Color Portraiture by Alex de Pase

Hailing from Cervighano Del Friuli, Italy, Alex de Pase is an artist to watch. A resident artist at Off the Map Tattoo, Alex began his career as a tattoo artist at the age of 15. “When I saw one of my friends’ tattooed arms I was amazed and I started constructing my first rough equipment using the plastic frame of Bic pens by melting their plastic and mounting a needle at the place of cartridge. This allowed me to make my first experiments by hand tattooing,” says de Pase in his bio on the Off the Map Tattoo website.

Over time, de Pase has revised his techniques for producing tattoo machines and plans to launch his own line of machines in the near future. As far as his artistic style goes, Alex is a leader in the field of color portraiture. “In realism… the target is the everlasting research to reach perfection and the perception of every single detail, volume, wrinkle, light, shade, expression, color shading, etc” says de Pase. “Making a portrait is emotionally very intense and involving, as whoever goes so far to making the decision to desire the face of somebody on their skin for the rest of their days, is moved by some very deep feelings, which burst out, as soon as the client sees the tattoo coming to a completion.” So, without further adieu, here are 15 color portraits done by Alex de Pase of Off the Map Tattoo.