The ArtFusion Experiment found its beginnings in 2000 on the Tattoo the Earth festival, hosted by Paul Booth.
The first collaborative ArtFusion experiment was actually a tattoo placed by Paul Booth and Filip Leu on recording artist Ryan, of Mudvayne. This freehand chest piece was spontaneously tattooed, with no real plan to guide its development. The piece incubated and evolved as two of the most recognizable names in tattoo took turns working on Ryan's chest. What resulted is a style that only Filip and Paul can create together. That cooperative effort is the foundation on which The ArtFusion Experiment has been built.
As expected, Paul and Filip took the art form a step further by inviting two more tattoo legends, Bernie Luther and Sean Vasquez, to take part in the first ArtFusion collaboration on canvas. Every five minutes, they would rotate to the next canvas. By keeping a short time limit, no one artist could have enough time to dominate the image. The final outcome created an artistic style representative of the entire group and left the individual artists refreshed by the idea of creating their style from the ground up. The galleries below exhibit the first eight works completed by the team.
The ArtFusion Experiment officially premiered as a stage performance at Paul Booth's 1st Annual Massachusetts Tattoo Festival in 2001. At this time, Paul and Filip welcomed Guy Aitchison to the team and found that in doing so, a crucial balance was achieved. Three artists from three completely different walks of life have come together as brothers and have dedicated themselves to bringing this movement into the mainstream art world. The show also found huge success in larger arenas on the Tattoo the Earth tour, 2002, which visited the Allstate Arena in Chicago, IL and the Oakland Coliseum, CA.
A three-day event at the Serrano Hotel in San Francisco marked ArtFusion Camp's formal inception, drawing artists from twenty different countries. This past October ArtFusion Camp, in conjunction with the 2nd Annual Massachusetts Tattoo Festival, received such enthusiastic response that it has generated worldwide attention and is now planning events in Europe.
The direction of ArtFusion, much like the direction of each ArtFusion piece, fears no boundaries, abides by no set of rules and always finds a way to succeed. So long as the artistic spirit evolves, so will The ArtFusion Experiment.