- Interview Date: 6/7/2025
- Format: In-Person, One on One
Anime Herald: What is your origin story?
Chris Burton: Specifically talking about tattooing, I became aware of it through hardcore music. When I was a teenager I was into comics and graffiti. That’s how I started making art and why it leans the way it does. I started getting tattooed.
I was working in art museums. I was around the fine art world and I didn’t really like it. I didn’t like the stuffiness of it or the commodification of art. I started getting tattooed, and I realized “this is checking all of the boxes.”
It can’t be re-sold. Someone can’t buy it from you. You don’t need to go to school to understand it. It’s art for regular people. I liked that aspect of it. It liked the sound of the needle and the machines. The smell of the green soap. I was completely enthralled by it. After I got my first one, I was totally into it.
I started drawing. I quit my job as an art handler at MoMA. I got a job as the front person at a tattoo shop. That led to an apprenticeship. It all worked out.
Anime Herald: You mentioned music. What were some of the bands you were listening to?
Chris Burton: A lot of straight-edge hardcore. Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Black Flag. From there, more contemporary stuff.
Anime Herald: How did you end up in art galleries?
Chris Burton: I originally went to school for art education at Ohio State. I realized I couldn’t be a teacher; I didn’t have the skills to talk to kids. I transitioned from that into working in galleries. That led to working in museums. I did that for around eight years. I got to see how things worked from behind the scenes. How the boards worked with acquisitions. Just watching all the big money interests was such a turn off. I was disillusioned. I always felt like art should have some positive impact on people’s lives. It was just making rich people more money.
Anime Herald: Who did you apprentice with?
Chris Burton: Jeremy Sutton, Josh Egnew, Boxcar. This was at Electric Anvil in Brooklyn.
Anime Herald: Who were some of the artists who inspired you?
Chris Burton: Ron English is a huge one. The billboard liberation stuff. Banksy. The skateboarding deck graphic stuff. Video games, Warhammer. Stuff I was interested in before I got into tattooing.
Once I got into tattooing, Ed Hardy. He gave us the map that we’re all following. If I’m thinking about people who are more contemporary… Boxcar was a heavy influence on me. Jeff Rasher, another heavy influence on me. He was interested in underground comments as well.
There are so many good people I’m constantly stealing ideas from. There are people I aspire to like Regino Gonzales, Chris Garver. They’re doing work that’s so elevated from anything I’m capable of, it’s hard to say they’re a direct influence. I can’t wrap my mind around some of it.
Anime Herald: When you draw, how does it work for you?
Chris Burton: I kind of do ‘em as automatics. I’m a simple person. There’s nothing going on, up in my brain. My hands have to make it. I start with some shapes. If I’m filling in a gap, there’s a bit of an idea beforehand, because there are so many limitations. That’s something I like when making art, when there are those limitations. That’s a Jasper Johns thing. He’d make constraints and then work within them to help his creative process.
Within tattooing, fitting the space is such a good place to jump off from. I have a certain vocabulary. With a space, I’ll be like, “This is the jaw, so this is the face, and I’ll fill it in.” It kind of tells me as I draw what I need to know. I can’t just look at a space and be like “that’s what we’re doing.” I need to figure it out through brute force how to make the most of any area.
Anime Herald: It’s clear you have a pretty good classical education in art history.
Chris Burton: That’s from working in museums for close to a decade. I worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. The Whitney. MoMA. A ton of other random jobs. I got to meet a lot of important artists. Thinking about my work right now, The Chicago Imagists, Jim Nutt. Their abstraction and folk art. We’re all constantly being influenced. With Boxcar, a lot of the cubist stuff. That’s seeped into my work. Aztec artwork.
Anime Herald: Those panthers have that Aztec old-school vibe.
Chris Burton: There’s a lot of stuff floating around in my head. I won’t always know how or why it comes together the way it does. You know if it looks cool or not. If it doesn’t, you keep working it out.
Anime Herald: Do you read manga or watch anime?
Chris Burton: I’m so out of the loop. I haven’t seen anything in probably around twenty years. Akira was Earth-shattering for me. That’s something I’ll still watch every couple of years.
Anime Herald: It’s foundational.
Chris Burton: If I could draw like that…
Anime Herald: Otomo is on another level.
Chris Burton: I’m thirty-eight. I was right in the pocket for Toonami. Dragon Ball Z. The Frieza saga. Gundam Wing. Outlaw Star. Trigun. Ninja Scroll. You had to watch that one with your hand on the remote in case your parents came downstairs.
Anime Herald: Thank you very much.
Chris Burton: Thank you.
You can find more from Chris at https://www.burtontattoos.com/
Tattoo Artist Chris Burton Talks With Anime Herald at Five Points Fest – Seth Burn