Even at a glance, the image of the eerily lifelike semi-human facial image with a mysterious look in its eyes that tattoo artist Maxwell Egy has painted onto his lower left arm seems refined, nothing at all like the neo-traditional images of sailboats, crosses, or Harley-Davidsons so often associated with the pictures people have tattooed onto their skin. Egy's forearm tattoo is a colorful replica of "Medusa," a vividly dramatic 1597 painting of a mythical character by one of Egy's favorite Italian Renaissance artists, Michelangelo Caravaggio.

"I'm not the usual tattoo artist," said Egy. Indeed he is not. During free time between clients, Egy busies himself doing a charcoal drawing a day if he is not working on an oil painting, a pastel, or doing fine arts photography.

"All of my art is one entity, as I see it," said Egy. "Tattooing is very similar to portraiture and is not a step down as an artist. As a form of expression, it's conceptual realism, not something lowbrow. When I'm doing a tattoo, I try to capture the artistic essence of an image in a minimalist way, but instead of using a paintbrush and oils, I use a pre-sterilized needle as my paintbrush, and sterile inks instead of oils or pastels."

Something about a tattoo is symbolic, almost mythological, in Egy's opinion. Human beings have been tattooing themselves for thousands of years, from the Celtics and Egyptians to the Chinese. The oldest known mummy is tattooed.

By the time he was a six-year-old growing up in Terre Haute, Egy was following his mother, Pamela Mattix Tickner, to the Vigo County Public Library, pulling at her arm to take him over to the stacks where the library maintained its collection of information about artists, and there he would happily pass time browsing through books containing bright color pictures of the brilliant works of world famous painters like Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.

Now a custom tattoo artist at the Body Art Emporium on South Seventh with a clientele that includes people who drive to his studio from as far away Ohio and Illinois, and Indiana cities like Muncie and Indianapolis—plus ISU students from Syria, Japan, and Czechoslovakia—Egy feels the wide-ranging education in oil portraiture, charcoals, and graphite he received from his mother and father, plus his teachers at Terre Haute South Vigo have given him a rare competitive edge as a skin artist.

"Both my mother and father were professionally trained artists who graduated from Indiana University and then taught art," said Egy. "My dad, Michael Egy, studied there under Jerald Jacquard, who was noted for his heroic sculptures."

Egy's parents eventually ventured away from academia. His mother became an art therapist, and his father, after teaching art at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, took a job in the steel industry and then began making a living as a private entrepreneur.

After the state of Indiana changed its laws regarding tattooing in 1996 so that it could be more accessible to the public, Egy's father opened the Body Art Emporium, which he has operated for the past 13 years with the help of Egy's step-mother, Debbie.

As Body Art was growing during Egy's youth, he found himself engrossed by his art studies at Terre Haute South.

"I took so many advanced art classes that they began designing individual study courses for me," said Egy.

He said that studying oils with Rod Bradfield helped him with color and that some of the knowledge he acquired has translated into his tattooing. He believes that by being to do individual study at South he developed his ability to think up projects on his own. Because of this, Egy is constantly brainstorming new concepts for tattoos and mainstream art genres.

After high school, Egy worked for four months under the mentoring of noted Fort Wayne tattoo artist Ryan Hadley.

"He caught on easily," said Hadley. "Max has managed to collide abstract and realism into his tattoo art, which many people cannot do. He is especially good at adding abstract and geometrical shapes like squares and triangles to pictures in ways that make it look like the shapes are growing out of the skin."

"I'm not above doing most tattoos, but I prefer doing full custom art," said Egy. "Often I work with collectors willing to drive long distances to collect the work of certain artists on their skin. Often people just explain their concept to me and I'll tattoo it onto them. Others give me rough layouts or designs."

One tattoo Egy recently did on a customer's thigh was a Charlie Sheen portrait, complete with an aching look on Sheen's face revealing the pained facial expression he had developed in the wake of his recent legal and personal difficulties.

Locally, Egy has become a magnet for people with distinctive aesthetic standards who are potentially in the market for a tattoo, such as recent newlyweds, Jake Toppas and Sarah Freeze Toppas.

"I'm not a traditionally-minded person," Freeze Toppas said. "I wanted to give Jake an unforgettable engagement present, so I decided to give him a tattoo by Max Egy."

Now Toppas' left arm bears Egy's tastefully painted tattoo image of a human heart with blackberries growing out of its ventricles.

As Egy was working on Toppas' tattoo, the couple spontaneously decided to get married. They happened to have the necessary legal papers with them at the time, so Egy called his father, a legally certified minister, who immediately drove to the Body Art Emporium to perform the ceremony as Egy applied his finishing touches to the tattoo.