GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.- Grand Rapids Art Museum announced the next installment of its Michigan Artist Series: Black Waves: The Tattoo Art of Leo Zulueta. On view February 5 – August 27, 2017, GRAM’s latest exhibition explores the work of Ann Arbor-based tattoo artist Leo Zulueta.

Black Waves is a visual biography of Zulueta—the man largely credited with the popularization of contemporary tribal tattooing in the United States. The exhibition will present a close look at a range of Zulueta’s personal photographs, texts, tattoo-inspired drawings, hand-drawn tattoo flash, and includes a large-scale mural created specifically for GRAM’s lobby.

“By organizing his first solo museum exhibition, the Grand Rapids Art Museum is thrilled to bring the unique artistry of Leo Zulueta to broader audiences both within and beyond the world of tattoo,” commented GRAM Director and CEO Dana Friis-Hansen. “With our mission to connect people through art, creativity, and design, Zulueta’s expansion of Pacific tribal traditions for contemporary body art pushes us to understand a set of different cultural expressions in a new way.”

Zulueta’s style draws from the rich customs of tribal tattooing in the Pacific Rim Nations—the origin of tattooing as it is known in Western cultures. With the encouragement of tattoo master Don Ed Hardy, Zulueta entered the tattoo world as he studied the visual designs and cultural significance of tattooing of the Pacific Rim, including Samoa, Micronesia, Borneo, Fiji, and the Marquesas Islands. Zulueta then developed his own designs and has been tattooing clients since 1981.

Zulueta describes his bold, all-black designs as “a style of tattooing that is influenced by the various indigenous tribes that have tattooed over the last thousand years.” He always creates his own designs that are unique to the individual wearer, considering it “disrespectful to copy traditional designs exactly . . . without having any personal relationship to these cultures.”

“Leo Zulueta was the first American tattoo artist to develop his style from the different Pacific-Rim cultures, and is arguably the person most responsible for the renewed and expanding interest in these 'tribal' styles,” stated GRAM Chief Curator Ron Platt. “Zulueta sees tattoo design not as discrete images but as pure form—which he designs in response to the shape and contours of the wearer’s body, and of the relationship between tattooed and non-inked skin.”

Raised in Hawaii and of Filipino descent, Zulueta now owns a tattoo studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Spiral Tattoo. Zulueta is visiting Grand Rapids on March 2 for a gallery talk at the Museum on his career as the “godfather of tribal tattooing” and Black Waves. Through the duration of the exhibition, GRAM visitors can enjoy a variety of related programming—including tattoo-inspired art activities in GRAM Studio for children and adults—and Tell Your Tattoo Story, an open-mic style night dedicated to individuals sharing the stories behind their tattoos.