New School Tattoos

Tove Lo

Tove Lo’s third tattoo is this design on her right forearm of a heart with an eye in the middle and flames coming out the top. The image comes from the paintings of artist Mark Ryden. She told Idolator “It’s in a lot of his paintings, but really small. So I wanted to blow it up because I just love the eye so much.” Tove Lo’s tattoo combines details from multiple occurrences of the symbol: the eye in the heart comes from the painting Sophia’s Mercurial Waters while the flames look most like those in Swap Meet Man.

The tattoo was done at Infamous Studio in Stockholm, Sweden. She describes her artist as “a total asshole but very talented.”

Tove Lo has had three tattoos — this flaming heart, a scorpion, and a girl riding a bee — for the entirety of her career, so we’re not sure precisely when she got them. She first showed off this tattoo in a June 2012 instagram photo, though it could possibly be older than that. (more…)

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Tove Lo

Tove Lo has a large tattoo on her upper left arm of a girl riding a bumblebee from the Mark Ryden painting Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers.

The tattoo reminds her of the times she spent in her first band called Tremblebee. “I used to have black hair and bangs when I was in that band, and since it was my first band that I was part of it meant so much to me. I had my first gigs with that band,” she told Arena. “Then I found this painting of Mark Ryden’s that I really enjoyed, he’s an American painter who’s super talented. I saw this picture and I’m like ah, that just goes straight to my heart, so I decided to put it all over my arm.”

The painting was created to be the cover of alternative rock band Jack Off Jill’s 2000 album Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers.  Jack Off Jill’s lead singer Jessicka Addams came up with the concept for the artwork and the based this particular character off of herself. However it seems that Tove Lo didn’t know that the painting was designed for an album cover. In an instagram post, Addams explained that she was flattered by the tattoo, even it is was unintentional. She writes: “[Tove Lo] happens to have (unknowingly) my face on her arm. This image is from a painting by Mark Ryden created to become Jack Off Jill’s “Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers” album cover released on July 18th 2000. It doesn’t upset me that the singer claims to know nothing of this album, but it does exist.”

This was her second tattoo and it’s much larger than her first, which was the scorpion on her chest. “I went from that to this big one, this Mark Ryden painting,” she says in a YouTube vlog. “I remember after I did this one I was kinda like ‘Fuck. What did I just do? It’s over my whole arm.’ But now it’s just part of my body.”

(more…)

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Janeane Garofalo

Janeane Garofalo has a heart tattoo on her left arm with the word “Liberal” above it. She told Inked “Being liberal is something to be very proud of. Over the last 30 years or so, the right wing of this country has managed to bastardize the word. They think it’s something to be feared because liberalism equals progress and social justice, and Republicans and conservatives hate progress and social justice. Liberal is not a dirty word. It’s not a pejorative.”

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