Good Times and Fine Lines with Jesse Ocean

Jesse Ocean’s art is super-fine, crazy-detailed, and the patience and skill it must take for him to get it down on paper—let alone transfer it to someone’s skin—is beyond me.

But he does it, and he does it well. He’ll tell you it’s all hard work and determination, but I have a strong feeling Jesse was born a great artist. He’s a natural. He’s also very modest, so this praise-drenched introduction will no doubt make him uncomfortable. Suck it up, Jesse—you’re hugely talented. Most Tauruses are.

Congrats on the show at Pass~Port this year. 

Thanks very much. It was definitely a long time coming. We were supposed to drop that show back in 2020. But then the pandemic rolled through. Yeah, but it worked out okay because then I had two extra years to add more work to that collection.

Right, well, it turned out beautiful. Great job.

Thanks, man.

Okay, I got some icebreakers for you.

Cool.

Jesse, as I understand it, you are a Taurus?

(Laughs) Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, me too. How’s that working out for you?

Good, good. You know, I’m a Byron Bay boy, and you try to escape Byron but then…

But then I drag you back and start talking about astrology and crystals.

Exactly.

We’ll be weaving dreamcatchers by the end of the interview.

Oh, please, let’s go.

Are you stubborn?

Yeah, I’m stubborn, determined, lazy… I’m stubborn as fuck.

How stubborn are you?

I’m really stubborn, but I’m also introspective, and I know I have stubborn tendencies, so I try to override it by not being stuck in my ways; because I know how stubborn us Tauruses can be. As I get older, I’m a lot more aware of that, so I do my best to let things slide and be a bit more collaborative…

Right.

You get a dopamine kick from being commended on something, and for me, that came from art.

So, out of high school, what did you do?

Out of high school? Well, I got booted from Byron Bay High and then…

Wait, why did you get booted?

Just lack of attendance, man. Nothing cool. I just used to go surfing all the time. I missed, like, 200 days or something.

Shit. Really?

Yeah, I missed a lot of school. So, I worked in kitchens, you know, I did a whole bunch of stuff, and then I decided to finish school up in Brisbane. Then from there, I was able to get into QUT (Queensland University of Technology) to study visual arts. So, I did that for three years. Cool. And during that time, I was getting tattooed and looking at getting a tattooing apprenticeship. So, I had some great opportunities come my way: I had the academic study of art and then a look at the artistic trade of tattooing. So, it was a nice juggle between those two worlds.

That’s really cool. So, what was the turning point during that interim between getting kicked out of high school and then returning to finish high school in Brisbane? Did someone give you a kick in the arse and tell you to get it together, or…?

No, it was just me, man. It was just one of those things where during the holidays it was sweet because I’d go skating and stuff with my friends, but then when everyone went back to school, I was in a kitchen. So, it was like, ah, this sucks, you know? And I wanted to make art, not wash dishes. Washing dishes isn’t that creative.

I’ve washed dishes, and I think one thing it’s good for is thinking. You get some major alone time when you wash dishes.

Oh, hell yeah. I’m a veteran dish pig, so I know what you mean. And I got nothing against working in kitchens and stuff, but at that point, I just wanted to be around art.

Right on. Now, your work is super-fine, super-detailed, so it must be really satisfying to finish an illustration, but what’s it like to take that design over and making it a tattoo? I’m assuming the process is completely different.

Well, the process is actually quite similar because a lot of the drawing I do now, I do them thinking that I’m going to turn them into a tattoo. So, the way that I draw it is really similar to the way I’d produce it as a tattoo, and the types of needles I use simulate a pen.

Oh, so it is kinda the same.

Yeah.

So, when you’re drawing something on paper, you’re doing it like you would if it was going to be a tattoo?

Yeah, well… It’s kinda chicken and the egg, y’know? Not all my illustrations will become tattoos, but the application I use to make an illustration is the same application I would employ to create a tattoo.

Okay, gotcha.

It’s one of those things where, after drawing flash so many years, my drawing style has been influenced by that, y’know? Like, I think my tattooing style has refined itself the more that I’ve drawn.

How much time per day do you spend drawing?

Oh man, a lot. It’s hard to work out a work-life balance sometimes. Like, my daily routine is I’m up, I’m heading to the studio, cleaning, doing my stencils, then from 10 till about 6 PM I’m tattooing, and then from 8 till midnight, I’m in the studio again… Drawing. Yeah, either doing tattoo illustrations for the following day, or doing a painting or a drawing… And that’s been how it is the last three years.

So, you’re just spending 16 hours a day in flow state.

Yeah, well, you know it takes discipline…

You gotta keep turning up.

Yeah, you don’t get to wake up and say you don’t feel ‘inspired’ when you’ve got to do a back piece. You’ve gotta be prepared, disciplined, and organised. Tattooing has whipped me into shape, for sure. Essentially, you just gotta keep working and have a set plan.

I don’t want to blow too much smoke up your arse…

Yeah, please don’t.

I just want to say, you’re really good.

Okay, thank you.

But early on, did do some bad tatts?

Oh yeah, I’ve got some trainwrecks walking around for sure. (laughter)

Really?

Oh, yeah, I’m sure there are people out there who hear my name and spit at the ground. (laughter) The thing is though, with most trades, if you’re a chef and you bake a cake that sucks, you can just throw it in the bin and no one can judge you on that cake, no one remembers it. And that’s the deal with most trades, but unfortunately, with tattooing it’s permanent, so you definitely have a few broken eggs walking around. But I’m forever grateful to those people who trusted me and gave me the opportunity to, you know, figure it out. I mean, some of my friends have… I offered to do cover-ups, y’know?

Yeah.

But some people actually love them, like, ‘No, no, it’s great. It reminds me of some good times.’ But the shop I apprenticed in, we took a lot of walk-ins, and I shudder to think where those guys are now. Hopefully, they got lasered—or hopefully, they just fuckin’ love their tattoo, y’know what I mean?

Yeah, I do. Thanks for your time, Jesse.

No worries, man.

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