If body parts are real estate for art, then the chest is prime land reserved for the most important marks and messages.
Since early human history tattoos have been used to communicate rank, pledge love,
seek protection, demonstrate loyalty and identify slaves. Now more popular than ever,
the design of a tattoo, its size, visibility and positioning on the body still speaks of
individual choice and of personal story.
Chest piece tattoos make the internal external: covering, describing or reinventing the
heart on flesh. Jeremy Shaw's portraits of friends and associates explores the illustrations that individuals exhibit on their bodies, the contrasting approaches to the chest as canvas and the values that lie beneath the skin.
