Who is Tamara Santibanez in her own words?
I am a tattooer,
artist, and more recently, an independent publisher.
When did you discover drawing and/or illustration was your
passion and that you had a talent for it?
I've drawn since I
was young, very consistently, whether it was cartoon characters and mermaids or
fashion sketches or portraits of friends.
I feel lucky to have a family that supported my wanting to venture into
a creative field.
Your work is very identifiably yours. Where do you find your inspiration for your work and are their central themes you like to visit and re-visit?
I find inspiration
primarily from my surroundings, community, and history. I love to read and often find myself in an
early morning or late night hole of articles on the Internet, books from my
shelves, and watching documentaries or listening to podcasts and bouncing
between all of them at once. I collect
vintage magazines as well. I think it's
pretty obvious from my work that I am immersed in punk, Chicano culture, and
BDSM themes, which are all part of who I am.
I want to continuously learn about who I am and that in turn inspires
me.
A lot of your work uses primarily black and white combinations
and both strong but subtle imagery. What is it about the black/white combo that you love?
I consider black
and white in visual art, and black and grey in tattooing, to have a timeless
feel. I like the idea of simplifying
something to make it more legible and more universal. I think black and grey tattooing ages
beautifully and is harder to pinpoint to a particular era.
Can you briefly explain the process you undertake from idea to
finished piece?
Most of my work is
the end result of a pretty long process.
I usually set up still life scenarios and play around with what looks
good, take a lot of photos, rearrange, take more photos. When I find a good composition I treat the
image the same way you would a portrait tattoo, making a tracing and projecting
it onto paper or canvas to enlarge it, then finally actually painting it.
As well as setting your designs to paper or other mediums, the
human body is also your canvas. What comes first art or tattooing or do they go
hand in hand for you?
They definitely go
hand in hand, though I try to keep a healthy separation between the two. Tattooing keeps me grounded and disciplined,
which lets me be a bit more experimental with the artwork side of things. I like the practical constraints of making a
tattoo, and having to make your image fit the medium. It's definitely flattering and a good
challenge when people like my artwork and want it translated into a tattoo.
Your most recent work features a lot of simple bold imagery with
BDSM themes. Leather, chains, whips... What was it about BDSM or leather
culture that inspired you to create the pieces?
What originally
drew me to painting those images was the potency the objects have as
symbols. People are very unsettled by
them and have strong associations with them.
I am interested in simplifying the images to a very distilled form to
tell a story that can be open to interpretation depending on who is looking at
it. Partially the exploration is
personal, a form of self-portraiture or to reflect circumstances in my life,
particularly in romantic relationships, and I am at heart a leather fetishist
so painting the textures is inherently fun for me. I want to keep using materials and objects as
metaphor to describe power dynamics.
As I mentioned earlier you are also a tattooist. You have your
art integrated onto prints, clothing, in art exhibitions, zines and the human
body. Is there any medium you haven't yet explored that you want to?
At the moment I'm
increasingly interested in writing and conducting interviews. It's possible I may be doing a podcast coming
up which is an idea I'm very excited about.
Are there any artists across any medium you admire and would
love to someday work/collaborate with?
Lately I've been
looking at older generations for inspiration.
The younger, digital era is hard for me to relate to, despite being a
part of it. I think it's easy to get
caught up in trying to be new and original and edgy and forget that there are
people much older than us who have been doing all of those things for a long
time. I look at artists like Steve
Parrino, Nancy Grossman, Richard Serra, Eleanor Antin, Charles Gatewood, Hanna
Liden, Betty Tompkins, Genesis P Orridge, etc and think, how can I continue and
add my voice to the the conversation they've begun? That being said, going forward I am working
on more collaborative projects with the publishing venture, wanting to
spotlight people whose work I admire or whose thoughts and politics I want to
facilitate.
Is there one piece of your work that you are personally most
fond of or proud of?
I
just did my first oil on canvas painting in about eight years and am pretty
proud of the result. I made one painting
that was a more abstracted black leather field which I feel good about whenever
I look at it…that's a theme I want to revisit.
You have worked on a few collaborations and projects were your
work has been used. Is that something you are generally picky about or is it a
natural evolution? And are there any collaborations you are currently working
on?
I am usually choosy
about who I work with. I am fortunate to
have a job that I love that pays the bills, so that I don't rely on freelance
to make a living. That lets me wait until
the right situation to come along. Right
now I'm working on a collaboration with OBEY, and just did some illustrations
for LA-based friends of mine BORN X RAISED.
I'm also doing a project with furniture and interior designers Material
Lust.
What is the one thing you would like people to take away from
your work?
A sense of mystery
and humour.
What does the next 12 months look like for Tamara Santibanez?
The next twelve
months are already shaping up to be very busy!
Highlights include: releasing a
monthly series of Chicano history posters in collaboration with Ricardo
Montenegro featuring six different artists,
showing work and having a solo show in LA in the fall, curating a group
show that will be a pop-up porn store full of artist-made items…much more but I
don't want to get ahead of myself!
