Art Hearts Presents The Black Tape Project Miami Swim Week

ne day in 2008 I was a rookie photographer who was working with a model that suggested I use electrical tape on her for the last look. I honestly had no idea why she would want this but to make her happy I attempted to use this tape as wardrobe. Essentially I just wrapped her in black electrical tape! Mind you she looked like 2 Christmas hams wrapped in rubber bands when I was done! (I’d never show you these images!) However, it sparked an idea in my head to develop this idea. In the following weeks I asked a few models that I had worked with in the past to let me practice on them. That was the moment the designs started to evolve! Although primitive with a lot of trial and error, I remember thinking I was definitely on to something. I began to notice that the way the lines of tape would compliment the figure was unlike any wardrobe or fashion out there.

By 2012 I was selling my creative services to local night clubs in Miami. During this time I must have worked at about every night club in the area. This is when people really began to take notice. The venues I would be working at would post pics of the models I taped for the night which then resulted in other venues calling for rates. This was during the Myspace era. The next thing I knew, I was flying all over the place to places like Ibiza, Norway and Canada. A fews years later once Instagram caught on, it gave me an incredible platform to showcase my work. That’s when things really began to thrive. I would receive 100s of DMs daily from countries all over the world inquiring to book me for music festivals and nightclub appearances.

Although this art project started exclusively with black electrical tape I had begun to experiment with different techniques and new forms of adhesive tapes. I started working with reflective tape in 2014 but didn't release any of the images of this concept, feeling that people might still be more receptive to the original black tape.

Years later at a charity event in Haiti, I was able to work with former Miss Puerto Rico and use the gold tape in a tropical setting. I took a 15 sec cellphone video of her in the gold body tape and immediately posted it to our Facebook page. Within 3 days it had over 7 million views along with over 50k shares worldwide. My emails, DM's and phone blew up with requests for TV & radio interviews, articles in national news outlets as well as magazines. I was so shocked and remember asking myself, is this all because of tape art? From that point forward I have been working to improve the designs of the tape, while being able to meet some incredible people along the way. Traveling the world to exhibit this new artistic medium is truly a dream come true and I promise that the best is yet to come!