From taboo to timeless: Tribal tattoo artist Leo Zulueta makes waves in fine art community

Grand Rapids Art Museum’s exhibit “Black Waves: The Tattoo Art of Leo Zulueta” shines light on one of mankind’s oldest art forms — and how one artist has reinvented it.

Don’t let the postmodern appeal of his designs fool you: tribal tattoo artist Leo Zulueta, whose work is showing in an exhibition at the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) now through August 27, is old school. While the popularization of tattoo culture has dramatically shifted the landscape of body art in Western cultures over the last three decades — thanks to prominent artists like Zulueta himself — Zulueta comes from the class of tattoo artists who began their careers just as the punk rock movement was being ushered in. When he began his work, Zulueta’s client base wasn’t filled with middle class college students and creative professionals donning the markings of the Creative Class. It was filled with punk rock artists and counter-culture troublemakers. Like Zulueta’s friend and fellow tattoo artist Ed Hardy. Like Zulueta himself.

It’s a fitting contrast. This juxtaposition of old and new, timeless art form in pop culture, is a fundamental theme of Zulueta’s work.

“In the traditional style of tattooing,” Zulueta says, referencing the early 80’s when he first began tattooing, “the expression of Americana tattooing was basically a postage stamp style, where you collect a lot of little ones, then you try to connect them all together with a motif — like clouds, or sky, or water. The Japanese style is of course quite the opposite, where the background dominates the tattoos, and the end result are the wind bars, or the water, which tie the tattoo in from one end to the other. My style more resembles the Japanese style, where the big picture is really the background…which unifies the tattoo.”

Unity, or wholeness, is another recurring theme — one which you don’t have to be familiar with Zulueta’s background to spot. Quite unlike both the old school “postage stamp” Americana style and the more graphically-based Japanese style, Zulueta’s designs morph and flow over the body in response to its natural curves and joints, being held together not by background motifs, but by the unified movement of the bold, tribal-inspired designs themselves. Large swaths of bold black lines splash up canvasses’ backs, mirroring the body’s broad, powerful back muscles, and leg and arm designs are prone to dissolving into eddies of half-geometric, half-tribal shapes, animal motifs, and symbols that evoke ancient inspiration.

“My work focuses on how well it fits into the muscular curve of the body,” Zulueta says. “To follow the musculature of the body, and to flow with the body, is my main concern, above and beyond the design of the tattoo. It’s paramount to me that it fits the body properly.”

Zulueta’s style is both deeply referential towards traditional Pacific Rim tribal tattoo culture, and entirely his own. Born and raised in Hawaii until his family moved to California when he was 13, Zulueta has made a lifelong study of the tribal tattoo motifs and surrounding culture of the Southeast Pacific. Prompted by the encouragement of friend and now-iconic tattoo designer Ed Hardy, Zulueta first began exploring Bornean tribal tattoos in the early 80’s, an exploration which culminated in Zulueta’s self-publishing a small booklet of his own interpretations of the designs in 1980. He shared the few dozen copies of the booklet he’d printed with his tattoo artist friends in England, the Netherlands, and the United States. By the early 90’s, Zulueta’s little self-published booklet had sparked a revival of tribal tattooing.

“My tattoos come up if you Google ‘Borneo tribal tattoos,’” Zulueta says. “I’m very privileged to be associated with those [designs], and with the style that’s become popular largely because of those drawings.”

Since then, Zulueta has traveled the globe, experiencing tribal tattoo ceremonies in Samoa, and Tahiti, where he walked across hot coals on sacred temple grounds. Zulueta says this experience was one of the most meaningful of his life.

Yet for all his research and reference to tribal culture, Zulueta’s designs are very much his own, unweighted by references that are bound to any specific tribal culture. He emphasizes that “my tattoo approach is definitely modern, not based in the past. Inspired by the past — but I’ve been trying to come from a very contemporary standpoint…My style is from my Western culture.”

Zulueta’s interaction with his own heritage is a perfect example of this East-meets-West dichotomy. Born to a Filipino father, Zulueta has only marginally explored his own cultural heritage.

“I have a little bit of oral history that was passed on to me through my father,” he says, but notes that he has yet to set foot on his ancestral land — a pilgrimage which he says he intends to make soon. “There’s a 100 year old woman in the mountains of the Philippines,” he says, referencing Whang-Od, the last tattoo artist of her Kalinga tribe. “There are huge pilgrimages of people who come to receive tattoos from her. That is a woman I would love to meet.”

Zulueta’s unique ability to blend historic cultural references with his own modern language of design is a large part of what drew Grand Rapids Art Museum Curator Ron Platt to bring Zulueta’s work into a formal exhibit setting.

“Leo developed his language out of these styles,” Platt says. “It’s like jazz — it’s influenced, but not copied.”

The fact that tattoo art has historically been a largely taboo art form doesn’t phase Platt a bit. “Tattoos are interesting,” he observes. “They live with you…For [Western cultures], it’s often a rite of passage. Tattooing is very tied with tradition, yet there’s always room for innovation.”

Tattoo artistry has come a long way in public perception, and Grand Rapids isn’t the only city taking notice. Last October, Chicago’s Field Museum opened an exhibit titled “Tattoo,” which “explores the global phenomenon of tattooing around the world over time.” The exhibit has expanded to include a live tattoo shop — not something a museum goer would be likely to see even five years ago.

Platt sees Zulueta’s “Black Waves” exhibit at the GRAM less as a commentary on the evolution of the perception of tattoos as an art form, and more as a “visual biography” celebrating the man himself — the one many consider to be the “Godfather” of modern tribal tattoos.

“I want to promote innovation,” Platt says, indicating Zulueta more than fits that bill. “He’s always surprising you.”

To Zulueta, having his work displayed in a museum is hugely validating — and surprising. “I would never have imagined I’d be in a big museum show,” he says. Yet the economics of the tattoo industry’s evolution aren’t without their downside. Tattoos being accepted into pop culture may lend validity to tattooing as an art form, but it’s also saturated the market with new tattoo artists — who compete with the artists who, like Zulueta, have been working for decades.

“On one hand you can call it validation,” Zulueta says, “but in a business sense, it can be tough…us older generation types are a little bit embittered.”

It’s a sobering reminder of the cyclical dance of art and culture: creation, destruction, creation. Zulueta’s work has given new life to an ancient art form — but rebirth always precipitates the death of something else. As tattooing takes its place among culturally accepted art forms, it will be up to new tattoo artists to keep the form relevant. To follow in Zulueta’s footsteps, and to innovate beyond our history, into the future.

Visit the GRAM this Thursday, March 2 to meet the artist. The event “An Evening with Leo Zulueta” gives visitors a chance to listen to Zulueta “discuss his long and impressive career as the ‘godfather of tribal tattooing,’ as well as his exhibition at GRAM.” The event is free and open to the public, and runs from 7–8 p.m.

Learn about more events connected to this exhibit here.