Bio Mechanical Tattoos

There are a few things to thank for this more recent style in tattoo culture; Giger is one big name, without a doubt. This Swiss surrealists’ artwork inspired the iconic ‘Alien’ movies; his imagery is famed for its dark complexity, eerie blending of human and machine; nightmarish and dystopic renderings that marked him as a household name. You could also do some thinking about our Post Industrial society, where man and machine work seamlessly alongside one another, a relationship of dependency and innovation, a love that is dark and light – a visual representation of the era of our current few generations, bound to wires, our lives irretrievably tangled with technology. The man who can be considered responsible for translating BioMech out of it’s existence as artwork on paper and onto skin is Guy Aitchison – a tattooist who’s been on the scene since 1988. Guy came into the profession from having worked as an illustrator with a niche in designing album covers for heavy metal bands. He’s published a book, the title of which is most apt for what he’s done with the BioMech style – “Reinventing the Tattoo.” It is the opinion of many BioMech enthusiasts that a true tattoo of this style will only work applied across a generously large expanse of skin – and indeed it is true that the most effective styles are stretched from the armpit to the hip bone of their owners, running from the nape of the neck to the pit of the spine or forming whole sleeves. Why? Because BioMech is all about continuity of design: amalgamated patterns of metal and flesh, some rendered to seem as though they are actually running through the owner’s own skin, some more obviously abstract. It is a style that started out as Black & Gray but is positively stunning when rendered in colour. BioMech is to blame for the ‘cutaway’ style of tattooing that has risen in prominence over recent years, too; Aitchison in particular does mind-blowing designs that seem at first glance to expose glittering, glowing, highly modified insides of his subjects. In one design, an entire back piece has been rendered in such a way that the person’s spine and ribcage seem to have been exposed, the bone chiselled and moulded anew to look eerily artistic against the pink hues of internal flesh.