Ramon Maiden | Cooking in Hell

Ramon Maiden is an artist currently based out of Barcelona, Spain who reappropriates vintage illustrations from postcards, calendars, and various prints to transform them into fully tattooed characters and subjects with a mere ball-point pen. Maiden uses everything from Vargas pin-ups to religious prints depicting Saints and other holy characters to create his detailed drawings of full body tattoos.

“ I was born in 1972 in Barcelona, but I’ve never felt bound anywhere and I have traveled extensively. I lived in other countries and I considered NYC as my second city. I have never studied art and my training as an artist has been entirely self-taught. My training, ideas, sources of inspiration… are all dynamic and changing, and so are the techniques and methods I employ. I try not to focus on anything too specific and progress by using different sources and experimenting. My training as a social worker, my passion for traveling, my family history and my experience with visual arts…are all very diverse and not at all uniform, which allows me to be very creative. I recently started painting on wood, is a bit complicated because you have to be very careful and delicate, but the result is very rewarding. My work is a reflection of my way of life, my career, training, experiences, travels, interests. It is difficult to define and is constantly moving, growing and modified on the fly. I am very interested in history, the ancient religions, politics and my art is imbued with that.“