Meet Sergey Murdoc | Visual art creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sergey Murdoc and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sergey, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
Born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia. Unofficially, we call it the “cultural capital”. Childhood was divided into two sides: one was inside museums and theaters, where a beloved grandmother took care of the creative and spiritual development of her grandson, the other in the depths of street culture, where lessons were taught about friendship and betrayal, the need to defend one’s interests at any cost. Now both educations help me a lot in achieving my goals. My first encounter with tattooing was at the age of 6 when I saw a naked silhouette of a woman on my grandfather’s arm. At that moment I realized that tattoos are what I need. Looking at my interest, my grandfather said not to do this under any circumstances, but you can’t rewind the events. 2001, I’m 15 years old, I’m visiting a friend, it’s very cold outside and we’re getting my first tattoo. Having returned home and thought about everything, I called a friend to find out how to assemble a tattoo machine. An hour later I have the first copy in my hands – a motor from a cassette player, a pen, and a guitar string with my grandfather’s ink. From that moment on, they became my best friends for many years.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’ve been decorating people’s bodies with tattoos for 23 years now. Having been doing more classic lettering and Black and Gray for a long time, at the moment a thought began to arise, the inscriptions should cease to be auxiliary objects, they should emerge from the shadow of images, occupying a dominant place on the body, shining with rays of geometric shapes, forming a tandem of planes and dynamic lines, splashing out into the world is the cry of souls about originality and uniqueness.

2015 – after 14 years of searching, a complete work is born, which will mark the beginning of my direction as an author. After a whole day of drawing a seemingly small area, breaking my head, and finishing the work by nightfall, I return to my apartment in the suburbs of Dusseldorf, throw the photo onto my tablet, and sit for a long time peering at the details, I can’t understand. What is this? Is this the unsteady line, forgive me for the metaphor, “between genius and madness? Having crossed the line, you will either receive an ovation, or you will be smeared by the words of indignation from the public. Soon, a fundamentally important conversation takes place with a colleague on the topic of the injustice of using cultural heritage in a tattoo by only removing information, without bringing anything in return, and I decide to do everything to leave my mark. A year later, having convinced myself of the efficiency of the techniques, I decided to introduce a conceptually new concept – ornamental lettering. 9 years have flown by in a flash, all fears about the delusion of the idea have gone away, ornamental lettering has spread to 5 continents, lives its own life, developing and changing, moving from one master to another, receiving additional stylized clarifying names, and I watch how a child conquers the world and is very I’m proud of him.
The advent of ornamental lettering provoked me to start getting interested in photography and now, almost with great reverence, I wait for the completion of the application process and go in search of an interesting location so that I can click the shutter to record the result of the work in time.
With increased visibility due to the opening of new locations, more ideas began to appear. It’s like a snowball, each previous layer of inspiration builds on the next and you can’t stop. So, following photography, installations burst into my life and performance went beyond the client’s body. Now we are in another dimension. Imagine you are not just in a tattoo studio, you are sitting on a bench at a metro station, people are rushing somewhere around you, a man next to you is waiting for the train reading a newspaper, a kiosk worker at his post is selling comic books, and next door a talented artist, trying to make money, offers his art, some people are passionate about painting walls, since there are no prohibitions and age or social status is not an obstacle to creative realization, and you still get a tattoo on the same bench. I am very happy at the smiles of the people who took part in my fantasy. This is a very interesting, breathtaking, and at the same time difficult process, but it is worth it. Sometimes anxious thoughts come about whether I can cope with the next task, but looking back and realizing the path that has been taken, it seems that it is not so difficult and everything will work out. After all, you are no longer sitting on the couch in your parents’ apartment as a 15-year-old teenager trying to secretly understand the processes of tattooing by experimenting on yourself. Now the World is playing with different colors, you have already opened many doors and there are still many more to open.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’ve been living in California for 2 years and there are places I like to visit in my free time. I would take a friend through the Santa Monica Canyon and stop at one of the Malibu beaches to admire the ocean and continue our journey along Route 1, which offers many stunning views. I would just walk the streets to feel the mood of the place. Los Angeles has a huge number of museums that are worth visiting, some of my favorites are the Museum of Natural Sciences and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Every Sunday Car meets are held here, where you can enjoy the beauty of old and new cars and make new acquaintances. For all coffee connoisseurs, I highly recommend blue bottle coffee. You can taste excellent pizza in Desano, a very atmospheric place without unnecessary gloss, or eat tuna in the iconic fish shop located on the corner of the Redondo Beach harbor, go to the Wilson Observatory, and listen to the silence, taking in the whole of LA at one glance.

 Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Of course, I want to express my gratitude to the family of Bang Bang Custom Tattoo Shop from St. Petersburg for instilling a collected approach to work and introducing the key concepts of dynamic lines, visual zones, the importance of accepting the fact that a tattoo should be inscribed in the body, and not just be on one of its parts.
Huge respect for the West Coast letter writers who have inspired me over the years. Maxim Primo for joint creative evenings.
Alex Sorsa for his immeasurable knowledge in the field of art history.
The StonedRiders crew helped without hesitation.
To the family that supports me in my business.
Of course, I am grateful to everyone who has met along my life’s path

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sergeymurdoc

Image Credits
My tattoo machine