Needle and india ink tattoo9/23/2023 While India’s rich history of tattoo art itself is being tapped into a small but growing tribe of tattoo artists is diving deep into India’s cultural and natural heritage for inspiration. The ‘ignorant’ tattoo remains as trendy as constellations. Hand poke tattoos – actually the original form of tattooing by hand, before machines came through – are la mode. Ever more artists and patrons now seek out self-expression in needle, ink and motifs that are individualistic, unique and more personal as carriers of beauty, memory and stories. India’s alternative tattooing culture has blown up in the past three years as the tattoo’s street cred has evolved way beyond a symbol of rebellion or a statement of style. She has found inspiration in Kalighat paintings, the Maharashtrian folk art form of Chitrakathi, and Gond from Madhya Pradesh, for her popular “Jaanwar” collections.Ī post shared by Border-Line Tattoos isn’t the only one. A recent collaboration with the designer-illustrator Sudarshan Shaw saw her incorporate his designs – an exploration of folk art and India’s biodiversity – into her tattoo work. Since then, with her work avatar as Borderline Tattoos Jhaveri hasn’t only made Dori tattoos popular, she’s also deepened her engagement with other folk forms as well. I wondered: if I changed the medium, could I still be a needlework artist?” I found it so interesting that both embroidery and tattooing required needles. Kantha from Bengal to Rabari from Kutch: Embroidery is a huge part of South Asian culture. ![]() “I started looking into different styles of embroidering. Rediscovering her grandmother’s Dori compositions brought Jhaveri something of an epiphany. I saw a lot of this happening in LA and began with it myself.” In LA, while she’d been working as a copywriter, she’d “gravitated towards the ‘ignorant’ trend of tattoos - the doodle style of tattoos that were somewhat flippant, ironic, unserious, silly - but at the same time, heavily influenced by linework. ![]() Jhaveri, who’d recently returned from Los Angeles and begun her (self-taught) journey with tattooing, was drawn to this. ![]() “It was their way of bonding.”Ī lot of this featured Dori embroidery – involving a strong thread made of silk and cotton, and whose origins can be traced back to the Mughal era. “My grandfather would come up with the designs, and she’d add the threadwork on top,” Jhaveri recalls. When she passed away about two years ago, Jhaveri stumbled upon a treasure trove of her belongings – embroidered bags, saris, drapes and anything else that could be put under the needle. The thing that Utsavi Jhaveri associates most strongly with her grandmother is her deep love for knitting and embroidery.
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