Antwan Horfee is no stranger to experimentation. Throughout the Parisian artist’s career, he has combined materials, methods and techniques to form a unique, if not idiosyncratic, visual language. Purple Rains, Horfee’s latest book, showcases work produced between 2016 and 2022, and surfaces his decades long interest in and experimentation with tattooing.
“These drawings are the results of the crossover to techniques that have things in common, but a complete different field of expression and a completely different role," says Horfee. "Tattoo material is, of course, very singular in terms of luck and colours so people that know it well will recognise what is what but also why it’s here."
While the work has aesthetic connection to monotype printmaking, Horfee's choice of material, the carbon paper that allows a tattooer to transfer the basis of a tattoo to skin, allows an intermingling of art historical reference, contemporary craft and hacked industrial process. He describes the trajectory of creation as "a real multi-branch adventure" through strict space which, in the end, grants a new energy to his signature surreal figures.
