Jeremy Shaw, Chest Piece (Portrait (ATEP 2017))

Movember is an annual event involving the growing of moustaches and facial hair during the month of November to raise awareness of men's health issues like prostate cancer and mental health. This month incredible important to thousands of people and has affected my family directly, my grandfather Lyndsay "Curly" Potter was diagnosed with prostate cancer and past away in 2009. If body parts are real estate for art, then the chest is prime land reserved for the most important marks and messages. Since early human history tattoos have been used to communicate rank, pledge love, seek protection, demonstrate loyalty and identify slaves. Now more popular than ever, the design of a tattoo, its size, visibility and positioning on the body ­still speaks of individual choice and of personal story. Chest piece tattoos make the internal external: covering, describing or reinventing the heart on flesh. Jeremy Shaw's portraits of friends and associates explores the illustrations that individuals exhibit on their bodies, the contrasting approaches to the chest as canvas and the values that lie beneath the skin.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.