See www.wildstyleink.comA brief introduction... if youd like to know who he is....How long have you been doing graffiti?I started writting in 1983.
Around the same time i was breakin and dancin.
The year after i was introduced to a guy named Victor wellington whom at the time lived in New York and he would send us photos of subways, one was a whole car by SEEN it was the "midnight express" burner. I were in complete AWE!
Later I happen to be browsing the tube and PBS was broadcasting this documentary..." Style Wars " !!!! Oh my gawd! That was it!...
" Wildstyle " then " Beat street " Then it was off to the VCR to watch it over & over & over. I later bought the original.
Now & since then i have been influenced by New York writters and painters in general.
The NY art scene has always been a huge influence in my life of art. Seen and alot of other cats from NY were like gods to us.
As well as the Keith Haring era.
I pretty much held it down in our city after that...
We rocked the Bay Area! Along with other allies TWS, TDK, LORDS etc.And you often showed in gallerys as well?Yes, This cat Claude approached us in the summer of 84 and really opened doors for us by starting this graffitti summer art project! Wild!
We would meet on Saturday afternoons and he would get funding and sponsors and legal walls for us to paint pieces and murals on around the city. This went on for years and that brought me into the gallery.
I had group and solo exhibitions.
Ive shown in...
San Jose museum of art, S.F. museum of art, S.F. Photo & art center, L.A. photo & art center, Fort Mason S.F., Pico gallery L.A., Genesis sanctuary for the arts, Europe, new york & abroad...Aladdin has shown his work in numerous gallerys around the world.
He has been comissioned by the citys of S.J, S.F., San Mateo & more.
Painted backdrops for numerous concerts including the 1st Lalapalooza @ Shoreline amphetheatre for Ice T.
Has painted backdrops for 2 NBA posters ( Gloden state warriors & Shaquille O Niel )
Has appeared in numerous ad campaigns including Saks fifth avenue, Good morning America.
Has provided art for various music videos. Including Trick daddy, Da Brat, Roy Jones Jr.
Has tattooed various celebritys including Gangstarr, Dennis Rodman & of course a few we cannot mention.( Read more about his graff background when bio is uploaded )When did you start tattooing & who gave you your start ?I was kind of in a pit stop with my first real businuss in 1995 which was " an airbrush shop, i sold airbrush t's, graff mags, hip-hop & rave clothing, provided silkscreen printing and even started my on clothing line.
The shop was across town on the southside of San Jose, which was not the area i would have liked it to be so i shut down to move into downtown San Jose's hippest area, the "SOFA" area
Where all the coffee shops and hip shops are, and at the time " Daleeps " was the hippest joint to shop at, they sold all kinds of cool stuff like Conart clothing , Fresh jive, Doc martin shoes & they had been piercing out of the back for a few years already and i kind of hung out in downtown all the time so I became really good friends with the owners, they even commissioned me to graff the hell out of the place!! So when they found out that i was moving into downtown they got nervous and asked me to join them but i sort of wanted to do my own thing so i passed on it.
I later found out that Paco Excel opened up a tattoo shop with them next door and i got curious and started visiting alot, looking at tattoo magazines and sayin to myself...WOW i can do this , all this stuff is so graffiti influenced.
The bright colors, crazy charactors, trippy lettering, most of all the bold lines and bold colors captured me!
Then Paco & i became good friends.
I had known Paco excel from the graffiti circuit.
Paco & Daleep got into a misunderstanding so that opened the door for the next guy Eric Ross...all the while Daleep & others were coaxing me to start tattooing, practically pushing me because they thought i would be great because of my art background.
I was scared and thought if you can get a real tattoo artist in here to teach me, ill learn but i am not going to just start goin to town on skin!
Eric Ross agreed to apprentice me.
(Eric Ross opened tattoo infinity in Sacramento)
Eric & i became very good friends also.
It wasnt very long apprenticeship cause we were kinda learnin on our own, I found out later that Eric was only tattooing 1 year out of the house!! 1 year is a long time but when your a tattoo artist...1 year aint s^&%t ! I said damn this isnt as easy as i thought it would be! I thought it would be easy as graffiti but on a different medium?
We had it pretty rough there, very little instruction, not alot of supplys, no direction whatsoever, just common sense. It was BAD!! HEHEHE!
The 1 thing we had down was cross contamination, Eric said it once
" After you break skin anything you touch after becomes contaminated! " Cross contamination was one of things we paid alot of attention to !
Later Ken Cameron's brother "Topper" wanted us to work for him.
We both did but at different times, meanwhile Paco suggested that i get an apprenticeship the right way from the shop he worked at but i was too independant to take it... I passed again something good :(
I really think that i am 3 years behind in my career because of not getting the proper apprenticeship, and for a few years from 1999-2001 i was in a rut, not focused, pretty much up & down with my art & tattooing due to a sort of messy situation that later caused me to be disconnected with my creative side.
After 1 year at Daleeps i decided that it was enough for me , I worked with Steve "Topper' Cameron for a short while & later i reopened Wildstyle ink with a partner but as a tattoo studio and just sold graff stuff out of a small glass counter on the side, Eric Ross opened it up with me but there wasn't enough work so he had to move back to Sacramento but he would come work from time to time. I held it down for 7 years since then with artist's coming & going such as Brent Patten, Juan Ortega... then I had problems with the new building owner of that location who was not living up to his end of the bargain according to our lease. Makes u wonder why his buildings are totally vacant...?
So anyway we moved our operation over to my friend Andy's place...Metamorphic tattoo in 2002.
I worked there for less than a year cause i was offered to come to Miami Beach where I have worked at Tattoos By Lou for some time, I then went to Miami Ink for a minute but have recently partnered up with a friend to open a studio in Las Vegas but for now my home is Miami Beach. Ill be coming back & forth.
I now work out of Emerson Forth's Pirate tattoo as well as private appointment only studio.What are your favorite styles of tattooing ?American classic tarditional & neo traditional, newskool graffiti sort o pieces, but i like doin it all as long as i can incorporate my style and have artistic freedom. I am currently trying to learn the right way to do traditional Japanese just to be able to produce a clean japenese style tattoo, not to be just another japanese tattooer wannabe. And right now i am developing a style that i can make my own.
I" There is so much out there that just looks alike, just looks the same. It just seems like there are alot of tattooist's out there that are bitin and chewin off people like Grime, Adam barton, Matt Shamah, Excel, Filip Leu and calling it thiers...I don't want to do that, although I really dig thier styles & you can really learn alot from those guys, and I know I have found myself almost going there because its so damn good...but at the end of the day i want to do my own thing and feel as good about it as when i look at one of thiers.I guess that's it for now until we upload your full bio??Yeah pretty much!, Do we have time to hire a clown and beat it up ?NO!
DAMN! too bad, i love that!.
