Los Angeles, CA (KTLA) — In an effort to tell “a hundred tiny stories” for her latest art exhibition, a 22-year-old Los Angeles artist has asked people to donate not only their money, but names and ideas to be tattooed on her body.
Illma Gore stands nearly 6-feet tall, and plans to cover herself in other peoples’ names and designs for a project she calls both absurd and beautiful.
“It’s art. It will annoy people or make them happy or make them smile. Either way, that’s what art’s supposed to do,” Gore told KTLA.
Gore hopes to raise $6,000 through KickStarter to cover the cost of 60 hours worth of tattooing.
For $10, Gore says she will tattoo the donors name on her leg. Twenty-five dollars buys you and a friend’s names next to each other on Gore’s leg.
Anyone wanting more than just their name on Gore’s body can donate $100 to get a tattoo of their design that is 2 by 4 inches; and for $1,000 donors can design a tattoo that will cover either the front or back of her right thigh.
As a suggestion for the largest piece offered, Gore stated, “Why not your portrait? David Hassel Hoff, a common duck?”
Her only apparent restriction was, “nothing too offensive,” according to the KickStarter page.
“There is something absurd and beautiful about having an accumulation of absolute strangers names draped over my pale goth skin, even if half of them are ‘Penis Butt,'” she stated on the website.
The daughter of a land developer in Australia who made millions before losing it all, Gore spent some of her teenage years homeless and found a creative outlet through her art – which has been exhibited in installations from L.A. to New York.
“The first lesson I learned when I was 3 years old was not to draw on walls, and now I do it for a living,” she said.
A tattoo on her forehead that reads “life is art” best describes her, she said.
By the end of the project, Gore hopes she will have tattoos, “Everywhere, everywhere that doesn’t (currently) have a tattoo.”
