Tattoo addict inks his eyeballs in bid to cover whole body

 Eli Ink, 27, [Photo: Courtesy]

British man may be one of the most heavily tattooed in the world after covering his entire body - and even impregnating his eyeballs - with jet black ink.

Eli Ink, 27, is a tattoo artist from Brighton who views his body as a canvas to exhibit his finest work on.

Over 10 years he has tattooed almost every centimetre of his skin in layers of black ink and he has even put ink in his eyeballs.

Huge stretchers were implanted in his nose and lower lip to stretch them into unusual shapes as part of his body modification.

He said his tattoos and modifications are both seriously planned and sporadic, which he says is a reflection of his own personality.

Now that his whole body is tattooed black, he says he can add designs to that dark canvas as he comes ever closer to reflecting a surrealist figure from a Picasso painting - the famous painter being one of his greatest artistic inspirations.

And despite his appearance which some may view as extreme - and possibly unsettling - he is still a hit with the ladies and he is in a relationship with girlfriend Holly, another body-modification enthusiast.

Eli was first drawn to tattoos as a child when his uncle came home from a holiday in Spain with a large tribal tattoo on his arm.

"I was blown away," Eli said in a video remembering this first encounter with tats.

He said that he doesn't expect others to understand his extreme look and his transformation is only for him to appreciate.

‘In my opinion, the only person who will only ever understand my transition properly is me. I don’t attempt to describe it to anyone,’ he told MailOnline .

"I’ve always been blown away by art itself. Picasso is a huge childhood inspiration to me, especially abstract art, but I do like all forms of art. Body art was just the next local step for me growing up," Eli said.

"I wanted to look like an abstract character in one of Picasso’s paintings. I love the abstract look, no thought , just pure expression," he said.

And in his pursuit of his perfect aesthetic, Eli has even tattooed his eyeballs - a procedure he admits is risky which involves carefully injecting ink between two layers of the eye.

But despite the risks of injecting ink into his eyes, he said that body modification is a risk-taker's lifestyle and one he has embraced.

Eli was not always deep in the body modification scene but he was always into art and aesthetics and he previously had his own gardening company.

But his love of art and interest in body modification increased and he spent more time drawing and painting before he took the plunge and became a full time tattoo artist.

 

Eli belongs to a sub culture within body modification called Modern Primitives which reference primitive cultures through body modifications.

The body modification scene is forever expanding its knowledge and growth, Eli said and the artist is contantly expanding his skill base too.

He is currently studying ear lobe reconstruction, tattooing, ear pointing and scarification.

"I will never be finished. It will take me the rest of my life to finish my studies but I am dedicating the rest of my life to body modification and perfecting my work," he said.