People have always marked their bodies with signs of rebellion, social status and cultural identity. I am sure that we all are familiar with body art, but what different personal and social meaning can body art express; there are no cultures in which people do not or did not paint. Reshape, pierce, tattoos or simple adorn their bodies. Body art is a way of people expressing themselves. Fashions change and form of body art come and go but people everywhere do something to change their appearance. Everyone dresses or adorns some parts of their body to present to the world. There are several body art techniques but the one that people use more these day are body shaping, tattoos, and hairstyle.
In "Body Art as Visual Language" by Enid Schildkrout she said that body art is a visual language. " To understand it one needs to know the vocabulary, including the shared symbols, myths, and social values that are written on the body. From tattoos to top hats, body art makes a statement about the person who wears it. But body art is often misunderstood and misinterpreted because its messages do not necessarily translate across cultures. Body art takes on specific meanings in different cultures. It can serve as a link with ancestors or spirits. Besides being decorative, tattoos, paint, and scars can mediate the relationships between people and the supernatural world. Body art is always changing, and in some form or another always engaging: it allows people to reinvent themselves "to rebel, to follow fashion, or to play and experiment with new identities." Like performance artists and actors, people in everyday life use body art to cross boundaries of gender, national identity, and cultural stereotypes. ".
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Tattooing uses a sharp implement to puncture the skin and thus make a permanent mark, design, or picture on the body. The resulting patterns or figures vary according to the purpose of the tattoo and the materials available for its coloration the "text" on the skin can be read as a commitment to some group, an emblem of a rite of passage, a personal or a fashion statement.
