KAILUA-KONA — A longtime Big Island resident, tattoo artist Rockwood is known more for working with ink than paint and canvas.
“I started tattooing in 1969, when I was 11. I had to tattoo myself because there was nobody that was going to tattoo an 11-year-old,” Rockwood said. “That’s how I basically perfected my style, by tattooing myself.”
Since those early days, Rockwood has decorated many famous musicians and actors during his career, including stars such as Nikki Sixx of Motley Crew, Cher and Madonna. For the past 24 years, he has set up shop at Big Island Tattoo in Kailua-Kona.
But aside from tattoos, Rockwood is also a traditional artist.
He said that art has been a part of his family for generations, and that his own career goes back to the ‘8os, when he was living in Los Angeles and creating art for rocks bands, television and the film industry.
Here in Kona, Rockwood sells original paintings at the Kona Oceanfront Gallery. Rockwood said he has been painting for most of his life, but has only been in the gallery for a few years now, after owner Mark Hanna saw some of his artwork. Rockwood claims he now has more original art in the gallery than anyone else.
It was his long stint as a tattoo artist in Los Angeles that led Rockwood to the island.
“I needed to get out of Hollywood,” Rockwood said. “I just needed to get out. All my friends were movie stars and rocks stars. And when you realize all your friends are movie stars and rock stars, you realize you really don’t have a lot of friends. So my wife and I decided we really needed to get out. So we came over here 24 years ago and haven’t looked back once. I love it.”
Life on Hawaii dominates most of Rockwood’s art at the gallery, where his paintings of ocean life, volcanoes and tiki art hang next to his painted surfboards.
“What happened was, when we moved here 24 years ago, we rented this house, and we were cleaning it up and on the roof there was an old surfboard. First thought in my mind was, hey it’s a surfboard, let’s paint some dolphins on it,” Rockwood said. “So I painted the whole thing blue, painted some dolphins on it, and hung it up at the tattoo shop. Somebody came in as said, ‘Oh that’s cool’ and I sold it.”
Rockwood claims his philosophy for creating art is that simple.
“I don’t get inspiration. I don’t know what it means to be inspired to do something. I just do what I love to do. It just comes naturally,” Rockwood said. “I just sit down and I want to do something and I look at the piece, and it’s basically like the gods just speak to me and say this is what you need to do and that’s what I do.”
For Hanna and the gallery, the variety that Rockwood is able to paint is part of his appeal.
“He kind of has a couple of different genres, and he does the tiki culture pretty well. He’s known for doing these great tiki caricatures … and then he can do very traditional stuff as well,” Hanna said. “He’s known as the tattoo artist of the stars so he’s very versatile; he can go from one end of the spectrum to the other. He’s diverse, he’s very talented and a very big name in this town.”
Rockwood was painting live last week at Kona Oceanfront Gallery as the first art exhibition in the gallery’s Hot Summer Show Nights, which will feature different Hawaii Island artists throughout the summer. Rockwood said live painting has a performance aspect to it that’s similar to tattooing, but both mediums have different qualities that he loves.
“When I’m doing paintings on canvas, or on a surfboard or on paper, I can relax. I don’t have to entertain anybody when I’m doing this and it’s just me and my space,” Rockwood said. “But when I’m tattooing people, then I get to entertain them. It’s like being a comedian or an actor on stage and I have that immediate response from them, and it’s a lot of fun doing that.”
His paintings might not be planned, but his tattoos are a different story.
“Joey Allen, from the band Warrant, he’s a guitar player, I put a hula girl on his arm last year, and it’s a portrait of his wife as a hula girl,” Rockwood said. “But this year, in January, I’m going to put a volcano and some palm trees, and I’m going to do a big scene on him, so that’s going to be one of my favorites I’ve ever done. I haven’t done it yet, but I know it’s going to turn out really cool.”
After almost 50 years of experience, Rockwood said he’s not sure what he loves about being an artist, it’s just what he does for a living. He said there is one thing that keeps him going.
“When people come up to me and they go, ‘I love that, that’s beautiful, I love what you did’ — I guess that would be the driving force of why I do what I do. Because I love that accolade,” Rockwood said. “I love it when people recognize something I do and they like it. And some people actually give me money.”
