The tattoo artist I want to feature this week is Jason Angst, based out of Pittsburgh, PA.
Just for the record, I lived in Pittsburgh from 2008 until this past January, which is why many of my tattoo artist features are based around the Pittsburgh area. Even though, as a broke college student, I was unable to get ALL the tattoos, I was frequently on the look-out for talent in the city. Sort of like how I look at mansions for sale in any neighborhood I happen to live in. Fantasy shopping!
Anyway, I don’t remember how exactly I discovered Jason Angst–but it was probably during a search of awesome artists in the area. He works out of Artisan Tattoo, which recently ran into some funding/zoning trouble with the city and reached out for donations to keep their doors open. I actually donated money to their fund a few months ago, because I believe in good tattoo artists and because Jason’s work is so awesome. Luckily, they raised enough to make the upgrades they needed to make and they’re still in business, so if you’re in the Pittsburgh area, go get some stuff done.
His portraits are incredible–both in grayscale and color.
Come on, right? So good, even the ones where the skin is still all swollen and stuff.
My personal favorite thing that he does is animal portraits. Specifically, I love his bird pieces and I’m pretty sure that’s what drew me to him in the first place. He seems to tattoo crows regularly, which is fine by me because I love crows. Especially if they look like this in tattoo form.
His other animal portraits are just as impressive. Also, I’m a sucker for dog tattoos because dogs are the greatest creature on earth, obviously.
He also does a lot of biomechanic pieces, if that’s more your thing, and often incorporates some of the more beautiful skulls I’ve seen inked. You can tell that he’s an artist through and through. By that I mean, you can tell that he works with different materials to create artwork and incorporates those skills into his tattoos. According to his bio on Artisan’s website, his tattoo work “has pushed [him] into the visual arts world. Oil, watercolor, graphite, charcoal, to photo arrangements.” You can totally tell that he dabbles in other areas of art even without his explanation.
Oh, and I’m just throwing this in here without a good segue, because look at this hand!
Hand tattoos are hard and so often look weird as hell. But look at how good that is! Any artist that can recreate realistic hands has all the respect from me.
All photos were taken from Jason Angst’s Instagram and all credit goes to him.
If you’re reading, thanks for sticking with me! And feel free to let me know how I’m doing, if there are any artists you recommend, etc.
Learn By Art 