Monday 1 March 2010

Angelique My Balls

Here is a lady that draws, paints and tattoos and is pretty damn good at it all. My closest friend brought me a book of hers as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago and I couldn't put it down. So the year after I received another and I hope to keep them coming. Each image in there is so cleverly simple yet completely detailed and every time you take another look you find something new.
Angelique Houtkamp is an artist originally from Amsterdam and she has worked hard to get the recognition she deserves. She is visually beautiful with tattoos almost all over her body and each representing something she loves or has a meaning which is important to her. This is nice as there are so many tattooed people around nowadays with not much thought put into them anymore, myself included.

She specializes in old school style and does it so well, her paintings are so interesting and you can see obvious influences from so many times and her classic titles for each piece just show that the image does all the work. Here are a couple of my favorites...


"DAMITA"
"EMILIENNE"


"SWEET HEAVEN"

Here are a couple of her tattoos that I love.... I know there is nothing new about old school tattoos and it is probably one of the most common style to find on people, but it is just so very classic and each one can look so similar but be so different.




And if tattooing is not your thing but you want a piece of Angelique's work, why not go all out and buy one of these amazing baby skulls that she has painted old school phrases on. It's a baby's skull for god's sake.. of course I want it!

"TRUE LOVE"
"DEATH OR GLORY"


You can nip down to Columbia Road in East London at Nelly Duff on Thursday 4th March where she has an upcoming show and if you can't afford to buy her prints, I bet you can pick up some pretty sweet postcards to stick round your house. Quick though because it's only on for 3 days!