ABOUT

Sailors and Whores is a personal project inspired by my adult son’s addiction to inking his body. Practiced across the globe and once linked commonly to seamen, criminals and prostitutes, Tattoo’s are classless and commonplace especially amongst the fledglings of western societies. Tattooing was evident on Otzi the iceman in 3100 BC and fashionable with the royals and upper classes of the 1870’s, particularly in Britain. Spurned however by the broader middle classes, the House of Lords debated a ban on the tattooing of minors in 1969, on the grounds that it had become ‘trendy’ with the young and such self-identification was increasingly connected with crime. The image may evoke a notion of a generation of indulgent (read reckless) parents who may produce progenies in their own likeness or perhaps it is simply my acceptance as a ‘middle class’ mother of my son’s affinity to what is an age-old global tradition.