Ink Slashes Over Blade Slashes

I’ve featured the remarkable work coming out of Friedrichshain, Germany’s Scratcher’s Paradise Tattoo (scratchers-paradise.de) before, both with a full gallery post and a stunning half-sock tattoo. Today though I want to show a very unique forearm tattoo, a series of broad black ink brushstrokes, with fine detail scribbles mixed in. The tattoo is especially interesting conceptually when you realize that it is both effectively masking and covering up while simultaneously echoing and enhancing a series of scars on the wearer’s arm that appear to be the random slashes of self-harm.

What’s better then a colectomy? A trip to Reno, no doubt!

Rob and I both have made a few post about “beauty over harm” where someone took their self inflicted scars and either reworked them or covered them with a more artistic form of body modification. Yet, there is a whole other category of beauty over harm and that is those people who’s scars were not self inflicted. Often times we see women who have had nipple removal or full mastectomies due to breast cancer enhance there new altered appearance with tattooing. Sometimes it’s cosmetic tattooing to try and recreate what once was there, other times it’s artistic tattooing which takes the body part in a totally different direction than nature ever intended. Either way, it’s empowering to the wearer and something I whole heartedly support and encourage.

Below is a different example of that sort of mod, a tattoo over a colectomy scar.

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What lies beyond the gates to “the biggest little city in the world”?, I am sure we can all guess, but I’ll put the full picture beyond a click through with the submitters description.

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This is a tattoo of the Reno Arch done over the scar of my colectomy (colostomy surgery). It was done by Brandon Collins at Nightmare Tattoo in Reno, Nevada. The scar is about halfway up the R through halfway up the E. It is so awesome to have this instead of the scar to look at and I would like to share it with others interested in redoing scars, so I am submitting it to your blog.

Michael