Tattoo and Copyright Project

In this Art–Law project, I am collaborating with tattooist and design scholar Dr Adam McDade. Officially, we’re investigating the sociolegal dynamics of copying and creativity within tattoo subculture. We look at the everyday practices of tattooists, the formal legal frameworks governing copying, and the informal systems of legality shaped by communal ethics, personal values, business realities, and cultural expectations. Unofficially, we’ve embarked on an experimental research adventure! We’re testing new ways of collaborating across disciplines and co-designing a values-led framework that seeks to humanise every stage of the research process. At the heart of this work is a desire to expose the multiple realities, synchronicities, and absurdities that shape everyday life as much as academia and the world of tattoo law.

Methodology

Adam and I draw on a combination of doctrinal, socio-legal, and practice-based methods to explore the dynamic relationship between tattooing, law, and social norms and how these intersect within collaborative authorship practices. Across our work, we are guided by a shared commitment to the value of the arts and creative practice as both a mode of communication and a research methodology. As a result, collaboration functions as both a methodological approach and an object of inquiry in the project.

Our project continues to develop, with a growing focus on the benefits of practice-based research for understanding both the limits and the aesthetics of law. We are also experimenting with a range of creative methods to better understand how to foster connection and knowledge exchange as collaborators, and what this might mean for others seeking to maximise the potential – and the joy – of transdisciplinary, values-aligned work.

… I’m very bad at performing accepted versions of professionalism …’

Adam McDade, WhatsApp message 5 February 2025

Grey Lines Exhibition

Grey Lines premiered at Watt Space Gallery, Newcastle, Australia from 17 September-15 November 2025. It was subsequently exhibited at Queen Mary University of London, London from 1 – 2 June 2026.

A review of Grey Lines, published in the journal Law and Humanities, can be accessed here.

Grey Lines (Newcastle) Exhibition Abstract

Marie Hadley and Adam McDade.

Installation of digital photographic prints, tattoo stencil paper, tattoo hardware, tattoo paraphernalia, riso prints, vinyl prints, sound (9:30 minutes), scent, written text. An exhibition at Watt Space Gallery, Newcastle, 17 September – 15 November 2025.

Grey Lines is an art + law installation. Uniquely conducted through professional tattooing practice; reflective practice (Schön, 1983), and embodied inquiry (Leigh and Brown, 2021) as a primary methodology for knowledge production—which is then examined against the lens of doctrinal and sociolegal analysis — Grey Lines is an investigation of authorship and copyright infringement in professional tattooing. Arising out of the copyright infringement case of Sedik v von Drachenberg (2024), where celebrity tattooist Kat Von D used a photograph jazz icon Miles Davis as a reference for a tattoo, this unique project uses a multisensory portrait of a tattoo studio and participatory activities to actively invite public involvement in the relationship between law, creative practice and society. It seeks to challenge traditional knowledge hierarchies in academia, create accessible opportunities for learning, and highlight the value and necessity of creative and collaborative methodologies to the broader community.

The exhibition combines candid photography, tattoo paraphernalia, ambient studio sounds, stencils, sketches, client communications to centre the embodied experience of tattoo. This enables viewers to experience the intimate world of tattooing and reflect upon the intersecting and entangled nature of norms, ethics, business considerations, and creative expression with this creative industry. Part research manifesto, part love letter to a medium, Grey Lines offers new ways to think about authorship, collaborative design, and the disconnection between law and the practices it seeks to govern.

Grey Lines (London) Exhibition Abstract

Marie Hadley and Adam McDade.

Installation of digital photographic prints, tattoo stencil paper, cloth, sound (9:30 minutes), written text. An exhibition at Queen Mary University of London, London, 1 – 2 June 2026.

What does a two-headed wolf have to do with copyright law?

Grey Lines investigates authorship, collaboration, and copying norms in contemporary tattooing practice. Uniquely conducted through professional tattoo practice, reflective practice, and embodied inquiry as the primary methodologies for knowledge production, the project presents a sensory experience of tattoo as a medium and service, challenging how academia and law currently understand this creative industry.

Through ambient studio sounds and a physical setup reminiscent of a tattoo exhibition booth, the installation tells the story behind the design and execution of a custom two-headed wolf tattoo. It combines stencils, reflective commentary on the creative process, finer liner pen designs, and photographs of tattoo outcomes, to centre the embodied experience and varied everyday practice of the tattooist. The overlapping and entangled nature of norms, ethics, business considerations, relationships, creative expression, and the body is revealed, showing how aesthetic effects emerge through process, context, and interaction.

Audiences are invited to step into the grey lines that tattooists navigate daily and, in doing so, to experience practice led, collaborative inquiry as essential to developing a richer, more accurate, and more nuanced understanding of how law is understood, made, and negotiated (or not) in creative practice.

Public Events

Creative Copyright: a curated walk

On 4 October 2025, with historian Dr Nikolas Orr and Dr Sarah Hook (UTS), I delivered a curated art + law walking tour as part of the New Annual festival. The tour explored the collaborative process behind the creation of the two‑headed wolf tattoo featured in the Grey Lines exhibition. It also engaged with key public artworks across Civic Park and Civic Square in Newcastle, including Margel Hinder’s Civic Park Fountain (1966), Herbert Gallop’s Industry and Pleasure paintings (1938), and Brontë Naylor’s Mirror Ocean mural (2020).

Tattoo Art Demonstration

On 1 June 2026, Adam and I delivered a live art demonstration, set within the Grey Lines (London) exhibition space, at Queen Mary University of London. The event invited audiences into the creative decision-making behind tattooing as both a practice and regulated industry. Through observing and discussing the design and execution of a tattoo on a honeydew melon, participants explored how relationships between tattooist and client, stencil and skin, and reference and custom design blur lines between creativity and copying.

Outputs and Presentations

Tattoos, Intellectual Property, and the Law (Information Sheet, 2025). A collaboration with the Arts Law Centre of Australia.
A McDade, Grey Lines: Authorship and Copying Norms in Contemporary Tattooing Practice (Guest Lecture, May 2025)
M Hadley, Navigating Grey Lines: Co-Producing Knowledge Across Disciplines and Boundaries (Conference Presentation, June 2026)

Funding Acknowledgements

This research is supported by a Pilot Scheme Grant and a NewStart Grant from the College of Human and Social Futures, University of Newcastle Australia. Two research events, Creative Copyright Walk (2025) and Tattoo Art Demonstration (2026) were supported by PVC Research Culture funding from the College of Human and Social Futures, University of Newcastle Australia.