Tattoos represent a time in my life / And I never wish to shut the door on the past / So I carry it all with me.
–Dave Navarro

Gabriel Cece. Photo | Chris Garcia

A few months ago, Suffolk became the latest Tidewater city to allow tattoo shops within its city limits. With the practice becoming more widespread and/or mainstream, I wondered if it would also become more commercialized. I wanted to explore the idea of tattooing as an art form, how it relates to other types of art, and its relationship to popular culture and specifically to the 757–and I wanted to do so through the eyes of a local artist.

I first met Gabriel Cece, of Rocksteady Tattoos in Hampton, several years ago when he was working in Virginia Beach. He put a phoenix on my friend in a manner that resembled to me something Dali would have done if thighs had been available as canvas 100 years ago. I have since followed him to Norfolk, and now to Hampton. Since he’s worked in several of the Seven Cities and has interests in more conventional art forms like painting and photography, I knew he’d have some valuable insights into the art of tattoos.

Editor’s note: as of 8/23/11 Cece owns and works out of Studio Evolve on Independence Blvd., Va Beach.

Cece has worked in Indiana, North Carolina, New Jersey and New York, and has been in Tidewater since 2004. He says, “I worked in a lot of tattoo shops in my 15-year career, and everybody does their thing. But it seems the people here are all very good at what they do—their style of tattooing, their style of art, their style of painting, you know. It gives you that push to go harder and go faster and improve yourself. “

A Daliesque tattoo by Cece.

Cece’s own style catches aspects of the surreal and blurs the line between reality and what’s on the other side of the looking glass. He has full-on tributes committed to skin, like Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali; but he also has his own unique mark of artistry, which combines subtle changes in color and shadow, tinges of surrealism, and sometimes sharp bursts of angle or shape. Two of his most distinctive traits as a tattoo artist in this area are his ability to completely transform an existing tattoo via cover-up, and the shading technique he calls “sketchy.”

“I find a lot of satisfaction in taking something somebody else did and the wearer isn’t happy with and fixing or repairing it and leaving the client with a whole new piece of art. I really enjoy watching the reactions in the mirror because most people are unaware of what can be done. It’s a special challenge but a rewarding one,” he remarks. Turns out, when I asked him about the first tattoo he gave someone else, he said “Ink blots. Sort of a bad interpretation of a Rorschach test on my best friend’s leg…covering a Celtic Cross.”

A fallen angel in Cece's signature "sketchy" style.

On sketchy tattooing, he says, “I’m not going to say I coined the term. I might go so far as to say that I popularized that style of tattooing in this area. To me, it looks like a loose sketch and that’s what people tend to refer to it as. Sometimes people refer to it as ‘scratching’ or ‘scratch art’ or ‘scratch tattooing’, and I don’t really like that. I think it looks more like a sketch.”

He goes further, “I’m one of few tattooers in the world that I’m aware of that does that type of work on the regular. I couldn’t give you names of anybody else who has done it. I know there’s somebody in France who does some of it, and there are a couple of people who’ve now come up after me who I’ve seen kind of borrow from my style. But as far as tattooing itself goes, around here, I’m really one of the only, if not the only guy doing that type of thing. I did it nonstop for a while, for almost a year.”

He’s more sporadic with the style now, but he still employs his signature sketch technique on tattoos: “I go through phases probably like any other artist. I do one thing and I do it for a while. Do the shit out of it and then I get bored of it. Hang on to certain aspects of it or subtleties of it and move on to something else—be it a new style or color scheme or just a different way of rendering.”

This discussion prompted me to wonder his take on the commercialization of the tattoo. We talked about the rise of companies like Ed Hardy and Sailor Jerry; how they’ve taken tattoo culture and put it on a t-shirt, making it more a fashion statement than a forever statement. However, when I asked his opinion of Kat Von D and the reality show realm of the tattoo industry, he was divided between the good exposure a TV show brings to the masses—making them more accepting of tattoos in general, and also the cheapening and sensationalizing of an art form that is perhaps more personal than any other.

Reconnect | Watercolor on canvas

“I’m not going to dis anyone for taking advantage of a situation when it comes to their craft,” Cece explains. “Tattoo reality shows exposed the public to the normalcy of tattooing. People have feared tattooing and feared the stigmas associated with tattooing. The good with these shows is it opened their eyes.” He read that approximately 40% of the country is tattooed and says, “that’s a lot of people and it’s only going to grow. I don’t mind the residual benefit of those shows, but they also cheapen it.”

With television shows highlighting tattoos, and with advances in technology allowing for tattoos that are only seen under a blacklight, and inks made to be removed after only one laser session, I wonder if these trends will associate tattoos further with fashion rather than traditional art.

Cece says, “Yes, there is absolutely a trend in tattooing from Tasmanian Devils to tribals to lower back tattoos. Styles–be it traditional or biomechanical or realism–things go in and out of popularity. And the good thing with that is…tattoos are just moments. Something you can look at and say, ‘That was a good time in my life’ or ‘That was a bad time in my life’. I don’t want to think people are getting tattooed fashionably. I like to think they’ve found an artist. It’s not like changing shoes or hair. It’s in there forever. People heavily tattooed are a roadmap or a story. All mine have significance in one way or another, big or little. When I’m 75, I’ll look and say, ‘That was a good time’.”

Gabriel Cece is currently found at Rocksteady Tattoo, which at the end of January will be opening a 3500 square foot location in the same shopping center they are currently located in at 2525 W. Mercury Blvd, Hampton VA, where private rooms and body piercing will also be available.