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Visitors flocked on Friday to the first tattoo convention to be held in Hong Kong.
The show features more than 30 artists from countries ranging from South Africa to mainland China.
It aims to challenge “that old-fashioned notion that it’s just gangsters and sailors” who get tattooed, co-organiser Jay Foss Cole said.
Hong Kong’s lawyers, doctors and university professors all sport the skin designs, said Foss Cole, also known as Jay FC, and they also appeal to people in creative industries.
Visitors, many of whom wore revealing clothing to display their own prized body sketches, browsed through designs, chose new ones and checked out different marking pens and techniques.
Spectators were awestruck by the sight of four near-nude male models showcasing their colourful full-body tattoos in Japanese style.
“I got mine because I love it,” said one of the models. The work took 12 hours.
Others sprawled on the beds or chairs of tattoo artists and watched intently as intricate designs were inked onto their skin.
Historically, tattoos on younger Chinese have largely been the preserve of triad gangsters, but the designs have begun to gain popularity among the mainstream community in recent years.
“Young people are changing their minds, not like before when they thought only mafia members wore them. Now it’s more like art,” Beijing-based tattoo artist Qi Xulong, known as “Little Dragon”, said.
“Long time ago, Chinese people in Beijing and Shanghai, they don’t think that tattoos are good,” Qi said, adding that now people increasingly use tattoos to express their identities.
Foss Cole said Hong Kong’s tattoo culture is improving. “There’s more artists, there’s better artists, there’s more style, and there’s never been anything like this,” he said of the show.
The convention, he said, shows that Hong Kong “has arrived as a world-class destination for tattoos and tattoo artists”.


Hong Kong tattoo convention aims to make its mark 

A full back tattoo by award-winning Taiwanese tattoo artist Chen Cheng-hsiung, better known as Diau An. Photo: KY Cheng

Models showcase tattoos by award-winning Taiwanese tattoo artist Diau An at the first international Hong Kong China Tattoo Convention at Kowloon Tong. Photo: KY Cheng

Tattoo artist Piratina Trece at the first international Hong Kong China Tattoo Convention at Kowloon Tong. Photo: KY Cheng

Tattoos not just for triads, says artist and convention organiser

Tattoo artist Gabe Shum, who organised Hong Kong's first tattoo convention, says he hopes the event will put the city on the map for tattoo lovers. Photo: Thomas Yau

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