Tattoo Witness

http://www.wmuseumaa.org/museum/getexhib.cfm?ID=67

Beginning in the fall of 1979, Pittsburgh photographer Mark Perrott spent most every weekend making black and white portraits at Nick's Island Avenue Tattoo parlor, located a couple of miles from downtown Pittsburgh, in McKees Rocks. A few years later he took his camera on a rust belt tour of tattoo parlors in Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey. These visits led him to the then just unfolding phenomenon of tattoo conventions - organized tribal gatherings and weekend celebrations. But this work wasn't complete. Between 1995 and 2003 his continued curiosity compelled him to visit ten American mid-career tattoo masters at their studios, scattered across the country. This exhibition features 25 large scale black and white photographs of men and women and their tattoos taken during this period.