Ektopia

Well, after weeks and weeks of waiting I’ve finally got my hands on Shawn Barber’s incredible book, Tattooed Portraits (published by 9mm Books). I had previously tried Amazon US and also a couple of other Amazon Marketplace sellers with no success (I placed orders and got emails saying that the books weren’t in stock even though they said it was…I hate that kind of thing). However, in the end I went with an Amazon Marketplace seller called The Book Depository (click on new and used and scroll down the list to find them). The book was brand new, brilliantly packaged and arrived in a little over a week…all for about £13; bargain! It deserves a quick mini-review I think…

Tattooed Portraits is presented in a nice large format (12.5″ x 10″) and weighs in at 112 wonderful pages. Seeing the images within is an almost spiritual experience after only seeing hints of what they are like on his website. There are lots of full scans of the images as well as many close-up detail shots. Being able to see the detail in the running paint (like metaphorical blood from the tattooed limbs) is a truly rewarding experience. He’s managed to paint with such style that his work transcends the oils and canvases that he works with and becomes something much more visceral. I can’t imagine how powerful the experience must be to see these pieces up close. The multi-faceted and multi-exposed moving aspects of the models artwork have all been captured perfectly. I think that Shawn Barber could well be the greatest artist alive. The only negative point I have about the book is that it’s not hardback. It really deserves the luxury treatment in my opinion. The best thing is that Shawn’s still painting these pieces so it can only be a matter of time before another book gets published. Hopefully it’ll be in the same large format and with a nice hardback cover. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that I’ve added it to the Ektopia Store page too…