitz and DJ Samantha Ronson have been inked.

Hooper is one of the key figures in a burgeoning scene, a long way from the old stereotype of tattooing as the preserve of sailors and soldiers (though tattoos were once popular with Victorian aristocrats and even, it was rumoured, the royal family).

It is also a long way from middle-class professionals asking for Chinese characters or butterflies to be inked on their backs.

Now many tattoo artists have the coveted initials MFA - master of fine arts - after their names and have studied in respected art schools. They have waiting lists up to two years long, and clients often have to persuade the artist of their own commitment and vision.

Hooper has a waiting list of about six months. Sometimes clients seek him out and effectively offer him their skin as a blank canvas, something he always declines as he prefers some client input.

But he does understand that the reason people want a "Hooper" on their bodies is partly the same as a collector shelling out money for a David Hockney painting. Hooper has a style of his own, often featuring motifs of skulls, acanthus leaves and mandalas, that earns both recognition and value.

"My goal as an artist, and as a businessman, is that I want someone to see a tattoo and, if it is done by me, to know that it is mine," Hooper said.

He is not alone. Many major cities have tattoo artists with huge followings. In New York, Anil Gupta is reported to charge up to US$400 ($520) an hour. Perhaps the most famous is Mario Barth, who charged US$150,000 for five hours' work tattooing rock star Tommy Lee.

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