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Shay Bredimus’ pieces are not paintings; in fact, no paint actually crosses the tip of his brush. And his canvases aren’t the traditional expanses of fabric stretched across a wood frame. The Los Angeles resident instead creates his brush drawings by applying the unlikely combination of tattoo ink and wax or conté crayons to drafting film. The resulting portraits are at once gritty, ethereal, poignant, and tender. His most recent works, all created within the last year, are on display at the SLO Art Center through May 31.
The drawings are grounded in seeming dichotomies—Bredimus’ classical artistic training at such institutions as Mesa Community College, San Francisco’s Academy of Art, Vancouver’s Emily Carr University, and Laguna College of Art and Design (where he acquired his MFA in painting last year) might seem incongruous with his profession as a tattoo artist at Black Wave in Los Angeles. While he admits that his personal art tends to be impulsive and less restrained than client-based work as a tattooist, his influences and inspiration remain the same.
“These are all heavily influenced by Japanese print and western portraiture—all my favorite things about art,” he explained, gesturing to his large-scale pieces ranging between 52 inches by 40 inches and 84
inches by 40 inches. He draws from a live model, specifically friends and acquaint-ances, insisting that knowing his subject’s personal history lends greater empathy and emotional appeal to his work.
Despite having already achieved several career benchmarks, including represent-ation by the Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Culver City, Bredimus has only been working in his chosen medium for a few years. As an art student he enjoyed working with newsprint, but because it was non-archival he was forced to search for a different kind of canvas altogether. What he discovered was semi-translucent, frosted drafting paper, which is similar to newsprint but made from a plastic that’s slightly heavier and capable of enduring more abuse. The tattoo ink was specially chosen as well, for its warm quality, and the fact that it consistently dries matte.
Thus far, the artist hasn’t encountered anyone else working with the same combination of materials, but it’s just a matter of time. Bredimus acknowledges that he’s protective of the artistic voice that he has worked to cultivate, but he’s not naïve; “good artists borrow, great artists steal,” he quotes Picasso.
“I also like the pieces where I struggle and I have to dig deeper,” admitted Bredimus. “Either way I’m creating and I feel like that’s what I was meant to do.” ∆
Arts Editor Ashley Schwellenbach has hands that seem constantly to be stained with ink. Send Clorox to [email protected].