WORK IN PROGRESS

THE TATTOOS ON MIKE WILUAN’S BODY TELL THE STORY OF HIS VARIED INSPIRATIONS AND HIS LIFE.

Mike Wiluan’s body is his living canvas. Since his first tattoo at the age of 15, the filmmaker has been gradually adding ink to his arms, back, chest and parts of his legs. Although they look like a continuous design, they have actually been inked over the years. “Instead of sitting in one studio saying I want that one design and sit there for hours, then come back a few days in a row, I’d rather go around the world and get a patchwork done,” he says.

For example his right forearm features images of a Native American warrior, gun and cougar. “I was doing a lot of work on Buffalo

Boys and westerns play a big part in my life so these are the strong thematics,” he says. To fill in the spaces, he added smaller motifs, but with an Asian twist, such as peonies and dragonflies to blend with the Japanese woodblock-inspired waves on his right bicep. He says, “There is a strong hybrid of Asian and Western images; it references a mix of cultures.”

To achieve this, Wiluan carves out time to visit various studios around the world when he travels, such as Broken Heart Studio in Los Angeles and Studio Muscat in Tokyo. “I have key tattoo artists from different parts of the world who will do the block work and other artists who fill in the thematics. Each artist connects with the others and each artist would respect the others’ works,” he says.

“Over a period of eight to 10 years, you slowly patch it together and in total it forms a bigger story.”