Johann Florendo Fine Arts ’98 Partner, Mean Street Tattoo, Queens Years of experience: 15 Specialty: Asian imagery
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decided early on to specialize in the Japanese aesthetic. He creates large-scale tableaux of serpents and samurai, beasts and Buddhas, that fit together like a puzzle.
n the Edo period of Japan (1600-1800), “The fire
which runs from neck to legs, is a tiger, representing the year
department would fight fires almost naked,” Johann
of his birth in the Chinese zodiac. It took five years to finish.
Florendo explains. “They got tattooed on their whole
“Everything on me has meaning,” he says. For example, a rooster
body to protect their modesty.” More recently, tattoos
represents the Philippines, where he was born, and Rangda
Many Americans have long been attracted to these brightly
masks from Indonesia offer supernatural protection. Almost his entire body is tattooed, but he waited to have
colored Japanese bodyscapes: dragons, tigers, koi, and Hannya
his neck done, because it’s visible no matter what he’s wearing.
masks, which portray the spirits of dead jealous women, back
“Some kids turn 18 and want their neck, hands, or face tattooed,”
to haunt their lovers. The figures are usually embellished with
he says. “I won’t do that. It would limit their life choices. I got
stylized waves and flowers.
my neck tattooed after buying my house—I felt I’d earned it.”
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Florendo, in the black T-shirt, outside his shop with nine of his clients.
His own tattoos reflect the aesthetic, too. His back piece,
became a badge of honor for the yakuza, the Japanese mafia.
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Figuring that it would never go out of style, Florendo
hue | fall 2013
11/25/13 9:15 AM