PHOENIX TATTOO

March 6th, 2011 by MJones

Been to Sweden?  Me neither.  Still, that doesn’t keep me from knowing a couple of things about the place.  For example, depending on what month of the year it is you can either expect a whole lot of darkness or a whole lot of daylight.  Hmmm…what else?  Oh yeah, it’s crazy expensive and last but definitely not least, it’s home to tattoo superstar Carl Löfqvist.

Initially Löfqvist’s path into the tattoo universe wasn’t very direct - getting waylaid with work in a factory until he finally took the plunge and went back to school to study commercial art, getting rejected everywhere he went while trying to get hooked up with an apprenticeship and finally getting to the point after much study and hard work, where he was able to open Wicked Tattoo in Gothenburg, in 2000.  What a difference a few years makes: Löfqvist is now in demand, and for good reason.  He travels a great deal throughout the tattoo circuit, providing ample proof to everyone he comes in contact with that the work he is producing is fully and completely off the hook.
A stickler for everything but rules when it comes to his art, Löfqvist sees no division between what tattoo artists create and the art that any other artist creates.  It all comes from the same place.  He also doesn’t care much for the notion of pigeon-holing anyone into any particular style - so don’t bother asking him what kind of style he’s mainly interested in, he loves it all.