After years of being a professional tattoo artist, Slate Grove found the art of glass while attending the Cleveland Institute of Art.A semester later, Slate realized it was time to put the tattoo machine away, and begin dedicating himself to glass.After getting a firm hold of the traditions and techniques commonly associated with glass, his artistic voice started to show through.While Slate may have put his tattoo machine away, the wealth of information and inspiration he brings from the field of tattooing shows steadily in his work.
More than just creating tattoo imagery in glass, Slate has chosen to conceptually link his glass work with the history of tattooing around the world.Most recently Slate has been working on a body of work revolving around the Maori tribes of New Zealand.Utilizing tribally accurate carvings, and some of the tribe's most readily identifiable imagery, Slate is attempting to draw attention to the exploitation of the Maori tribes by European colonization of New Zealand.
With the arrival of the European colonizers, some of the most tribally pure traditions were capitalized upon by the Europeans. Introducing firearms to the Maori tribes in exchange for tribal heirlooms not only changed the way battles were fought, but also had irrevocable effect on intertribal relations. Almost over night, the European views of the Maori went from barbaric to curio, and the tribal artifacts quickly became a commodity around the world.Currently, museums around the world house some of the most prized possessions of the Maori ancestry, even after formal requests have been to return them to their rightful owners. |
