There’s an oft-quoted statement that reads ‘Art provokes debate’, and debate is assured when you create the kind of tattoos that Lionel Fahy does.

The Frenchman’s minimalist, almost childlike approach to tattooing has been received with either admiration or revulsion; few respond to his work with apathy. His tattooing is thought provoking and challenges preconceptions of what constitutes tattoo art, so love him or loathe him, Lionel’s tattoos will draw an emotive response…

Tell us something about your background.
Originally, I’m from near Lyon in the South East of France but since then I’ve about moved eighteen times, so I can’t really say I’m from anywhere in particular. Now I live on the West coast in a small village about 60 km from Nantes and there are no tattoo shops in my village. Before becoming a tattooist, I was a professional musician in a punk band called Portobello Bones, we toured for eleven years. I played guitar, sang and tour managed. Whilst we were travelling, I used to visit all of the tattoo shops in the towns along the way and it was during that time that I started to tattoo.

So how did your career as a tattooist develop from there?
There came a point at which, as a band, I felt we could progress no further. In my country, if you don’t sing in French, you don’t get much media coverage, so I had to decide which career I really wished to pursue wholeheartedly. It has always been my belief that if I wanted to challenge my own limitations and progress as a tattooist, I had to dedicate myself to that artform. It’s not always been easy however; I could almost liken it to crossing a vast desert. It’s taken a long time to gain enough recognition to allow me to make a living from tattooing. Because the kind of work I do is somewhat unconventional, things have probably been harder than if I had adopted a more traditional or recognised style.
I started tattooing eleven years ago, but it’s only in the last three years that I have actually managed to support myself by tattooing alone. I’ve done all manner of other jobs along the way in order to support my family. There were times when I began to question the validity of continuing to tattoo, I felt like I was in a tunnel with no end in sight. During those times, my wife encouraged me to keep going as she recognised the fact that tattooing was a necessary means by which I could express myself.

Is your wife also tattooed?
Yes. Yan has tattooed her; he did a big flower piece on her back. His website is yourmeatismine.com.

Has Yan been a big influence on you?
Definitely. We’ve been friends for about eleven years now, he’s helped me a lot - we’re very close. When I was starting out as a professional musician, he was starting out as a professional tattooist. He was at many of our gigs, but I didn’t actually get to know him until we were introduced by some friends. I showed him some of my tattoo designs and he told me that if I wanted to come to Paris and talk, I was welcome. A week later we got together and after five minutes it seemed as if we were friends. He is like a mentor to me, we come from the same hardcore punk scene, we were both in Belgium in squats, and we did some fanzines together, so our culture is the same. However, we don’t draw or tattoo in the same way, I think that’s because he doesn’t have four kids. I’m not nervous when I draw, he is, and you can see the difference in the lines and angles.

There is an almost childlike quality to your tattoos.
I really think that you could liken it to music. If you are a depressive kind of person, you will play music that is depressing. It all depends on your state of mind and when you draw or tattoo, it’s the same. If you are really dark, that will be present in your work. I’m a happy person and I love the fact that people are now beginning to recognise my work, which allows me the chance to grow and develop as an artist.

The style of tattooing that you have adopted is unusual to say the least. How did it come about?
Coming as I did from the music scene, I was involved in the production of fanzines and flyers, band posters, etc. All of my friends were in bands and when I began tattooing they asked me for logos and things of that nature, most of which was blackwork. After that I found some jobs in street tattoo shops, doing regular tattoos and that was when I began to experiment with colour. But that regular kind of tattooing didn’t inspire me, it was like I was lying to myself and in the evening, when the shop was closed, I used to do my own designs on friends. This involved, once again, a lot of big blackwork.
Nowadays, I just work within my own style. When I was working for a boss in a street shop, I found that there just wasn’t the time to spend talking to my customers; there was no time to show them the possibilities around which their design of choice could be worked. For example, if they wanted an eagle, okay, you could design a traditional American old school eagle, or you could make a more realistic eagle or a more funny kind of eagle, but when you don’t have the time to discuss the possibilities, they just opt for the flash on the wall, which is really sad.
I like to take the time to find something for the client that is really them, something uniquely dedicated to that individual, a real custom piece. I still feel more comfortable working with black ink but am happy to incorporate bits of colour if I feel they enhance the design.

I have to admit that when I first saw your designs they evoked in me the strongest reaction I have ever felt when perusing the work of any tattooist to date, and the strength of my reaction disturbed me. What I love about your work is its ability to elicit such a reaction in myself and to provoke, challenge and subvert preconceived ideas about what a tattoo can be. It seems to me to be a style that any individual would either love or hate, complacency is probably not an option.
For a long time, people were almost spitting on my back, they didn’t understand what I was doing. In America in particular I had some very aggressive, physical reactions, but I also had some very positive reactions too. When I had my first interview published in a German tattoo magazine it generated a lot of controversy. As you mentioned, it seemed that the reaction was either love or hate. When I heard about this response, I was puzzled, I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong. If I had done tattoos of a dead foetus, or something similar, I would understand such a strong reaction, but my tattoos could be likened to minimalist drawings on human skin and I never imagined that people could be so reactive towards them. I remember at one convention a woman and her boyfriend, a tough, rockabilly type, came along and were looking at my portfolio and she said very aggressively, “Oh yes, I’ve seen an article about you and I can’t make up my mind whether this is pure shit or is interesting in some way”. I started to talk to her about her own tattoos, which weren’t so great, and I asked her why she had reacted so aggressively to my imagery. She wasn’t really able to explain her reaction. In some ways it’s good that my English is not perfect, as I don’t always pick up on what people are saying about the work.

I think it’s great that your work does provoke such emotive responses in those who take the time to engage with it. After all, it’s always been the most progressive, forward-thinking artists who have challenged people’s reactions and paved the way for new ideas and concepts.
I got that feeling when I first saw work by Alex Binnie and by Curly. It was amazing; I’d never seen anything like it in my life. In fact Curly did the drawing for the sleeve of the last album by my band, Portobello Bones, he did that for free, it was his way of helping us out and I really appreciate that.
In France we don’t have a huge history in terms of tattooing, the first proper shop opened in 1960, then we had to wait until the ‘70s for other studios to open. I come from a very normal family and we were not allowed to draw on ourselves, because of the fact that during the Second World War, prisoners were forcibly tattooed with numbers. At some point Napoleon passed a law prohibiting tattooing and France is a religious country, and in our culture, tattoos and religion don’t easily mix. There was also a strong association between tattoos and the criminal element.
So for me, coming from that background, tattooing was a way in which I could express freedom, it was like a rite of passage. We didn’t have magazines as a point of reference, except when friends brought a few back if they had been over to London. When I first saw PFIQ magazine, it really blew me away. It was like the doors to a new world had been opened.
Even if it’s not on a conscious level, my background and culture is reflected in my work. I really hate aggressive stuff, I want to enjoy life and when I draw I want to draw things that make me happy.

Given your background, how did your family react when you started getting tattooed and when you actually decided to become a tattooist?
My parents didn’t like it initially because of the negative connotations associated with tattoos. But now they are okay with it, they like the fact that I get to travel and they are happy that I can make a living and support my family. It’s like when my mother came to one of my gigs, she didn’t necessarily understand where we were coming from but she could see that what we were doing was a form of communication and she was positive about that.

Do you have a ‘typical’ client?
The people I get tend to be between eighteen and thirty-five, and they tend to be people who are open minded, with an interest in art and music. Lots of my clients are women. I get a lot of people coming to me who say they would like to have a tattoo but don’t like the imagery and styles that they have seen previously. They are interested in my work primarily because it is different and it’s not something inherently tough - not everybody needs to have armour. I do a lot of work on first timers and also on heavy collectors.

I can understand that, as your work is so instantly recognisable.
It’s flattering to hear that. It’s great that there are now so many options and so many artists who specialise, so the informed client has a multitude of choices, which was not always the case. When I started tattooing, one of the phrases that impressed me most from Alex Binnie was that if you wanted to tattoo well, it had to be bold, unfussy, well done and readable. That statement really impacted on me because even when doing a small tattoo, those factors apply. I try and respect those simple rules, so I don’t feel that I am placing myself outside of the tattoo community by what I am doing.

What is the inspiration behind the work itself?
I spend a lot of time with my four children and they are a big inspiration. I read them a lot of books, it’s not an addiction, but I am amazed at some of the illustration I see published. I would say that my work could be described as minimalistic - I love the pure outline. I hope there is poetry in the work and am happy when it contains a double reading For example if I tattoo a bird, at first you just see the bird, but if you take the time to look further, you can see faces, so the piece tells a story. Maybe that’s something very French, but I like it a lot.

Having said that, do you feel that your style is decidedly French?
I can’t really answer that conclusively but I can say that in France I do a lot of blackwork, in the Czech Republic people are really into crazy stuff with lots of colour and when I go to Germany my customers are into very minimalistic things which tell a real story about their own life. This has led me to do some very experimental stuff and I spend a lot of time drawing, not necessarily for tattoos, but as reference for me. When I travel, which is often, I don’t take a lot of tattoo picture, but I take lots of drawings.

What is the significance of the overlapping red and black lines that often feature in your work?
The inspiration for that is from silkscreen printing. When a screen printer lines up the plates to create the different patterns, if they are not exactly lined up, the pattern will be fucked up. I like those mistakes, it’s like seeing double. I do drunken tattoos for sober people!

So you work regularly from a few different locations?
I work near Nantes, by private appointment, I also work in Paris at Art Corpus. When in England I work at Nine in Brighton and whilst in Germany I work mainly in the same studio. Despite all of the travelling, I don’t consider myself to be on the road as I do regular guest spots at specific studios, all of that information appears on my website.
I enjoy travelling, as each culture is different. For instance, when working in Brighton there are so many people in the streets without shirts, with visible tattoos, which in France doesn’t happen. I also enjoy the interaction that comes from working alongside other tattooists. When I was working in my own shop in Nantes it was quite depressing seeing the same faces all of the time, nowadays I am constantly meeting new people, which is really exciting. I was on the road for eleven years with the band, so I’m not good at being resident in one place.

How do your wife and kids cope with you being away from home so much?
It’s been like that since the beginning, so for us it’s normal. I saw less of my family when I had my own shop as I used to work late in the evenings. Now, when I am home, I can devote all of my time to my family, cooking, taking care of the kids so that my wife can concentrate on some of her own projects - she is involved with women’s rights issues. We fully support each other. It’s a different way of life, but it works for us, after all, we’ve been together for twenty-one years and have four children.

Is there anything else that you would like to say about your work?
Regarding my work, the best thing is for people to check it out for themselves on my website. However, I’d like to explain that when I do tattoos, I don’t consider myself to be a tattoo artist, but a tattooist, doing art craft, not art. When I do art, for example painting, I have total artistic freedom, when I tattoo, I must consider the wishes of the client - I’m somewhere in the middle. It’s similar to someone who makes custom shoes; the product must be compatible with the wearer. I have noticed over the years that this is something that is not always comfortable for people, they are not always used to having freedom of choice. It’s a gift that many people are unable to make use of and it’s important to understand that, whatever they may initially think, some people are just not ready to get a tattoo.
In order for me to continue tattooing, I must do so with the trust and cooperation of my customer. I don’t like the idea of persuading people to get a tattoo just so that I can have one more design to put on my website, ultimately I want people be happy wearing my work.

What are you doing over the next year or so?
Until the end of this year, I’m travelling a lot. Next year I think I will work one week each month in Paris, I will also spend time near Nantes and I have also other projects to do with illustration work. I am working on a book project which will comprise of hundreds of drawings. If that all works out it will have a CD inside by my band, a kind of musical soundtrack support for the book. I have also been asked to provide other drawings to illustrate books and that is something that I’d like to spend some time on. I love the tactile nature of books and when I go back to France, I will be working on the sleeve of a book for a nurse. The book is about her life and work and the sleeve will feature lots of small drawings, I’m really looking forward to that. So I’ve got plenty to look forward to, basically it’s all about drawing, whether it ends up on paper or skin.
When I’m in England, I’m based here at Nine and I’d especially like to thank Nigel, who originally asked me to guest, so he’s responsible for introducing me to the English. I’d also like to thank Kirstie who’s always running around after all of us stupid guys, she’s really dedicated.

A comment from one of Lionel’s clients, who is featured in the photographs.
Emma. “I’ve just had work done by Lionel, which was a really great experience. I liked how he created the design directly onto my arm, rather than on paper and I was really impressed by the way in which he incorporated his design alongside the work I already had, I hadn’t really thought about that before. Though the work is different, he linked it so well and executed the design beautifully. Whilst the design is complete and finished now, there is the option to continue, the design and its spacing has so much potential.
I chose Lionel as his work is so different from anything I’d ever seen, it’s totally unique. It was definitely worth waiting for him to come over to the UK, I couldn’t be happier with the result”.