Tattoo artist Nigel Palmer may have inspired the futuristic tattoos in the film, but he wasn’t aware of that fact until I contacted him to chat about the tats.
“To be honest I didn’t know anything about it,” Palmer told MTV News. “That’s sort of really nice and I didn’t realize that my work is spread around that much. I’m pretty slow at updating my website. I don’t really promote myself. I just do my work.”
In a recent issue of Inked magazine, production designer Andy Nicholson divulged the inspiration behind the bold designs etched onto the back of Four and the collarbone of Tris: Russian constructivist imagery and the work of Palmer, a British tattoo artist.
“His stuff if some of the most interesting, non-representative abstract art I’ve seen applied on a body,” he said. “That was sort of the starting-off point.”
The briefest of glances at Palmer’s website reinforces Nicholson’s assertion. You won’t find any dragons or pinups or koi fish in this artists’s portfolio. His pieces of geometric and futuristic, inspired in part, he said, by sci-fi films.
“I don’t really do straight sci-fi type themes, but a lot of things I do privately are influenced by things I imagine when I’m reading sci-fi,” he said.
That’s likely why his work applied so well to “Divergent.” Nicholson was aiming to create the tattoos of the future for the film, pieces that look like nothing you’d see in your average tattoo book.
Now aware of the reach of his work, Palmer would be willing to take his job of muse to the next level.
“One thing that sort of inspired me a little bit about the revelation of them looking up my work [is to] actually try to contact them directly and have a chat,” he said. “If they do like my work and they’re doing movies and projects with [tattoos], it would certainly be an interesting thing for future possible developments.”
Well, Palmer, there are likely two more “Divergent” films in the works, so it certainly seems prudent to pick up the phone.
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