Folk Art Tattoo Flash

Tino "Rosie "Camanga (1910- ?) came to Honolulu from his native Phillippines sometimes prior to World War II. After observing fellow Filipinos tattooing in the many shops in the downtown/ Chinatown area, in 1944 Rosie was granted a part-time job, and began a career birthed in wartime Honolulu and that lasted until the 1990s. Rosie's primitive, distinctive, obsessively- drawn flash segued from standardized versions of classic tattoo designs to eccentric and mysterious scenarios that were his alone. The format of flash sheets were mere jumping-off points for the world he created. Often sheets were collaged with images he liked, clipped from a magazine, assembled from previous designs, or merely depicting things and sentiments never seen in any other tattoo context. He continued to draw after he stopped tattoing, using the flash format for ever more unexpected forms. Rosie's art anticipates today's stretching of the boundaries of the canon of tattoo themes. But unlike many younger tattoo artists with a self-conscious and ironic stance, Rosie was the real thing: immensely prolific, completely sincere, and driven by a passion for drawing that ultimately sought to satisfy only himself.