James Jirat is Tattooing the Technocalypse

I once commissioned James Jirat Patradoon to create visuals for a launch party and he didn’t just deliver, he detonated. The whole space lit up like a neon-drenched fever dream where futuristic robots and ancient demons drank cocktails with ghostly backup dancers from a forgotten Depeche Mode tour. His work didn’t hang quietly on the walls. It stalked the room, flickering and pulsing like it had somewhere better to be.

There’s always been something electric in the way he sees. His art fuses old-world symbolism with street-level speed, cosmic anxiety with bubblegum gloss. The worlds he conjures are chaotic and contradictory, like anime fight scenes spliced with religious hallucinations. It’s brilliant, bright, and brash. It feels like summer arrived early and just refused to leave. And somehow, despite the aesthetic overload, nothing ever feels noisy for the sake of it. There’s intent in the madness, precision in the melt.

Over the years, I’ve followed his journey: from digital illustration to murals to motion graphics and, more recently, tattooing. He’s gone from lighting up galleries and gallery-adjacent warehouses to carving intricate rituals directly into skin at his inner-Sydney tattoo studio. It’s a quieter, more ceremonial practice on the surface. But the fire’s still there, just delivered through a single needle instead of a Wacom tablet. And true to form, James Jirat has always treated the canvas - digital or dermal - as a space for storytelling, not just style.

Through all the glitchy chaos, occult iconography, and manga-sculpted muscle, James Jirat remains a quietly cerebral artist. Beneath the chrome and fury is a brain that never stops parsing the big stuff: control versus surrender, beauty versus brutality, the elegant awkwardness of that in-between space. His work doesn’t just dazzle, it thinks. And these days, that myth-soaked madness doesn’t stay politely confined to gallery walls or glowing screens. It moves. It breathes. It finally gets under the skin … literally. Inked onto arms, ribs, backs, and carried through the world like a belief, not a brand.

I. THE EVOLUTION OF JAMES JIRAT

It’s been some 12 years since I first featured you back in the Lost At E Minor days. Looking back, how do you feel your art and outlook have evolved since those early days? Are there any parts of young James that still live on in your work, or has your style mutated into something totally unexpected?

I definitely feel that, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become who I was always supposed to be. It’s a really comfortable feeling, and I know exactly what I’m meant to do at any given time. When I was younger, I did a lot of things just for the hell of it - exhibitions that made no money, artworks, anything, throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck. I was a lot more nihilistic then, and the future felt uncertain. These days, I’m much more cautious with my time. Spending it on one thing means I can’t spend it on something else, and there’s still so much I want to do, so I say no a lot more now to give the important work the time it needs. There are pieces I made back then that I now see as breadcrumbs leading to where I am, the more surreal, horror-camp stuff, the things people didn’t really get or that I was advised to steer away from. My work isn’t a surprise to me anymore, it feels more like something that was always meant to exist if I hadn’t been distracted by other career paths.

II. NIGHT VISIONS & OCCULT COLLISIONS

Your aesthetic is often described as hyper-saturated “pop-meets-mythic” mayhem. Like a neon dream where gods, demons, and comic-book heroes might party together. What draws you to blending pop culture with myth and the occult in your art?

I grew up in Australia, but during visits back to Thailand as a kid, there was a real culture shock compared to my banal suburban life. In Thailand, there’s a coexistence of superstition and myth with euphoric nightlife and hedonisn. On a cultural and sensory level, it felt dangerous and alien to me, and still does, like a haunted nightclub. My mum’s very matter-of-fact approach to Thai superstition and the afterlife has also shaped my outlook: ghosts, hell, the supernatural. She would casually tell me to avoid the half-snake lady outside my cousin’s house in the same tone she’d remind me to wear a jacket in case it got cold. I guess I’ve always sought out the spicier side of life, anything that adds a layer of colour or drama to an otherwise mundane existence.

You picked up and moved to Bangkok a while back, trading Sydney’s beaches for a neon-soaked metropolis. How did immersing yourself in Thailand’s chaos influence your art or outlook?

Without hyperbole, it was the best year of my entire life on Earth. I hadn’t realised how much night culture had influenced my work until Sydney’s lockout laws decimated our nightlife. When I moved to Bangkok, I was completely off the leash. It’s a hedonistic megacity. Literally all my cyberpunk fantasies growing up come to life. I was immersing myself in techno clubs, metal and punk shows, drag bars, and art happenings. About three months in, I realised I needed a project to focus on, so I started planning the Inferno show. I spent my days drawing and my nights in clubs, alleys, and on freeways, moving from venue to venue.

III. STUDIO RITUALS & DARK SPACES

I imagine you painting in a studio lit by neon signs, with an anime soundtrack blasting. What’s your actual workspace like, and do you have any quirky rituals to get into your artistic flow?

I alternate between drawing at my tattoo studio and at my apartment, and both spaces are deliberately dark, with as little external stimulus as possible. Minimal lighting carved into small, cosy zones. I’m always listening to some kind of true crime podcast; they keep part of my brain occupied, like handing an iPad to a toddler, so I can actually focus on drawing. Otherwise, I get distracted too easily. I loathe bright communal workspaces. Been there, done that. If I want to socialise, I’ll go out, but when I need to get real work done, it’s full Batcave mode for me.

Do you ever hide little Easter eggs or jokes in your illustrations?

American Horror Story is a big influence. It’s super camp - sometimes subtle, sometimes overt - wrapped in the horror genre, and that’s exactly how I approach my work. Sewn into everything I make is something deliberately sensual or campy, but filtered through a gothic, violent lens. I drew a crawling panther the other day, and a client said it looked so sexual it bordered on furry art. That was the point.

IV. SKIN, SCREENS & CHAOS MACHINES

You’ve worked on everything from digital animations to massive murals. And now tattoos on skin. Is there a creative medium you haven’t tackled yet, or one that feels most like home base?

My brain has exploded. I’m constantly overwhelmed and find it hard to focus on one single thing at a time. My attention span is completely fractured from spending my entire waking life on the Internet, and I’m in a near-permanent state of anxiety. I want to understand how AI works - because it’s a bastard - and I’d like to get ahead of it, demystify it, and eventually embrace it as a tool. I’d also love to learn 3D, but I often joke that whatever space I had left in my brain got taken up by learning how to tattoo. Drawing at my computer feels the most like home. It’s the most efficient way for me to organise all my work and bounce between projects. Honestly, I get kind of bored when I’m working on things analogue. Even tattooing.

What’s it like designing on human skin versus canvas or screen? Do you approach tattooing with a different mindset, or is it just an extension of your illustration practice?

There are so many differences, it’s fascinating. I’m doing more abstract work now, which wouldn’t have held its own in a gallery context but looks incredible when it flows with the lines of someone’s body. The absence of a literal subject matter also removes that pressure people often feel: that a tattoo has to “mean something” (it doesn’t). Tattooing has made my workflow much more rapid. It’s the best extension of my illustration practice because the work lives on, gets remixed, reinterpreted. I’d love to do more maximalist illustrative tattoos, but that depends on someone committing their body, money, time, and pain, which is a lot to ask.

What’s the strangest or most memorable tattoo request you’ve had so far?

I’m always impressed when someone without many tattoos commits to something big. That kind of trust means a lot. Fortunately, I don’t get many strange requests because I’ve made it a rule to only tattoo my own drawings. That said, someone once asked for a tattoo with no ink, just to feel what it was like. I didn’t do it. Another guy wanted a stomach tattoo to show off at a funeral the next day, then cancelled.

V. FUTURE TRIPS & DIGITAL DRIFTS

The art world’s changed a lot - from blogs to NFTs. Do you miss the old-school days, or are you embracing the digital chaos?

It was easier back then. My art-school work was featured on the Kanye West blog, and that skyrocketed my career. There were only a handful of blogs, so you knew exactly where to send your work. Now it feels like everyone’s shouting at once. I don’t envy artists starting out today. I still really value the IRL side of things: I go to openings, I show at conventions, I run Chimera, a Halloween group show. Community still matters. But I’m also chronically online. I’ve been sharing my process since the Tumblr days, so I’m used to posting constantly. Social media keeps me booked.

What’s something unexpected that’s inspiring you right now? Any unlikely muses sneaking into your work?

Because I draw every single day, I dream about drawing. I’ve started stealing ideas from those dreams. I once dreamt of a sauna-pool where, if I turned up the heat, designs for my ornamental pieces would rise to the surface and I could harvest them. In other dreams, I’m just scrolling Instagram, seeing incredible artwork, only to realise it’s from my own subconscious, which means I can use it without ripping anyone off.

What’s next for James Jirat Patradoon? Any dream projects or fantasy shows we should know about?

I have an NFT series I’ve been working on for four years. No one’s seen it. It’s my ‘Jodorowsky’s Dune’- possibly my biggest failure. I fantasise about taking a year off to draw everything I’ve been meaning to draw, but that’s starting to feel more and more unrealistic. I’m itching to do another big exhibition like Inferno, but I just can’t afford the time off to make it happen. So I’m glad I did it when I did.