Cameron Stewart - Metalurgey - Scotland

Cammy likes to think of working on his designs as similar to composing a piece of music, and looking at his work you can see where he's coming from. Like music, the best designs are usually deceptively simple, until you look closer and understand the complexity beneath.

He does beautiful sacred geometric work, so perhaps a better way to look at it would be that it looks complex at first, then simple on closer examination! They are visually impressive pieces, a repetition of one geometric shape over an area of the body. Occasionally there are two or more shapes that are placed side by side, that seem to be randomly paired, but have actually been given a lot of thought. For example a Y-shaped Furka cross in 3D is left-placed beside a three-barred cross on its right in 2 dimensions. They create an unusual whole, with the Furka cross digging its arms into the skin as though they protrude from the body itself, and the three-armed cross radiates in a semi-circle on the surface. The effect is that the Furka cross appears to lie beneath the surface, becoming the deeper substantial symbol, while the three-armed cross above it suggests what lies beneath. This whole tattoo reveals how spiritual and endlessly "deep and meaningful" the sacred geometric shapes can be.

Cammy believes in breathing new life into ancient patterns, and is not afraid of using technology to help create modern looks for those mystical symbols. He is particularly affected by the swastika symbol, anxious for it to be recognised newly for the spiritual meaning it once had (and still does in modern Indian culture). The swastika is very important to eastern religions, and in one of his tattoos, Cammy has blended the black lines of the symbol with a central "seed of life" pattern. This geometric shape has been isolated from the Genesis pattern: found in all of Nature, it forms the basis for all living things. Its unity with the swastika has not been incidental, instead creating a shift from its negative associations into a beacon for transcended interpretation. Instead of signifying death, it signifies life, of how we all began.

Patterns on a whole leg piece are playfully constructed together, as Cammy has radiated triangles from the knee, and blocked many different patterns in their own contained areas surrounding it. Each design has been allowed to show off its uniqueness and symmetry, while the line around each one seems to have a mind of its own! Each compartment is placed in such a way as to give order to the chaos - but even though confusion looks imminent, each pattern that potentially could radiate through to the infinite cannot escape its confines.

As with musical theory, each pattern Cammy tattoos has a mathematical feel to it, as indeed they have, being designs that can be explained in formulas. These patterns appeal to both left and right-brained people: being logical and sequential, as well as intuitive and subjective. They speak to a spiritual part of our being, and remind us that we are all part of the same energy that created us, whatever you chose to name