Almost a third of U.S. adults have at least one tattoo, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey. That’s up by about 10 percent from 2012 and 17 percent from 2006. And while the popularity of tattoos certainly seems to be on the rise, their stigma declining, it’s more than a trend. It’s a visual art form, it’s a medium for storytelling, it’s an innately human activity, say the curators of the exhibit “Becoming More Myself: Reclamation Through Tattoo Art,” on display at the Art Museum of the University of Memphis (AMUM).
Vanessa Waites, a local tattoo artist who earned her master’s in applied anthropology in 2023 from U of M, and current anthropology graduate student Caroline Warner collaborated on this exhibition with the hope to give the practice of tattooing “some institutional respect by putting it in an art museum,” Warner says, but more importantly to connect with the community, those tattooed and not.
For the show, 18 volunteer, mostly local participants shared their tattoo stories with the curators — their stories often exploring themes of gender, body image, and trauma; their tattoos offering a sense of bodily autonomy, a sense of “physical, psychological, and social transformation and self-acceptance.” “Tattoos,” says one participant, “are a reclamation of how I choose to show up in the world unapologetically.”
In a way, Waites says, “tattoos straddle this really interesting place between being intensely personal, but also for public consumption.” It can be a reminder for the individual of what they’ve overcome — like tattoos covering self-harm scars — or a visual act of resistance — like one participant whose thigh tattoos have given her the confidence to wear shorts after years of insecurity. “My thighs are beautiful,” she says. “Tattoos are beautiful. Look at it or don’t look at it. I don’t care anymore because I want to see it.”
And, in “Becoming More Myself,” that’s what all these participants want — to be seen — for their tattoos to be seen and for their stories to be seen, the two intrinsically linked. The gallery space, in turn, becomes a space for vulnerability, bodies and personal truths laid bare. “As we had people come through the exhibition,” Warner says, “afterwards, I heard a lot of feedback of like, ‘Yeah, I got it. I connected with that person, this has changed my perspective, I understand, I’m glad I saw that.’”
That was the point all along, Warner says. “These are your lawyers and your bartenders and your library clerks. These are the people directly in your community as you’re walking through here. We’re hoping that people would be feeling more connected and feeling more aware of what it means to be Memphis.”
AMUM is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.
“Becoming More Myself: Reclamation Through Tattoo Art,” The Art Museum of the University of Memphis, 3750 Norriswood, on display through June 29.