Hoyer

Timothy Hoyer is one of the godfathers of modern illustrative tattooing, and his calm, caring demeanor has always set him apart from the other “tough guys” of his generation. He has been tattooing longer than most tattooers today have been alive, and, he still loves doing it every day. Hoyer’s illustrative approach to tattooing and painting truly sets him apart. In the ‘90s, he opened a tattoo shop with his good friend (and Afterlife star contributor) Chris O’Donnell. They called their shop Alive Gallery. Alive was ahead of its time, and represented what tattooing looks like today just 30-some odd years before it actually happened. What Timothy helped create—and what Alive represented—is the idea of tattoo as "capital A" art. This tradition started with Ed Hardy, but it was up to the generation that followed him to push the boundaries of what that meant by using unique color combinations or different types of light sources—things that trained artists or people who went to art school would know—but that tattooers struggled to discover until Timothy created a more artistic approach that was widely accepted and respected. 

Hoyer is the culmination of Timothy’s mind-blowing paintings from the last 20-plus years. These concise and perfectly executed paintings are hard to wrap your head around when seen in person, and that is the feeling Afterlife is capturing with this publication of Timothy’s works. We want to convey that overwhelming, sensory, in-person experience. Hoyer is a benchmark for Timothy‘s art, and no matter how often someone flips through the pages, they will see something new each and every time.