14 DAY TRIAL // Mathew Whelan, Britain’s most tattooed man decided to remove some of his “outdated” tattoos in order to replace them with newer ones and has spent a whopping £6,000 ($10,000 / €7,260) on laser removal sessions.
The 34-year-old man from Birmingham, who legally changed his name to King of Inkland, has spent £30,000 ($49,900 / €36,000) covering his body and one eyeball with inkings, but he now thinks that some of them look out of date. Moreover, he says he has run out of space on his skin and wants to “start again.”
The man set aside no less than £6,000 ($10,000 / €7,260) for the painful procedure of laser removal, just to have some areas of his body re-inked.
He says that his body is a human art gallery that needs to evolve. He had his first tattoo, a British Bulldog, at the age of 16, and now 90 per cent of his body is covered with inkings. He even tattooed his left eyeball black.
“I think of myself like an art gallery. After a while the art gets old and people want to see something new and that's how I feel about my tattoos,” the man said, according to Daily Mail.
“I've had enough of them and I've run out of skin to tattoo on - so I thought why not get them lasered off and just start again,” he added.
So far, Whelman, who was also a wrestler, has undergone six laser sessions to have hand, arm and shin tattoos removed, in order to make way to new ones. The laser removal procedure is known to be lengthy and painful and requires repeated sessions.
The King of Inkland is anxious to put new artworks on his body but is currently waiting for his skin to heal before getting new tattoos. For him, tattoos are a culture and a way of life, and he considers himself as a “living canvas.”
“Some of my friends think I'm bonkers, and it might seem odd to some people but to me I am a living canvas,” he said.
Among the illustrations he has inked on his skin there are snakes, scorpions, vampires and eyeballs.
Unsurprisingly, his obsession also got him into trouble, as, after he changed his name, the Passport Office refused to renew his passport. His new and unusual name – King of Ink Land King Body Art The Extreme Ink-Ite – was deemed inappropriate.