Get Bam Bam!

You might think the “Bam Bam” in the title is a reference to your eyeballs exploding in succession at the bright complex colour fields in these amazing tattoos, but it’s the middle name of Polish tattoo artist Lukasz Bam Kaczmarek working out of Kult Tattoo Fest, who you can find online at facebook.com/getbambam. I’m in awe not just as his image design, which to my eye screams of the very best in South American street art, but especially at the way he uses colour, blending the hues together as if they were wet bleeding paint, applying nuances of saturation and tone as if with an airbrush or a spray can, not a tattoo needle.

I am in continual amazement at the ever-increasing standards that the tattoo community holds itself to. If a “fine” artist were to produce a piece like this in a week of work after a month of preparation, they’d be happy with themselves. But tattoo artists are expected to do it day-in-and-day-out, on demand, at a lightning pace that never lets up. There are few fields that demand as much creative effort from its workers as tattooing — and there are few workers as capable of producing it as the modern tattoo artist.