Pop Art Tattoos

“The Pop artists did images that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in a split second—comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, coke bottles—all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all.” – Andy Warhol

Pop Art can take many aesthetic forms, characterized primarily by the subject matter. Pop artists criticize or parody pop culture, consumerism, and mass media.

Following the Abstract and Expressionist movements, Pop Art marked a contemporary return to more identifiable subject matter. In fact, by mocking celebrities and pop culture, it is arguably the most identifiable subject matter since religious iconography.

The birth of Pop Art is commonly credited to New York artists of the 1960s, such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg. It is still alive today, all over the world, commonly found in digital media, tattooing and street art. Banksy is credited with being one of the most recognizable pop artists of the 21st century.

The intention of Pop Artists is what makes them Pop Artists, along with their use of existing imagery in pop culture. Their work is a critical reaction to mass consumption of products and people for commercial reasons. They aim to mock the entire value system that emerged in the west following WWII.

Ironically, Pop Art often becomes very commercially valuable because the subject matter is still widely consumed. This paradoxically launches a counter-culture into the mainstream, sometimes making the artists themselves very famous in the exact environment they set out to dismantle.