Swine Art – Tattoo Artists Ply Their Craft on Pig Heads

We’re used to seeing tattooists break boundaries on an everyday basis, but we had never even thought make the leap that these 10 artists have made. Perhaps we were too pigheaded to even consider the potential of tattooing on swine but we were truly astounded by the results.

Peter Garritano, a photographer based in Brooklyn, recruited tattoo artists from the New York area and gave each of them a pig’s head to tattoo on. Pig skin is very similar to human skin and during the days before Pound of Flesh hit the market it was not uncommon for upcoming artists to practice on pigs. After sourcing the heads from his local butcher, Garritano handed them out to artists and let them do whatever their creative hearts desired.

“There was definitely a bit of squeamishness at first but tattoo culture tends to intersect with the world of oddities and the bizarre so it wasn’t too hard to find people who were up for tattooing a disembodied head,” Garritano told the Huffington Post. “No one I spoke with had ever done something like this before so there was some intrigue in the novelty of it too.”

It’s interesting to see the direction the artists went in with the project. Some, like Kenny K-Bar, chose to utilize the entirety of the head to create an image that will scare your socks off. While others, like Anderson Luna, used a small and delicate design to give the head a noble look. We were greatly pleased to see at least two artists make a joke about “Hog Heaven” with an extra tip of the hat to Sue Jeiven for her use of puns.

You can see all of the heads in the gallery below.