Tattoos that follow this style often feature thick black outlines, heavy black shading effects, and tribal-influenced designs.
Dark art Tattoos typically use black and grey ink shades, often depicting macabre images such as demons, witches, or ancient alchemical symbols like sigils.
Primitive Designs
Dark-style tattoo designs often draw their inspiration from ancient tribal tattoos. These dark-style designs may feature bold shapes, geometric patterns, and intentional negative space called skin breaks; symbols like skulls or skeletons may also appear; other common themes include alchemical and hermetic symbols like sigils and mandalas.
Numerous modern primitives exhibit a keen interest in body modification. Fakir Musafar, who self-identifies as a current primitive, has acquired countless notable body modifications over time – septum piercings and ear and chest piercings are among his unique mods – much of which was inspired by articles and books covering non-Western cultures.
Blackwork Tattoos
Blackwork tattoos are dark art Tattoos featuring line work and shading in black. Artists who create blackwork tattoos focus on occult symbolism and sacred geometry, drawing inspiration from sacred geometry designs such as fractals, mandalas, Kepler’s Platonic solids, and other hermetic designs that often appear in blackwork tattoos.
Symbols
Tattoos designed in the dark style often include symbols that carry profound symbolic significance. They may come from nature or ancient cultures; hermetic icons like alchemical sigils and talismans can serve as reminders of spiritual journeys or serve to connect to nature.
Dark-style tattoos often include symbols representing strength and courage, such as eagle feathers; bundles of arrows or even one can represent new directions in life; warriors can symbolize power, cultural heritage, or protection, while female warriors symbolize femininity or the ability to lead.
Dark Tattoos often feature an evil eye as a protective sign to deflect negative energy and guard against harm. While different colors may be chosen for this tattoo design, blue is the most potent representation – representing peace, serenity, truth, and immortality.
Notes of Death
Tattoos can serve as representations of one’s soul or to express an idea or feeling. On the other hand, dark art Tattoos can serve as reminders of death or mortality with images like skulls, coffins, skeletons, or devil horns. These tattoos come in all colors but often feature black outlines with minimal shading.
Freddy Negrete, a 61-year-old Chicano artist known for popularizing black and gray tattoos, is widely credited with popularizing them in mainstream society. In his memoir, he details his parents’ imprisonment, years in gang culture, and his struggle for belonging and social acceptance.
Negrete is best known for tattooing members of bands such as Slipknot, Mudvayne, Pantera, and Sepultura with “weeping demons, decapitated Christ figures, transvestite nuns severing their genitals, cascading waves of melting skulls or muscled werewolves raping bare-chested women, or zombified Christ figures slapping his face.” While his work may be shocking at times, Negrete’s motivation remains genuine: He wants his clients to feel not alone and cared about them as individuals.
Sacred Geometry
Tattoo designs incorporating sacred geometry are increasingly becoming fashionable. This minimalist form of body art allows you to create an entire image without adding too many details.
Tattoos offer an excellent opportunity to add deeper meanings and impressions. For instance, you could use colors like red for courage or blue for sadness to add further dimensions and impact to the artwork – the possibilities are limitless!
Corey Divine, an LA-based tattoo artist, specializes in geometric tattoos featuring sacred geometry. These usually cover large leg and torso pieces, but he has also done smaller ones with black ink featuring dot work to add dimension and make designs appear 3D.
He’s also done some feminine sacred geometry tattoos, including this design on an inner arm that depicts a raven with outstretched wings surrounded by branches and a crescent moon. This striking motif makes an eye-catching tattoo choice that symbolizes power and strength – perfect for women looking for tattoo stability!
