DR LAKRA

from 2015 A Permanent Mark Publication

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dr Lakra rose to prominence in the 1990s as a tattooist, and has since gained an international following for his altered 1940s and 1950s magazine covers, pin-ups, wrestling posters and medical lithographs – paving the way for artists such as Belgian practitioner Jean-Luc Moerman.

These works fully exploit Dr Lakra’s talents as a supremely skilled draughtsman and transform those depicted from clean-skinned, ‘pure’ figures of community adoration, to ‘grotesque’ and marginalised embodiments of the tattoo subculture. Dr Lakra’s altered figures are covered from head to toe in Dr Lakra’s drawings of recognisable tattoo icons – such as bats, spiders, Chicano, Maori, Thai, and Philippine cultural markings, snakes, skulls, crosses, the devil, the Virgin Mary, and roses – in what amounts to a form of human graffiti. In doing so, the artist undermines the air of innocence, or the depiction of refined beauty, that was so readily portrayed through the media of the era.

Simultaneously playful and provocative (both politically and sexually), it comes as no surprise that Dr Lakra relishes the opportunity to subvert such sanitised images, with his name roughly translating to ‘Dr Delinquent’.1 Lakra can also, fittingly in the context of his work and the way in which sections of society may view those he depicts, mean ‘scar’ or ‘scum’.2

Born in 1972, Dr Lakra, whose real name is Jerónimo López Ramirez, grew up in Mexico as the eldest son of the anthropologist and poet Elisa Ramírez Castañeda and the painter

Francisco Toledo, a leading cultural figure in Mexico.3 He followed in his father’s footsteps, moving towards a career in the arts by studying under Gabriel Orozco, before being inspired to build his own tattoo machine. He explains, “…I didn’t know exactly how to use it. It was totally different. I had to learn how to draw again with this machine.’’4 His penchant for carrying his tattoo equipment in a black bag would see the term ‘Dr’ become part of his artist moniker.

He quickly became one of the most sought after tattoo artists in Mexico, however the popularity of his tattoos would eventually lead him back to painting.

“I was working for two years in this shop — it was like McDonald’s, we go as fast as we can make it. I think one day I made, like, 25 tattoos in one day, and I reached a point where I wasn’t interested in doing tattoo for a living, and I decided to do more painting,’’5 Dr Lakra explains.

And while he seldom tattoos anymore, save for the occasional firing up of his machine in his Oaxaca home studio, his practice remains invariably marked by his interest in the medium.