A new art exhibit is going up at PV Arts at the Porter Building in downtown Watsonville and runs from Aug. 4 through Sept. 19.
“Body Marking: Art, Ritual & Story” explores global practice of marking the body as a form of personal expression, cultural identity, and sacred ritual, PV Arts said.
According to the organization, humans have adorned their skin to tell stories, express beliefs, celebrate rites of passage, and resist erasure.
Curated by Roberta Valdez, the exhibit features 33 artists in a variety of mediums, including photography, paintings, ceramics, textiles, sculpture and drawing.
Organizers added that the show goes “from the intricate patterns of Māorī tā moko and Japanese irezumi to contemporary tattooing, scarification, and body painting, body marking continues to evolve as both art form and statement.”
Valdez said, “I think that a lot of us have had fascinations with tattoos since we were young people. A lot of the artists in this exhibit, the tattoo artists in particular, grew up drawing on themselves or putting tattoos on their friends and when they saw tattoo artists working they knew that that’s what they wanted to do.”
Valdez said she has been working on the concept of the show for the past two years and visited numerous tattoo shops, between Mendocino County and Long Beach, to bolster her research.
“I’m an anthropologist by training, so I looked at the spectrum of people around the world now and in history and even prehistory marking bodies for ritual. To think of the skin as a canvas—it’s amazing to think about.”
The show will also feature a film, demonstrations, talks and more.
