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INKED: You’ve graffitied in Paris for decades, but just took your first trip to the States. What was your impression of New York?

FUZI UVTPK: Energetic, powerful, creative—I felt like I had met a long-lost friend.

And you were here tattooing at The Hole?

Citizens of Humanity organized my tattoo event at The Hole shop. I like to tattoo in unique places—streets, subway tunnels, art galleries. When I make tattoos in unusual places, it leaves a mark on the memory, not just the skin.

You call your aesthetic “ignorant style.” What does that mean?

It means I don’t give a fuck. I create without rules, using my instinctive feelings. In the mid-1990s, I broke the graffiti rules and created the ignorant style based on the beginning of NYC subway graffiti. It was meant to look like a child who just discovered the art form, a reaction to the standardization of graffiti.

You try to make each tattoo unique. Does that philosophy come from you wanting to always try new things, or is that more for the client?

I think when people come to me they want something new, real, and original.
I consider all my pieces unique, like artworks. It’s a philosophy to consider the tattoo like art, not like crafts. It would be easier for me to make the same tattoo designs, but it would also be extremely boring.

Any other maxims for your tattooing?

I come in this tattoo world with my own rules. I don’t want to be the king or win respect or something like that. I don’t give a fuck about that. I just make tattoos like I want to, with sincerity and passion. If you like it, come on, but if you don’t understand it or hate my art, I don’t care. I won’t stop.