I was out recently when somebody decided to question me about my arm tattoo and why I wanted to black such large areas without existing tattoos that needed covering, before stating that they prefer tattoos with meaning. A lot of the tattoos I do for people have a sentiment attached to them that’s not immediately readable, I personally would rather represent a lot of my messages in an abstract form. I also believe that sometimes the desire to get tattooed is enough in itself the justify getting one, it appears to be ingrained in human culture the desire to permanently mark ones flesh whether that be with a tattoo or scarification. Actively taking control of the way we look can be very liberating process.

It was a first for me when Alex asked for a tattoo based on particle breakdown and I decided on
 a little more of a literal take on it than usual, referencing an image from a bubble chamber. Alex the owner of the tattoo did a write up of what the tattoo meant to him and I thought it was a perfect insight to share with you guys, I hope you enjoy it.

“A Bubble Chamber is an old-school way of observing particle decays like those seen in huge physics experiments like the Large Hadron Collider. Since studying particle physics I’ve always seen decay traces as a snapshot of nature at its most energetic, chaotic and beautiful… perfect inspiration for body art. Thankfully, I was lucky enough to find an artist who was up to the challenge of using particle physics as a concept for an awesome tattoo. Much of Hanumantra’s work perfectly shows the energy and movement I wanted, and the stark simplicity of blackwork tattoos really helps represent the fundamental laws of nature that can give rise to the chaos and beauty we see in the universe.

The chestpiece of the tattoo is full of movement and energy flying into the shoulder and represents how fundamental particles are accelerated to nearly the speed of light before collision – fast enough to go round the Earth over 7 times a second. The collision point is represented by the “nucleus” circle on the shoulder – in the LHC, this is where particles are slammed into each other releasing huge amounts of energy in small scale versions of the Big Bang, spontaneously causing rare and exotic particles to spring into existence. From the shoulder, the created particles go flying along the arm, following curved paths, spirals and straight lines all recreating the traces seen in actual particle collisions.

Overall I am extremely pleased with the final outcome. Hanumantra has managed to capture the energy, movement and simple symmetry at the heart of particle physics as well as turning something that to the untrained eye can look like a random chaotic mess into a fine looking tattoo.”