Jason Murray
In Mexico, people from all walks of life are beginning to relate their experiences to tattoos, and the taboo around body art is beginning to fade. Multidisciplinary artist Rodrigo Salcedo has created a full-service working environment in Mexico City where artists can create, exhibit, and interact.
ITO Lab (itolab.io) was founded to be a hub for all things art. Built on the idea of a multidisciplinary approach, the space is curated to be an extension of Salcedo’s personal expression. He wants to see, hear, feel and live art. The immersion allows him to be inspired by other disciplines, opening up endless possibilities for his tattoo work.
“When you’re only doing tattoo art, your perspective is very limited,” he says.
Part tattoo studio and part art gallery, the space also has a large area packed with materials for creating. Today, guest artists add personality to the building, making it an essential part of the city’s art scene. It’s also a place where art and performance collide, with Salcedo striving to push the boundaries of what’s possible in each medium.
When customers come into ITO, our goal is to create a truly curated experience. From the architecture to the sculptures to the sounds of the tattoo machines, Salcedo wants everything in the store to evoke peace, tranquility and creativity.
He also wants to build an experience that is unique enough to create value.
“Value comes from the process of ritual and transformation,” Salcedo says. “With NFTs, tattoos can become assets through the lens of contemporary art.”
Owning original works of art in a digital format adds value to your experience. They can be given away, gifted or sold. They showcase and back up the art assets you’ve invested in. Salcedo thinks this is a good thing for the tattoo industry, elevating it to the level of all art forms.
These innovations create opportunities for tattoo artists as customers demand more meaning from the art they inscribe on their skin. They also reflect rising prices for tattoos and an increasing number of people wanting to invest in art and a story along with it.
“Getting a tattoo may eventually become a backup investment for NFTs,” Rodrigo Salcedo said.
Salcedo’s art resonates with people throughout Mexico and abroad: its deep spiritual overtones, search for meaning and purpose, and strong emotional connection help everyone make sense of their own life experiences.
This speaks to the true value of tattoos in our culture. Salcedo wants to leave a mark that helps explain our time on Earth. New tools, styles, and trends will bring more people into contact with this art form, which will reflect the backgrounds, perspectives, and mindsets of all people.
“When the paradigm changes, all art changes,” Salcedo says. “Everything shapes what’s going on in our minds.”
The COVID-19 experience accelerated changes that have been building for years. People all over the world have prioritized what is important, placing more emphasis and value on time, health, inspiration, and connection. This made Salcedo want to move beyond just focusing on what is in front of her, and build a solid foundation for her art, inspiration, and what it means to be an artist as the world returns to normal.
Right now, ITO Lab is something of a new idea; Salcedo wants to expand it into its own platform. At the forefront of a niche art movement, Salcedo wants to explore different disciplines and mediums. He’s interested in how tattooing influences art, such as fashion, lighting, sculpture and performance. Salcedo wants people who come to his studio to have a well-rounded cultural experience.
He also seeks new and interesting ways to express all of his art, from creating new language and symbols to help explain his purpose, to using that language to express his ongoing exploration.
“It’s beautiful and horrifying at the same time,” Salcedo said. “It transforms pain into beauty.”
Symbols are an important part of his work. He has created a symbolic language that he uses in most mediums to represent the reality he sees in his daily life. He entered the performance world when he shared a video of himself shaving his head, placing a stencil on the top of his skull and getting tattooed. The stencil was a symbol he created as part of a new expression that merged ink and skin as a form of therapy and energy.
He also believes that psychedelics helped him find his place as an artist. He started using psychedelics to look inward, but eventually began using them to channel visual information into artistic reality. He describes this as awakening to a different state of consciousness. It’s all part of an ongoing quest for new ideas, new ways of thinking and new paths to pursue his creativity.
This commitment to his craft has opened doors of opportunity for Salcedo and ITO Lab in all sorts of areas. The advantage of perspective has helped them expand into areas that were unimaginable five years ago. It has opened new avenues to communicate their initial passion for tattooing to different people, different ways of thinking, and ultimately, new directions.
No one would say it’s easy to call yourself an artist, but it’s even harder to call yourself a multidisciplinary artist and stick to it. This new generation’s fluid view of what it means to be an outsider looks very promising, based on the ideas of ITO Lab.
The ITO Labs website proudly presents the motto “Art Connecting the World” and introduces a gateway into tattoos, art and the metaverse. The only challenge in this new approach is the creation, preservation, sale and marketing of that art.
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