Mossy333
Mossy Jade Johnson (she/her) is a trans multidisciplinary artist currently residing in Boorloo. From painting to sculpture to sound installation, Mossy’s practice is as organic as it is electric. Her most recent solo exhibition, titled ‘Pistachio,’ is a testament to how Mossy can fruit an entire world from something as small as a pistachio seed.
@mossy333_tattoo
Boorloo
Interviewed by Julia Rose Bak (they/them)
How would you describe your artistic practice? What mediums do you practice in and are there any recurring themes in your art?
I love jumping between different mediums. Day to day, I mostly work with people to create tattoos - and that's amazing and lovely - but I think I'm most interested in both painting and tattooing and the ways these mediums speak to each other. With tattoos, I'm very much trying to create something that is going to be perfect for that person: it may be my visual language, but I'm interpreting their story, and what that piece might mean to me for them and their body. With tattooing, sometimes it feels like it's more informed by them than me; whereas my painting is more my private self and building my own little world within that.
I think the tattoos act more as a space to translate people and what they're needing in that moment. But then, maybe with my painting or my sculptures, I'm interested in this theme of world-building. When I was a baby trans growing up here - or a baby queer before coming into transness - I was making work that was about escapism. I was really interested in surreal landscapes and these sort of alternate realities. I think that was because it was hard to be here back then, and I think that that's informed my art practice in that I'm always thinking creatively. I think I'm a very visual person, and so I'm analyzing little moments in pedestrian life; and then, I'm inspired by and abstracting it and it starts to exist in my world-building realm.
I love to see the paintings become sculptures that then become installations; that then integrates the performance back into it, to be able to tell a story from that place. But I think that it all kind of boils down to this main thing that I'm always caught between: this techy, sci-fi kind of world that we live in, but then also how nature is all around us, particularly here on Noongar country. As a non-Indigenous person who's not from here, I feel very lucky to have the relationship that I do with this place because of the beautiful nature. It’s totally inspiring and a part of all the work that I do, because I love nature. I guess this relationship between technology and nature is the main source of inspo from my work; but then that also comes back to being trans because trans people don't exist in nature: we're bodies of medicine and bodies of science. So I guess I’m so curious to know what the relationship is between this... Who is this cyborgy tr*nny who is of nature but is also from technology? I guess you could say that the tattoos are like little plants and little creatures and little motifs that are maybe extracted from that world that I'm building as a visual artist.
With the tattoos, people see this cohesive visual style, and they just seem so different to me – because they're about how we're all so different – but I think they are all coming from this world. It has this almost organic feeling to it but then it’s also so sci-fi, and a bit different and a bit surreal: there’s something about it that’s a bit more transpecies or transmutable. That's the beauty of extractions; it’s not so binary or so defined, and that’s why abstraction appeals to me.
Everything is about bodies, and everything is about being trans; and I feel very lucky to be trans because it gives me this very special relationship with my body. I think that because I've had to struggle with my body, it means that I can also have this incredible awareness of the body. So with the tattoo style that I’ve found myself in, a lot of it is about contouring the body: and this idea of the body contour started for me with my relationship to my own body. I'm thinking, how can I place a tattoo in a particular area that is going to draw someone's eye to what I want them to see, and help reshape something that I'm struggling with as a shape in my body and how it’s looking or feeling.
I think that for a lot of queer people – but also just people in general in this contemporary context of why we get tattoos – it’s about marking a time in your life. Or it’s about trying to reclaim your body back after an experience, or just wanting to feel like your body is yours and you can decorate it in a way that makes you feel good. I’m trying to create this feeling of euphoria in the body with the body contours, and it’s very much informed by being trans. That space with people is very collaborative, and this is sort of speaking more to the draw on style. I either do a flash design – which still is, like, placement is everything: I’m very particular about placement, because it’s got to look like it’s really meant to be on someone. But when it’s like a draw on piece it feels like – it’s crazy to me how line and shape and form are such simple things but there’s so much personality that can come out through those visual gestures, and that they can feel so right or not right on someone. Which is what makes it so personal. And for me it’s a very much intuitive process, where you’re drawing on someone’s body, you're working in the mirror, it’s this collaborative exchange. I’m picking up on stuff which I’m either applying in a visual way on someone’s body or we’re negotiating that together until it feels right. You get hit with this feeling of like “oh my God, that’s it,” which feels like the permission to move on and be like okay, now we have the silhouette of what this piece is meant to be for you so now let’s get into the tattoo.
With painting, I’ve never planned a piece, it’s always this process of kind of delving into the subconscious and letting it realize itself in front of me – which is why I feel like every piece is actually just a self-portrait. Even though none of them are a person, they’re all kind of jumping into my mind at a certain point in time and that subconscious space that I’m sitting in. People have been seeing lots of birds, and – interestingly – I’ve got a lemon tree in my house and my boo Reid has been attracting birds with seed, so we sit and look at the birds, and there are a lot of birds that people see in the recent pieces. And my cousins are nurses and they were seeing these diagrams of bodies and stuff, and bodies come up a lot in the pieces, which would make sense if I’m already thinking of the body and how it’s fluid and these kind of things.
“I'm very much trying to create something that is going to be perfect for that person: it may be my visual language, but I'm interpreting their story, and what that piece might mean to me for them and their body.”
That’s such a beautiful answer, Mossy – thank you so much. With your tattooing, when you have a new client, or even a returning client, what would that initial consultation look like?
The first time I got a tattoo I was 18. It was in a shop, and I walked out with something that was really big and shaded on my chest. I felt really intimidated by the man that did it. I didn’t know him and I think because I was so young I walked out with this adrenaline of like “oh my God I have a tattoo!” but once I came down from all of that I realised that he hadn’t actually listened to me. He hadn’t talked to me much at all and he intimidated me into doing what he wanted me to do. So I think after having a few more experiences like that I just thought, “well, I’d much prefer to get tattoos by friends.”
My early stages of getting into tattooing was fostered by Anita (@ichikawalee) – my tattoo dad. They were the first person to believe in me and be like, “girl, jump, do it.” So having these early conversations with Anita, where we just talked about, like, what would we want a session to feel like – and keep in mind that this new wave of boutique instagram tattoo artist has really only taken off in the last five, maybe eight years. But I think for me I really saw that Anita was someone that was trying to make a point of difference with that, and so I always have to shout them out because it was with them that we were like, “oh, what kind of experience would we want in a tattoo session? What kind of energy would we want to foster?”
I think the conversation before starting a tattoo is literally just having a chat and having a vibe. I want to know what you’ve been up to that day and what you’ve been thinking and feeling and what’s been going on. Once we have the design, I tend to talk shit long and tatoo quick. Sometimes people might not have much that they want to talk about and that’s alright, but for some people, if it’s a significant time or a significant piece, all of those chats that we have at the start do inform the piece and helps me to understand that person, their relationship with their body, and their relationship with this piece in particular.
Because a lot of queer and trans people come to me, a lot of people of colour, all of us coming from our different experiences have these really valuable ways of looking at the world and looking at our bodies, and because I’m lucky enough to tattoo all of these people they usually have something really juicy to bring to the session that does inform the design. So I think for me it’s about trying to translate that story and bring it into the piece that is then this collaborative process with them watching themselves in the mirror while I walk around them and draw the design on their body.
Is there anything you do after a full day of tattooing, or if you’ve had a day that has used more of your energy?
I think that because it exists in this energetic space with many of my clients, the act of resetting the room and cleansing it is kind of like the theme that comes into the painting, "let's get all of the spirit out of the room with some clinical cleaning products." It's as if the tattoos are clinically clean, so resetting the room and cleansing it is quite literal. As a young person realizing that I have a spirituality that is informed by my dad, I feel that the altar exists in my mind and body in many ways. There's a lot of woo-woo that is really appropriative and taking from cultures that feel inappropriate, so I use different kinds of energy to work with a person and to clean the room out, because using certain elements on a country that I'm not from doesn't feel appropriate. These days I use smells, like an oil diffuser in the room, because it smells really nice for when people come in. But then, sometimes I'll clear the room out with my own energy again, so it's a clear slate for me and for the person that's going to come in next.
I think that if I don't overwork myself - it is a balance - I don't have to resort to doing something to build myself back up after being so spent. I'm lucky with the people who come and see me because they also give me a lot of energy, and it's rare that I feel exhausted after a session. Usually, I feel energized, excited, and buzzing with the person. But I feel like I have to foster what I do to wind down a little bit more. My tattooing is a lot on the body, and I have a lot of pains that I used to not experience so much when I was doing more movement-based work. Now, I'm getting into all of these weird shapes to do a tattoo, and I think I need to look into my relationship with that and foster it a bit more. Stretching, yoga, or something like that. I love a big walk, though. It always helps clear the mind out a bit as well. It's like a decompression moment.
I feel really lucky because I think it's hard to fully perceive what my work looks like or feels like as the person who's creating it, but it obviously has a certain resonance that attracts a certain person. I feel very lucky with who comes to see me because people are lovely. It does feel like a lovely exchange for me.
