Original tattoos built from movement, structure, texture, instinct and the person wearing them.
Derek Entenmann, known professionally as UberDerek, is an abstract tattoo artist based in Salzburg, Austria, working internationally. His tattoos combine abstract movement, watercolor and painterly marks, geometric structure, sketchwork, blackwork and large-scale composition.
Abstract tattooing gives me room to work with the things that are harder to describe literally: movement, contradiction, memory, fragmentation, pressure, decay, growth, energy, silence.
The composition is built around the body rather than dropped onto it. Some areas may be precise and geometric. Others may feel loose, painterly or damaged. The relationship between those parts creates the piece.
The goal is not randomness. It is controlled instability — enough structure to hold together, enough freedom to feel alive.
A strong abstract tattoo changes when the body moves. It can stretch, compress, disappear around an edge and reappear somewhere unexpected.
That is why placement matters so much. The body is not a flat canvas. It is part of the composition.
Sometimes a shape, a fracture, a line or a field of color says more than a symbol ever could.
Painterly marks, color movement and expressive gestures integrated into larger compositions.
Hard structure and geometry colliding with softer, broken or organic forms.
Graphic black elements, disruption, repetition and negative space used to create visual tension.
Loose lines, imperfect marks and the feeling of process left visible in the finished tattoo.
Sleeves, backs and multi-session compositions where the whole body becomes part of the architecture.
Work that mixes abstraction with figurative fragments, architecture, objects, florals or personal references.
A photograph. A memory. A ruin. A machine. A symbol. A piece of handwriting. A texture. A feeling you cannot really explain. These are all valid starting points.
I do not need a finished tattoo design from you. I need enough material to understand the direction, then I can translate it into a composition that feels original and specific to your body.
Abstract tattooing is useful when the meaning is too complicated for one literal symbol or when you want the artwork to carry emotion without explaining itself to everyone who sees it.
It can represent strength, recovery, instability, memory, identity, transformation or tension without becoming a visual cliché.
The work remains personal without needing to be obvious.
Send the idea, references, placement, approximate size and anything that helps explain the feeling or direction.
I look for the visual tension beneath the references — what should feel rigid, loose, broken, quiet or aggressive.
The composition is developed around anatomy, movement, scale and the way the tattoo will be read from different angles.
The final piece is original artwork rather than a rearrangement of somebody else's tattoo.
Large abstract projects can develop across several sessions into sleeves, backs and broader body compositions.
Watercolor and geometry are not separate worlds in my work. They are tools that can live inside the same composition.
UberDerek is Derek Entenmann, an American-born tattoo artist and visual artist based in Salzburg, Austria, working internationally.
An abstract tattoo uses movement, shape, line, texture, color, geometry, fragmentation and negative space rather than relying only on literal imagery.
Yes. Abstract composition is at the center of Derek's work and often combines with watercolor, geometry, sketchwork and blackwork.
Absolutely. Abstract work can translate experiences, memories, tension, strength, transformation or other personal ideas without representing them literally.
Yes. Figurative fragments, architecture, florals, symbols and objects can be incorporated into a broader abstract composition.
Yes. Each project is developed around the client's references, idea, placement and anatomy rather than copied from an existing tattoo.
Derek is based in Salzburg, Austria and also works internationally through selected travel dates and tattoo conventions.
Use the consultation form and send the idea, placement, approximate size and references or fragments that help explain the direction.
Bring the fragments. I will help build the relationship between them.