Tattoo Show

by Timothy Cahill
Staff Writer, Troy Record

Boryana Rossa wouldn’t reveal exactly what her performance tonight at the Fulton Street Gallery will entail, but she offered a hint in three words: body, text, and … pain.  By branding her, Oleg Mavromatti, her partner, will puncture her skin to inflict pain in a thoroughly public way. Most likely there will be grimaces of suffering as the act unfolds, but agony comes in many different forms.

“You never know exactly what kind of pain you’ll get,” Rossa says, adding that each incision and notch takes on its own identity and form of expression.

The two are part of Ultrafutoro, a collaborative that has gained notoriety in their native Bulgaria and other European capitols in the past few years as they merge art, science and the body in sometimes controversial presentations.

An event more than a year ago raised the ire of censorship authorities in Moscow due to their use of the body at a time when traditional orthodox Christian beliefs are on the rise in the post-Soviet society.  They’ve performed similar events in the U.S., and have shown their videos and photographs in a number of venues nationally. This show, however, will be an American debut of their performance art.

As artists, their medium is the body through which they turn pain into an art form.

“Pain is transforming; a metaphor by which cultures communicate many ideas like other forms of art,” Rossa said earlier this week. “It can mean acceptance into a group, a political or religious message, or transcending to a higher level” through a rite of passage.

Like painters use a canvas and paint to create a picture that mirrors the world, or challenges cultural icons, Rossa and partner employ the body, skin and affliction to convey something central to the human experience. “Everybody experiences pain,” she said, whether it’s physical or emotional.

Tonight’s event is a perfect entree to the world of using human flesh as an expressive medium in connection with Fulton Street’s month-long Tattoo Show, which begins tonight with a reception.

Although Rossa and Mavromatti aren’t tattoo artists — they don’t even have any — their art cuts to the heart of what tattooing and piercing is all about: social identification through pain.

Article from the Troy Record (Friday, May 19. 2006)

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