Play vs. Contemplation
A tattoo based on Apollo and Dionysus, exploring control, instinct,
classical imagery, and the way a painting changes when it becomes part of the body.
This tattoo was made for @coma_ at Visions of Ecstasy in Berlin.
At the beginning, it was not about mythology at all. She showed me the painting, I responded to the composition, and that was enough to begin. No heavy concept, no theoretical framework, no need to explain the image before making it. It simply felt balanced, strong, and visually clear. Sometimes that is enough: an instinctive yes before language arrives.
Only afterwards did the meaning begin to open. I kept returning to the two figures in the image: Apollo and Dionysus. They carry two very different forces. Apollo is associated with structure, clarity, order, measure, and restraint. Dionysus belongs to instinct, emotion, excess, transformation, and release. One organizes. The other dissolves. One holds the frame. The other tests its limits.
What interested me was not the opposition in a simple way, but the fact that both forces are necessary. The tension between Apollo and Dionysus is not only mythological or philosophical. It appears constantly in ordinary life, in the studio, in the work, and in the body itself. There is the need to stay composed, focused, and precise, and there is also the desire to loosen control, to move differently, to let something less disciplined come forward.
Nietzsche famously used Apollo and Dionysus to think about art, but the idea reaches beyond philosophy. It describes a human condition: the part of us that builds systems, identities, and structures, and the part that wants to break them open. Neither side fully disappears. They coexist, sometimes in balance and sometimes in conflict.
When we decided to split the painting in two and place each half on her stomach, the image changed completely. It stopped being a single scene and became a dialogue. One figure on each side of the body, pulling quietly from left to right. The tension no longer belonged only to the painting. It became physical, connected to posture, breath, and movement.
That is what made the placement important. With every shift of the body, every inhale and exhale, the relationship between the two sides changes. The image is no longer fixed in the way it would be on a canvas or a museum wall. It moves with her. It adapts to her rhythm. The body becomes part of the composition, not just the surface that carries it.
This is what continues to interest me about working with classical references. They arrive already full of history, interpretation, and cultural weight, but once they are translated into tattoo, something changes. The image becomes intimate. It is no longer only about mythology, painting, or art history. It belongs to a person, to their movement, to their way of carrying themselves through the world.
Maybe the tattoo still shows Apollo and Dionysus. But on her body it also shows something more immediate: the balance many of us try to maintain between control and desire, stability and release, clarity and instinct. A very old image becomes a very human kind of tension.
Text by noTATTOO Berlin.
Explore the original painting: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4AxRnJorge
Overview of Apollo and Dionysus in Greek mythology (World History Encyclopedia): https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1801/apollo-and-dionysus-the-two-gods-of-art/
Apollo vs. Dionysus – summary of Nietzsche’s theory (The School of Life): https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/nietzsche-and-the-apollonian-and-dionysian/
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Nietzsche's Apollo/Dionysus concept: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/
Dionysian archetype in art, ritual, and psychology (Jung Platform): https://www.jungplatform.com/article/the-dionysian-archetype
Visual depictions of Apollo and Dionysus in classical and modern art: https://www.wikiart.org/en/paintings-by-theme/mythology-apollo-and-dionysus
