Pietro Sedda, internationally renowned tattooist, as well-known on the tattoo scene as he is in the worlds of fashion, art, and interior design, has released a new publishing project: Rosacenere, bringing together in over 200 pages, illustrations, tattoos, and photographs in a visual voyage that recounts the stories of all who have entrusted their skin to his able hands.

From the creative inspiration to the physical materiality expressed through tattoo. From the skin to its epilogue through various forms of beauty. We met him in his studio, the Blueroom, in his Milan base, just back from Cabras, in Sardinia, his beloved birthplace, where he has his other studio, with a cabinet of curiosities to explore with him.

Pietro, let’s begin with the title: why Rosacenere?

Rosacenere is a circular path which winds towards infinity between the skin (rosa, pink) and its natural epilogue, ash (cenere). Skin, in this book, is the manifestation of a body freed from any judgment and revealed with pride.

The ash, our sacred essence, transforms the experience of the body into a rite. Ash is what we are in the most sacred and original sense of ourselves.

]

Through the pages of the book we embark on a voyage through various worlds accompanied by your creativity. What will we meet along the way?

We encounter beauty, in various forms. The beauty of sea creatures that swim in space of whales doing a balancing act, dark jellyfish with a human gaze, and other animals, shown in their habitats or surreal contexts, the beauty of fantastic, shapeshifting beings, figures from Christian tradition and mythological divinities. As well as cosmological visions and patterns imbued with symbolism.

And faces…

Yes, with huge visionary eyes: face-springs from which water bubbles, face-lighthouses which emit light, blooming faces, deformed or liquified like in the paintings of Dalì.

Together with your pieces you’ve included photos you took on your travels. Why is this?

I want Rosacenere to also serve as a photographic memoir of the countries of sunlit beauty that I have visited. And also of the power of ignorance to create wonder, a physical journey down roads teeming with unfamiliar faces, strange smells, the colours and patterns of rare antique fabrics, countries where time is relative and the light picks out the natural beauty. People, streets, faces, lights, architecture, chairs…

All bearing the memory of man in his daily grind, pointless and shabby, anonymous and alienating, for me an exciting memoir made possible by photography. To me they are all potential sources of inspiration and my invitation to travel, discover new worlds which are essentially the foundation of this book and even more so of my work.