Profile
Dali —the tattoo artist, designer, webmeister and tribal chief of the Graphic Tribe— doesn’t really like talking about himself in the third person, so here’s the
Self–Introduction
I was born in in Bucureşti, the capital city of România and moved to Tokyo in . Been here ever since.
I’ve been drawing since I was 2–3 years old, I’ve been tattooing since 1993 (June, this year, 30 years) —first, at “Body Design ’69” in București, then at a co-owned shop in Shibuya and Meguro and, eventually, at my own studio in Nakameguro and Ebisu— and the first time I ever touched a computer (an ancient Macintosh box) was sometime in 2000.
I’m quasi-ambidextrous, I speak Română, English and 日本語 more or less fluently and, if there’s enough time to get to know me, I seem to be “a nice guy”. Sedentary to the core, but not completely broken :)
Loves
- Black and gray tattoos, portraits and biomechanic structures, realistic designs and, generally, putting the gloves on and tattooing, as well plain old drawing with a pencil on paper.
- Web design, 3D computer generated graphics, a little bit of Unix every now and then. Hardly a geek, but I do know some shit.
- Open source software, well-written software, intelligent developers.
- Hajduks, rebels, anti-war protesters, courageous people, inquisitive spirits, hackers, anarchists, atheists, anti-theists and satanists, polyglots and open-minded people. WikiLeaks and its supporters, Anonymous, LulzSec and everyone who has the balls to speak up and do something.
- Absynthe, tobacco, well-done beef steaks and chocolate… and pretty much everything else that’s either on the doctor’s black list or in any religious “no-no” book.
- Slayer, Slipknot, Koᴙn, The Prodigy and Combichrist, Quaff, Tool, B.U.G. Mafia, Paraziții, cocksucking angelfucking outright explicit lyrics; the first “Matrix”, “Star Wars”, “Dark City”, “Fight Club” and “Blade”.
- File sharing, baby!
- Women‼
Hates
- The christian hypocrisy and basically any form religion. Gods.
- Television, radio, newspapers. The so-called “mainstream” mass-media as a whole.
- The very existence of governments. War and warmongers, racist fucks and xenophobes, egocentric people, mercenaries and illiterates, people who can’t —or won’t try to— overcome their preconceived ideas.
- App£€, Mi¢ro$oft, Adob€, $on¥, ¥ahoo and so on and on and fucking on…
- Japanese commercials using the Pavlov effect to trick the masses into buying shit they don’t need.
- Copyright, censorhip, DRM, “no smoking” signs, the hypocritical use of “clean version” instead of “censored” (generally, the pool of shit that MTV has become), idiotic terminology like “objectionable word” or “politically (in)correct”. Taxes. All laws except the traffic law.
- Spammers, scammers and their Windows zombies.
- Earthquakes. Snow. Raw fish. Japanese tea.
- The fact that, no matter what I do, I always end up with a “hates” list longer than the “loves” one…
Résumé
Studies
- 1987–1990 • sculpture and artistic design —graphics section— at the ”Nicolae Tonitza” Art School, in Bucureşti;
- 1989–1991 • basic business management at The College for Economic Studies No. 9, in Bucureşti;
- 1990–1992 • commercial illustration —advertising, ambient design and interior decorations section— at The College for Decorative Arts No. 43, in Bucureşti.
Other Activities
- 1990–1992 • various jobs as window dresser, interior decorator, clothing designer;
- 1992–1993 • slavery, also known as “military service”…
Tattooing
- 1993–1996 • Body Design ’69 Tattoo Studio, in Bucureşti;
- 1996–2002 • Tattoo Art Maruyama, in Shibuya and later on, in Meguro, Tokyo;
- From March 2002 onward • Graphic Tribe Tattoos, initially in Nakameguro and, since June 2008, in Ebisu…
Portfolio
Tattooing
- Current Photo Gallery • black and gray
- Photo Archives • mostly multicoloured
Web Design
- Dali’s Graphic Tribe Tattoos Weblog
- Graphic Tribe Tattoos • Dali’s Tattoo Studio (current website)
- Dali の Graphic Tribe Tattoos Weblog (Japanese weblog)
- Graphic Tribe Tattoos • Dali の タトゥースタジオ (Japanese website)
- Graphic Tribe • Studioul de Tatuaje al lui Dali (Romanian website)
- Graphic Tribe Tattoos Photo Archives
- The Matrix Community (
matrixcommunity.org&thematrixcommunity.com) — currently offline - The Matrix Community Gallery (
zionresistance.net/gallery) — currently offline - The Matrix Community Rebel Radio (
zionresistance.net/radio) — currently offline - The Matrix Community Member Websites (
zionmainframe.org) — currently offline - Sexy Corsets by Iuliana — versions up to
- TribalXML NameSpace and Graphic Tribe XMDP
Graphic Design
- Icons for several ACP applications
- A couple of logos for “NATICO”, “Triple Ace Club”, “Baran” and “b&d International”
- The album cover, lyrics sheet and CD graphics for Diabolos Radio’s 2008 release, “Still Japan Needs a Hero”
- All kinds of graphics for all kinds of projects, too many to list…
I’m already way past the “summary” implied by using “résumé” instead of “the story of my life”, so I’ll stop wasting your time here ;) Nevertheless, thanks a lot for reading so far and, if you do feel like knowing more, don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail. I do try to be the friendly dude they say I am :)
