The figures depicted in Alexander Tinei’s paintings and drawings bear the emblematic trace of tattoos. The notion of being different or ‘marked’ is an emotive concept for Tinei. He sees the tattoo as an act rooted in pagan culture and Eastern belief systems and the means by which a person can express their devotion to a particular cause or ideology through the signing of an agreement in blood. Tinei’s preoccupation with depicting highly individualized, ambiguously sexed figures whose poses and the contexts they occupy often point towards marginalization and alienation from mainstream society, reveal him to be someone concerned by identity. Tinei’s interest in an individual’s transformation could in part be traced to the history of his own personal evolution. Born in Moldova before it became a republic and while it was still part of the Soviet Union, Tinei describes himself as: ‘an absolute product of a Soviet culture, transformed into Western culture, transformed into myself.’
