Dr Lakra

Dr Lakra is a tattoo artist living and working near Mexico City. In his parallel activities here, however, Dr Lakra transfers his draughtsmanship onto the idealised figures in 50’s Mexican magazines. Pin-up girls, wrestlers, beauties and cuties are tattooed and ‘enhanced’ in ink with bats, demons, spiders and the faces of pouting vixens. Like pertinent graffiti, the relative innocence of another era is politicised and the images are infused with a relish for the diabolical. Beautification or social identification, the works are a carnival of the grotesque. Kitschy erotica, ancient ritual, and hallucinogenic visions are fused in a collage of ideologies.

Dr Lakra continues to practise as a tattooist, and though the drawings are shown here as artworks in their own right, they mark an intersection between popular culture and art…

Untitled (Cupido Lupita). Tatooed plastic doll

Untitled (mujer con espejo)

Pin-up girls, wrestlers, beauties and cuties are tattooed and ‘enhanced’ in ink with bats, demons, spiders and the faces of pouting vixens…