Photographer:

Cedric Arnold

From the “Sacred Ink” Series

   “Cedric Arnold explores the complexity of yantra as practiced in Thailand, in his series Sacred Ink. Having begun with a chance encounter, when the photographer met a shipyard worker covered in yantra tattoos, and another who Arnold describes as a young Iggy Pop-like taxi driver, and a fierce looking market trader who looked more like a hit man, his early portraits grew into a long-term a commitment to explore this fascinating symbolic subculture.

   “Working with both large-format and Polaroid cameras, Arnold presents through a series of formal black-and-white portraits — the negatives of which are chemically altered by brushing various chemicals onto the emulsion — and documentary images, an in-depth insight into the practitioners of this powerful art.”

    “With Thai society deeply rooted in superstition, the Yantra tradition is growing in popularity, and, in Arnold’s photographs we experience the intensity and atmosphere of this tradition as a tattoo master, wearing a sacred mask, applies a tattoo to the back of one of his disciples during a special ceremony.”

   “With scripts based on a mixture ancient Khmer, and the original Buddhist Pali, along with figures and mythical creatures, Arnold documents the world of boxers, monks, construction workers, policemen, soldiers, taxi drivers, shipyards workers, a shaman, and tattoo masters; both men and women, who are each connected through their inked protection from evil spirits and bad luck.”

    “Arnold’s powerful, yet sensitive portraits present a mystical subculture through its rituals, and symbols; a chest etched with a fierce leaping tiger, a hand adorned with images of geckos on each finger, a back protected by a monkey God, or a shoulder inscribed with ancient Khmer text, the tattoos, are, says Arnold, ‘a testament to the complex spiritual makeup of Thai society, incorporating elements of Buddhism, Animism, Brahmanism and Hinduism,’ which Arnold begins to decipher in Sacred Ink.”

Wayne Ford