Tatoo
Federico Gama
Federico was born in Mexico City in 1963. Photographer specialist in photojournalism and documentary photography since 1988. His work has been extensively recognized in different occasions: Grange Prize 2009 by the art gallery of Ontario, Canada, to the prize All Roads by National Geographic, main prize of the 10ª Biennial of Photography that organizes the Center of the Image, National prize of Cultural Photojournalism Fernando Benítez, first place in the I Biennial International of Photography of Puerto Rico, honorable mention in the first edition of the Prize New Journalism in Cartagena, Colombia, second place in the Contest Anthropological photography called by the National School of Anthropology and History. He has had lots of collective and individual expositions in Mexico suffices, Italy, Argentina, Guatemala, Brazil, Germany, Chinese, United States and Spain. At present he works as a freelance photographer forthe magazines Expansion of Mexico City, Works, Environments, In Style, Scale, Entrepreneur, High Level, Day Seven and Energy Today. In parallel he carries out the documentary series for TV UNAM from Mexico "People like us".
Stories on the skin (1996-2007)
This project represents a visual context that relates the binomial tattooed-tattooing, where it is not more important the tattooes or the personage but the world that surrounds them. In each photography I try to find some keys of the original idea that motivated them to set permanently a drawing, a text, a design or whatever on the skin. That is to say, that the photographs tell stories of the tattooed and the tattoes they carry. But honestly my work does not come from an idea of study systematized or anthropological, but more a game that I share with my models, I invite them to that explain me visually why they were tattooed, why they chose determined images or which are their motives. Although sporadically if I take photographs of tattooed people that incidentally I find on the street, the images that I prefer are the ones that come from a previous interview, to create a private setting for each character.
For more explanation on the images please see below, (or see at the end of each featured artist)
Tatoo
Tatoo
Tatoo
Tatoo
Tatoo
Tatoo
Fedrico Gana
The artist presents 6 black and white Portraits of people who have intricate tattoos on their bodies. Image 1: This black and white photograph presents the image of a man holding the photograph of a baby and displaying an identical portrait, tattooed on the upper part of left his arm. Image2: El cuerpo es el templo de Dios México CF, 1977 Black and white photograph. The nude torso of a man displaying 6 tatoos on it. The man is wearing a monumental headdress whose long feathers extend as rays. Image3: La mano que no pinta , México DF 1996 Black and white photograph The portrait of a wellknown Mexican artist painting a mural , The artist holds the brush with his right hand and the palette on his left hand. The left hand shows the tattoo of the bones of the hand. Image 4: Black and white photograph A close up image of the face of a man wearing a leather hat and showing on his left shoulder the tattooed image of the Virgin of Guadalupe Image 5: Caricia Prohibida Acatlán , Estado de México 1998 Black and white photograph Image of the back upper torso and head of a man , showing on his neck the tattoo of a cannabis leaf. A monumental hand painted on the background seems to be reaching out to him. Image 6: Black and white photograph Seated on the floor, the figure of a woman holds 2 bouquets of flowers . The figure, turning back to us, faces the wall, where a monumental mural of the virgin of Guadalupe, replicate the tattoo on her back.