Few tattoo artists in France can boast three decades on the clock like Mathias Bugo in 2024. 30 years of loyal service at the head of his Artribal studio, during which time he has made a name for himself. First and foremost as a tattooist, whose eccentric style combines Asian - and especially Japanese - iconography with the graphic filters of Pacific tribal cultures. But also as a teacher, demonstrating his ability to share experience and technical mastery. This anniversary is an opportunity to change direction. Gone is the capital of the Gauls and on to the ocean, on the Basque coast, near Bordeaux, where Mathias has decided to combine his two passions from next September: tattooing and surfing.
You'll soon be leaving Artribal, having set up the studio 30 years ago in 1994. How do you feel about this change?
The feeling of something accomplished, of closing a loop, of having done what I had to do. I can compare this feeling to the last few seconds of a piece of music that ends with a big bang.
A Rock'n'Roll note, since you're also a musician.
Absolutely.
The studio has been taken over by two tattoo artists you know well, Arthur Poncelin and Georgie, who have been in the shop for several years. Is that both a satisfaction and a relief?
I trained Georgie from the ground up, and Arthur had already been tattooing for several years when he arrived. But we've learned from each other, as in all good teamwork. I'm delighted with this balance. It's almost unhoped-for given the difficulties currently faced by tattooing professionals in France and elsewhere. This new generation is a lifesaver. It gives me great satisfaction to have built something that people can continue to enjoy. I'm leaving the studio with the feeling that I've done my time. I'm 50 years old, thirty of which I've spent here, and I think we've said a bit of everything with this child. I don't feel I can do anything for him any more. I still have a lot to learn and to pass on to others, but it won't be in the structure of a shop. When I started out in the 1990s, there were two tattooists in Lyon, but I don't think I have the codes any more.
What triggered you to say to yourself, I'm going to make tattooing my future?
It was thanks to my sweetheart, the mother of my daughter, my other half, my sparring partner, my buddy, who got a scorpion tattoo on her shoulder blade. That's how tattoos came into my life. It just clicked. So I too went to Joss, a tattooist in Lyon located on Montée Saint Sébastien, above Croix Paquet, with parental authorisation signed by my sweetheart - since I was only 16 - and from then on I started to take an interest in it, to make connections. In the pages of an American magazine, 'Tattoo', I discovered the tattoo artists of the time. It was so cool. The guys were free, they made people happy and they travelled. It really resonated with me as a post-adolescent. It's a time of life when the world opens up to you and you want to take it all in. I was really into music and I had a revelation. I loved the tribe aspect, the feeling of belonging, as much as the deeply human and ancestral dimension of this need to get tattooed. He eventually gave his name to the shop.
You spoke of a legacy. What legacy are you leaving today?
Old-fashioned know-how, values that are perhaps no longer found today, starting with patience. Contrary to what our age would have us believe, not everything can be done immediately and easily. Some things take time to do, to give, and I'm not just talking about tattoos but, unfortunately, people don't want to go to the trouble any more. And yet tattooing is an apprenticeship in patience. It's long and tedious, it hurts, and you have to deal with a lot of uncertainties: how do I draw? Will I have the right flow? Do I have enough self-confidence to move forward, while at the same time being able to question myself and want to progress? Making progress has always been a prerequisite for working in the shop. Everyone moves at their own pace, but you have to keep moving forward.
Artribal is one of the oldest studios in France and you have made a significant contribution to the development of the tattoo scene in Lyon by training a number of the city's biggest names (Jean-Luc Navette, G-Rom, Pandido). What are the virtues of the Bugo teaching method?
I absolutely need to know why the person is doing it when they come to me. What are you looking for? What do you have to offer? The tattoo is an exchange. You learn it for yourself so that you can give it to someone else. There's no point in tattooing yourself every day. What's more, you have to be part of a story. To evolve, you need to have solid roots and know where you come from. Generations of tattooists have torn each other apart in the past so that you could just turn up and do the sponge. We respect that. So the fundamental pillar is respect. Respect for the people you work with, for your customers, for those who came before you and cleared the way, who studied to print their knowledge in books, for their work, for their creativity and, in the end, for themselves.
What else is there?
There's everything that comes with it: patience, being demanding and finding the right balance between your ambitions and your abilities, so that you don't get frustrated. Although it encourages you to question yourself, it can also be limiting, tense and hold back a liberating impulse. Everything is linked. If you grind on one end, you immediately create an imbalance that will cause the other end of the chain to fall apart.
What was it like for you as a self-taught artist, learning on your own with very little information available at the time?
I wanted to. I had the motivation, a fire to stoke. And then, in the end, over the years, many people brought me a wealth of little bits of knowledge that I put together to make my jigsaw puzzle. I was talking about patience, and patience was needed because everything took much, much longer. There were few answers to all those essential questions: How does a machine work? What is the purpose of a capacitor? Should it be big or small? What impact will it have on the machine? What about the size of the coils? What about the thickness of the springs? I learnt a lot in bed at night, thinking about all these mechanical questions. Because in the 1990s, tattoo voodoo was all about machine settings. Everyone wanted to know about the machines next door. But very few knew what they were doing and even fewer knew how to explain it.
This tattoo voodoo is now being swept away by the Pen, this new generation tattoo machine, have you adopted it too?
I use it from time to time. It was important for me not to stand on the sidelines and think: "Tattooing is done with coils". I needed to know how it works and be able to talk about it. Its main advantage is its immediacy, even though it retains a certain darkness. There is very little that can be done to the Pen. There are just three buttons: ON/OFF; Loud; Soft. I'm simplifying things a little because the model I'm using is fairly basic and others have more functions.
Is this a frustration for the demanding craftsman?
The craftsman will adapt to his tool if he has to. But the basic principle is that the craftsman chooses and adapts his tools to his own needs. This is more difficult in the case of an industrialised product. Let's face it, we're in business now.
How do you use the Pen?
From my short experience, I find it a bit laborious to make lines and gradients of grey. The Pen is less subtle than the coil, less organic and offers less feeling. Unlike my little Micky Sharpz, which I've had for over twenty years. It's an extension of my hand. We're a duo! The Pen is great for doing something silly and nasty like a splash of colour. It's also relaxing. When you're tired, you don't have to think and the little cartridges replace the dozen machines. Not to mention the silence of the machine. At first, I was worried about the lack of noise and vibration and the overall icy nature of the tool. I used it for fifteen minutes before putting it down again. But you get used to everything.
Let's talk about your future. What does it look like?
Something completely magical and unreal. I'm finally going to be able to get rid of that little pebble in my shoe that city life represents. I'm going to live on the Basque coast, between the forest and the ocean, in the little village of Messanges, an hour and a half south of Bordeaux and three quarters of an hour north of Biarritz.
Will you continue to tattoo?
Of course I will. I'll soon have a new shop - the name is still under discussion - and everything will be by appointment only.
This connection with the sea is also your connection with surfing, which you practise assiduously. Are there any benefits to your tattoo?
This may sound a bit philosophical, but I find in it the idea of trajectory, line, flow and perseverance. Surfing is certainly one of the most thankless disciplines I know. To learn it, you have to take a lot of parameters into account, put up with hours and hours of lousy sessions to reach moments that are completely magical but terribly short. You have to be toned, tough and flexible all at the same time. I also appreciate the search for balance between body and mind. I often make the comparison with combat sports like Tai Chi or Kung Fu and all those martial disciplines that involve working the energies. Strength is focused on power, while retaining flow and agility. I have this in mind when I draw lines. I manipulate my client, he feels that I'm with him, we're in rhythm and we fight together to achieve our common goal.
How did you get into surfing?
It was a childhood dream. I used to windsurf when I lived with my parents near Marseille, in Saint Laurent du Var - I'm originally from Burgundy - but I didn't know the waves. I used to dream about it, though, when I saw guys practising in Hawaii and California in the pages of magazines. Surfing waves was something that didn't exist in the Mediterranean. I finally discovered it late in life, in 2001, and I had the joy of sharing this discipline with my sweetheart.
There's a link with nature and the elements that can be found in the iconography, particularly Asian, that you tattoo.
What interests me about surfing is the absence of artifice. It's very rich and very simple at the same time. It's something that can be found in tattooing, and it makes me want to do hand tattoos in the next few years, to explore the Japanese tebori technique, for example, but also that practised in Borneo in Indonesia.
Your style falls between two very strong poles: Asian and tribal. Which of the great tribal traditions have had a particular resonance for you?
Borneo. It's really powerful. Then there's all the Pacific, Marquesan and Maori tattooing. I'd like to make it clear that I do this with a great deal of humility. I'm a little blond guy from Lyon, so I realise the cultural appropriation and I understand that it may offend some people. But I have an ethnic approach to this style. What interests me are the strong lines, the fact that you can twist the subjects, adapt them to the body, have a fairly free composition despite a precise framework.
Are there any tattoo artists you feel close to?
When it comes to tattoos, I could be inspired by guys like Sam Rivers, who does black, ethnic, ornamental tattoos, which to me are powerful, beautiful and covering. Gakkin's work also leaves no one indifferent, it's always very committed. I love black and I love it when it envelops. One thing I've always been keen on with tattoos is having two levels of interpretation. One that's very impactful and immediate, and another that invites you to enter the tattoo and contemplate the details.
What are the virtues of black?
Contrast, power and solidity.
Maori and Marquesan tattoos are designed to cover the whole body, like the Japanese, and you now work almost exclusively on large-format tattoos. How did this progression come about?
I finished my first body-suit two or three years ago, so it's still very new, but it's been a natural progression. It's also by force of circumstance, because the tattoo remains and people are happy to come and see me again. So you add to it and after a while you end up with body suits. Then there's the proliferation of images on the internet and Instagram, and the democratisation of tattooing. People are used to it and have had access to more information. Ten years ago, it was a psychological leap to come and get an arm done. Twenty years ago, it was a completely different matter.
How satisfying is it to work on very large formats?
I need space. The studio here is so big, I'm going to go for the green where I have the forest and the ocean... I need space. For the first exhibition I did here, five years ago, I went straight for large formats. I couldn't conceive of the tattoo on a piece and know how it would end. The first idea that comes to me is: what's going to be around it? Then, if I'm asked to make a patch in the middle of others, I'll use the environment to build on. If there are gaps, they'll serve what's around them, just like in music.
Do you think about your current pieces outside working hours?
I think about it all the time. It's my lifeblood. Because everything is evolving, I think about everything. I'm a technician. I have a rigorous process. You can do anything, but there are a lot of constraints. I just need to get my foot in the door, with a theme, a feeling, and a dimension, from which I build within the framework of the body but also of the sensibility I have in front of me, and which I try to serve as best I can. Then there's what I know how to do and what I want to do. In the end, if you manage to reconcile everything, it's perfect.
What can we wish you for your next 30 years of tattooing?
To be able to refine my path, to go where I need to go, and to be able to touch that thing I've been looking for for so many years.
And what is that?
I don't know, I'm looking for it. I've always felt like I've got something stuck in my gut and one day I need to get it out. I'd like to go more abstract, with more black and more ethnic. I'm already doing that. I do Japanese, conceiving it as tribal or ethnic work, but I'd like it to be more visible. I'd like it to be more graphic, simpler, flatter, more ornamental, while retaining this Asian image in the broadest sense that I find magical, that takes me on a journey, to the exotic, to my roots. + IG : @mathiasbugo
