Thursday, April 26th, 2007
Artomatic: where bizarre meets genius
Check out this article in the Georgetown Voice!
Thursday, April 26th, 2007
Check out this article in the Georgetown Voice!
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007
I posted a bunch of pics from Artomatic in the gallery. Check’em out!
Monday, April 23rd, 2007
Thursday, April 19th, 2007
Roll Call Newspaper published an article yesterday about art galleries around Capitol Hill, including the gallery at Britishink Tattoo Studio & Gallery, where I currently have a few things hanging:
Big Art, Small Spaces
April 18, 2007
By Bree Hocking, Roll Call Staff
Find Emerging and Traditional Art in Area Galleries
Spring is a season of fresh beginnings — time to rethink the decor of your apartment or develop a more sophisticated cultural acumen. That said, the Capitol Hill area and its environs are home to a number of art galleries — from the quirky to the traditional — that can help set you well on your way to accomplishing both goals.
Here’s a look at the scene at some of the galleries Roll Call surveyed.
britishink tattoo studio and gallery
508 H St. NE
Hours: By appointment only until April 30; Beginning April 30, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday
www.britishinkdc.com
It isn’t every day that a gallery owner asks if you want to see a nude photo of his wife.
But then English-born Paul Roe’s britishink tattoo studio and gallery on H Street Northeast is hardly your orthodox exhibit space. Just off the gallery rooms are three upscale tattoo studios, where Roe and his two-person staff create their own skin-based art on clients.
“It’s all, in my consideration, fine art,� said Roe, who studied fashion design in England before permanently moving to the United States 15 years ago after meeting his American wife, Regina Fantucci, through the City Paper while on vacation here.
After stints as a graphic designer and as the headwaiter and assistant sommelier at the St. Regis Hotel’s old Lespinasse Restaurant, Roe decided to take up tattoo. For the past four years, he’s operated out of a private studio in Northeast Washington performing his art on everyone from lobbyists to Congressmen, he said.
The red-walled gallery and tattoo studio, which set up shop at the beginning of March, is open by appointment only until its official unveiling April 30. (Roe will mark the occasion with a reception that day from 6 to 8 p.m. featuring tea and the artists whose work is on display.)
Roe, who said he will rotate out the art every four to six weeks, kicks off his gallery with a group show featuring Dana Ellyn’s cryptic and sardonic portraits of everyone from a blind boy to a heavily pregnant suburban Madonna-esque teenager; black and white photographs by Angela Kleis and Min Enghauser; and painter David Michael Conner’s stunning renderings of city streets and psychedelic dwellings. There’s also a wall of flash (stock tattoo images), which includes several of Roe’s own designs (he also makes some of his own tattoo machines), as well as a mixed-media portrait of the late punk rocker Sid Vicious by Roe.
Once things get going, Roe, 39, has an ambitious vision for the intersection of traditional art and tattoo — “the primal parent of the visual arts,� he asserted. He plans to give lectures this summer up the street at Dissident Display Studio and Gallery on the relationship between tattoo and modern design and to bring in photographers, filmmakers and even a portrait painter to capture the tattooing process, the product of which will later go on display. He’s also working to create a tattoo sleeve based on a painting by artist Matt Sesow (Ellyn’s boyfriend), which he will transfer to the arm of a local drummer. Eventually, he said, both the panoramic photos of the drummer’s arm and the painting will hang side by side in his gallery. The studio also has been asked to participate in this summer’s Capital Fringe Festival, an off-beat D.C. arts festival.
As for that naked picture of his wife?
He whips out his business card, which features his bare-backed wife, a policy analyst at the Government Accountability Office, displaying some of his art work: an enormous tattoo of a peacock whose colorful feathers artfully extend to her buttocks.
Read the whole article here.
Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Monday, April 9th, 2007
Friday, April 6th, 2007
and I found pictures of myself!Â


These were taken at Artomatic the morning we were there to pick our spaces. How funny! Pics were posted in the Artomatic 2007 flickr group by user Dequella Manera.
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
I’ve been at the Artomatic building every night this week painting. I’m tired of painting! Artomatic’s opening night is Friday, April 13!!  Now I’ve got to get busy framing!
My space is on the 6th floor, room 6Y41. Here’s my Artomatic artist page:Â
http://www.artomatic.org/user/133
All artists have to put in 3 5-hour volunteer shifts. I’m scheduled for:
Saturday, April 7Â 11-4pm
Saturday, April 14Â 4-9pm
Saturday, April 21Â 11:30-4:30
Artomatic 2007
April 13–May 20, 2007
2121 Crystal Drive, Arlington, Va.
Metro stop: Crystal City
HOURS
Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday: Noon–10 p.m.
Thursday: Noon–11 p.m.
Friday, Saturday: Noon–1 a.m.
Closed Mondays
Artomatic, the Washington, D.C., area’s eclectic, engaging — and occasionally even eye-popping — arts extravaganza is back this spring and promises to be more of a draw than ever before.Held regularly since 1999, Artomatic is the region’s one-of-a-kind multimedia art featuring more than 600 regional artists and performers. The free five-week event, to be held April 13–May 20, will feature nearly 90,000 square feet of paintings, sculptures, photography and other creative work.
Cherry Blossom 10-Mile Run  
My friends and I ran, again, this year. I took 8 minutes off last year’s time!Â
Jack’s Second Life Gallery has been getting a lot of attention from a NY-based gallery!! Hopefully it’ll turn into a show in Real Life! ![]()