© Cheyenne Randall
Marlon Brando. Johnny Cash. Elvis Presley. These men were undoubtedly badass. The only thing that would have made them more so? Tattoos.
That’s the revelation that Seattle-based artist Cheyenne Randall had while bedridden with a dislocated kneecap several years ago. He had passed much of his recovery time watching movies, and during a viewing of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest he wondered what Jack Nicholson would look like inked.
Randall pulled a screenshot of the actor into Photoshop and searched the Internet for tattoos. He warped and wrapped the tats onto Nicholson’s body, then posted the finished product to Instagram. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, so he tatted another celeb. Then another. By the time his knee healed two months later, he’d made over 200 of the edgy images that have garnered him a cult following.
Marlon Brando © Cheyenne Randall
“From the very beginning, it has been important to me to stick to quality, American traditional tattooing and really beautiful studio or portrait shots of actors and actresses,” he says. By using old photographs and manipulating them, he avoids copyright issues.
When he started, most of Randall’s 1,000 Instagram followers were people interested in Native American artwork, which had been the previous focus of his creative endeavors. His father, a full Sioux Indian (Lakota) from Rosebud, South Dakota, was a self-taught artist. Randall, who was born in Minneapolis, raised in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, and moved to Seattle with his mother at age 10, spent summers at his father’s side; the two began painting together when Randall was only five. Doodles and sketches in middle school and high school led to full-scale mixed media in his 20s. Those pieces used an acrylic gel transfer process and often featured old photographs of Native Americans, onto which he added clouds and spiritually significant imagery.
“I’d been doing that for a long time but it didn’t get as much recognition because people love their icons,” Randall says. “I don’t blame them. I think we’re all somewhat obsessed with celebrity and the mysteriousness behind who these people are and were.”
Bettie Page © Cheyenne Randall
Adding the hashtag #shoppedtattoos to the new series of inked portraits attracted more attention to the work. “It started spreading like wildfire,” he says. His @indiangiver Instagram account now has more than 120,000 followers.
Some might wonder why Randall chose a derogatory term as his handle. Aside from not wanting a generic Instagram identifier like Randall123, he hoped to raise awareness about the phrase’s origins. “Racism is still pretty huge,” he says. “Stereotypes, Native appropriations, mascot issues—these are all important to me. At the same time, I can be a smart-ass. I know how to give and take a joke. It was a tongue-in-cheek matter.”
Randall points out there are plenty of non-Native artists, such as the band War Paint, that reference Native culture with no justification other than “it sounded cool.” “Yeah, it may sound cool,” he says, “but what’s behind it? I’ll show you. I like to make people think. There’s usually something deeper behind what an artist is doing or saying. Nothing I do is without thought.”
Wonder Woman © Cheyenne Randall
The inked prints sell for $25 to $45 on Randall’s website, and the line has expanded to the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Bettie Page as well as more contemporary icons like Julia Roberts and Winona Ryder. In a life-imitates-art twist, some of his buyers and fans are celebrities themselves, including Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead and James Franco.
Randall says he’s been contacted by galleries and branding agencies that want to represent him but he hasn’t seen the need to join forces. Comparing his grassroots efforts to hip-hop artists Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, he says, “It’s all via social media. I’m doing fine by myself. It’s a great tool. It’s a great resource.”
He does admit, however, that he’s been inundated with printing and shipping lately when he’d rather be making art. “I’m not spending any time in the studio developing my stronger passions,” he says. “That’s not fun for me. That’s not ideal for furthering my ambitions.”
John and Jacquiline Kennedy © Cheyenne Randall
He may soon hire people for order fulfillment so he can do more of the mixed media he loves. But don’t worry—those inked celebs aren’t going anywhere. In fact, they’re getting bigger, and being mounted onto wood panels where Randall paints around them. Several of those pieces have already sold out, including one of former President John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy Onassis priced at $1,000.
Randall has also been working with hundred-year-old ledger paper, an art form that hails from the 1860s when Plains Indians began using ledger books to pictorially tell the stories of war.
“My capabilities are above and beyond Photoshopping tattoos,” Randall says. Surely the art world is eager to see more.
