A new tattoo coming out of Brighton is now being touted as the most unusual tattoo in the world. A budding tattoo artist and current tattoo apprentice, Jack Newton, has had the face of Professor Stephen Hawkings etched into his right leg. His colleague and mentor Stewart Francis performed the work at the Angelic Hell Studio on North Road in Brighton. And the quote beneath the tattoo is probably the icing on the cake ‘He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy’.
The quote itself of course comes from Monty Python’s work ‘Life of Brian’ and is a pointed statement towards the work that Professor Hawkings has done in terms of his discoveries that attempt to explain the beginning of the world. The tattoo itself has already caused a stir, having won two awards at tattoo conventions world wide.
Jack got the tattoo because Hawkings, who is suffering from a motor neurone disease, is one of his heroes. Jack has read Hawkings best seller ‘A Brief History of Time’ but didn’t quite understand it. Nonetheless, he respects him immensely, enough to create the commemorative tattoo. Jack says,
“He has worked on some groundbreaking scientific research and is an amazing example of how illness does not necessarily stop a man. He’s an inspirational man.”
The tattoo itself took over seven painful hours, and was done all in one session. Jack started off in the tattoo business with first a dream, as a young child he used to admire his grandfather’s anchor tattoo that marked time in the Navy. As a drawer and artist himself, Jack came to discover that he could make a living doing something he admired. And with an idol such as Hawkings, we know this is an artist with an intelligence as well.
