Lee Wagstaff

Who is Lee Wagstaff?

Lee Wagstaff is an English artist who spent four and half years acquiring all-over tattoos with designs based on cross-cultural geometrical symbols drawing on religious influences from his Roman Catholic upbringing and Indian family members.

He studied at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and Royal College of Art, London, and Kyoto City University of Arts, Kyoto, Japan, and has widely exhibited himself and his large format photographic self-portraits at fine art and performance art venues worldwide. His performance was featured in the Ornament Und Abstraction show at the Beyeler Foundation, Basel, Switzerland, and he was the first ever Western artist to be featured in the Art Annual, Kobe, Japan.

His Shroud, a self-portrait screenprinted in his own blood, was included in the Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition Impressions of the Century — 100 Years of the Fine Art Print.

“The emergence of Lee’s image on the Shroud elevates him to the status of a surrogate divine seemingly without the intervention of God. It comes off as both disquietingly heroic and at the same time spiritually arrogant” - David Bowie