The ability of Celtic knot work to weave dimensions and space, to confuse, to make a sculptural statement on skin, is endlessly fascinating to me. Today I finished up this back piece on a most ambitious client. The original pattern came from an illustration by the esteemed Welsh artist Jen Delyth whose work inspires me and whose designs I have often re-interpreted as tattoos. With some adaptations and a lot of time, it now becomes bold body armor.
Celtic Knotwork Back Piece by Pat Fish
To clarify today's tattoo just a bit more, this is a split photo that shows both a back view of the client, on the top, but also a front view, below. The project began some years ago with the heads of two Celtic zoomorphic creatures, a dragon and a lion. That gave him balance without symmetry, and after a year or so he began to yearn for a way to tie them together. Filling his back with the tangled bodies of the beasts was considered, and rejected, and we debated many options. Then my injury hiatus gave us a long time to yearn, and finally we settled on this solution and installed in over the last 3 months in 3 sessions. What a pleasure to see it completed today and to send it out into the tattoo appreciators in cyberspace.