I curated the 100 Hands Project that forms the centrepiece of the exhibition Tattoo: British Tattoo Art Revealed. It opened at at the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall, in March 2017 until January 2018, it then toured the UK.

Tattoos are art, that’s not a question up for debate, but all tattoos are not created equal, some are “good” and some “bad”. Tattooing is another medium and tattoos can be analysed in a way that any other works of art can – watercolours, sculptures, sketches, oil paintings. This means that some are worthy of being housed in a museum. The problem is, of course, tattoos aren’t objects that can be put in a frame or housed in a cabinet. They are on the skin of living, breathing people, which means ordinarily they disappear from existence once the wearer’s life is over.

The 100 Hands Project is a way of representing the three-dimensional, living nature of the tattoo. I handpicked 100 of the best tattooists all working in the UK right now providing a snapshot of the work tattoo collectors are currently getting inked onto their skin, from black and grey and geometric to neo-traditional and colour realism. My selection includes the most respected, talented and popular artists. And they have each created an original design on a silicone arm.

Go to th-ink.co.uk to see a full list of exhibition artists