Trần Đ.L. (Lêsa Trần)
Rebirth|Sublimity
Rebirth|Sublimity uses tattoos as a medium for healing trauma. Using a client’s story and personal tastes, the project creates tattoos to help clients move on from the past and create something more beautiful as a result from the cracks.
Artist/Thesis Statement
After several life decisions and events that forced me into negative situations and required reevaluation of my life's direction, I decided to get a tattoo that, in a way, represents me taking back my life. The book Yakuza Moon by Shoko Tendo inspired me and showed me that I can symbolize my reclamation by using a permanent form of artwork. By getting something that has a personal connection to permanently become part of me, I can continue to remember what I have learned from the experiences. The ability to have a symbol of overcoming the past can be something powerful and help people come to terms with their identities. As such, my project is meant to develop a way to design tattoos for people that represent them and their hardships; to allow people to grow from life experiences and come to terms with the past and themselves.
Using tattoos as a means of portraying the wearer has been the traditional way of choosing tattoo imagery in the Yakuza, an organization of gangsters that originated in Japan. The artist assigns the main image, placed on the back, based on the person's characteristics. Typical images include cultural and religious figures and icons. Inspired by the reasoning for their imagery, I am portraying the tattoos as the means that will allow people to be able to come to terms with themselves and allow for something along the lines of self-acceptance. While the inspiration has clear cultural and religious imagery, I am not restricting myself to just such imagery and body location. I am drawing the images from what I have experienced from multiple sources. The chosen image varies, based on the client's background and preferences and my own knowledge of symbolism and imagery.
The audience includes ages 21 to 30, ages where people have passed puberty and most likely have had a previous sense of independence. I am using print media for promotion, a website layout that includes motion graphic, and a book that shows the process that I went through while designing the imagery.
As a graphic designer, I would enjoy working with tattoo artists and using graphic design to help them however can.
