Scarification (intentionally scarring a person’s body) started as a ritual act. In its first incarnation, as a tribal rite, it was characterised by big, broad strokes, thick lines, and chunky raised scars with a symbolic meaning but little fine detail. Over time, fresh techniques and a new generation of body-modification artists – people like Ryan Ouellette – have made possible scars that rival tattoos for clarity and detail. Ryan, who works at Precision Body Arts in Nashua, New Hampshire, is one of the top scarifiers in the world. He started out cutting himself, mostly on his legs, “making little patterns and designs using a needle head or anything else sharp”. Then he began to experiment with different, more precise pieces. “I like how scarification is more organic than something like a tattoo,” says Ryan. “When you tattoo, you put something into the skin; with a scar, it’s just the body. The stuff I did when I was young was generally little astrological signs, small geometric stuff, nothing elaborate,” he says.

But he moved on to bigger things, after finding out most of what other people were doing was dull and very basic. “Some of what I saw was quite boring, just a line, curve or circle. Why weren’t they trying something more interesting?” he says. Now, designs that could never have been contemplated 15 years ago are almost routine. John Durante, a scarifier at Laughing Buddha Studios in Seattle, has been cutting people for the last 12 years, and he says that just recently scarification has become “ridiculously popular”. “I remember back in the mid- to late-90s when it seemed much more of an underground phenomenon. Nowadays, it’s becoming much more popular. I wouldn’t say mainstream, but there are tons of enthusiasts all over the world.” Broadly speaking, there are two different methods of scarification: line-cutting and skin-removal, both of which are likely to be done with a carbon-steel surgical scalpel.

John Durante uses two types of scalpel to cope with the different types of incision required in most scarifications. “A number 15 is a snubnose, rounded-tip scalpel that is good for the curves and the edges, and a number 11 is a standard scalpel, not rounded at all. They’re pretty typical blades for most scarification artists.”

For a line-cutting, you cut through some of the top skin layers, making single incisions down to the mid-dermis, and no tissue is removed at all. The initial incision has to be a cautious one, as the tissue’s consistency is vastly different from place to place on the body. (“You do not want to open someone up uncontrollably with a first incision,” was a warning from one scarifier.) And an even depth is key. Then, if you keep the cut open with good aftercare, eventually the new tissue that grows to close the cut has no melanin, and will be pinky to start with and then go white over time. The contrast between the scar tissue and the regular skin makes the design.

Skin-removal (the method that leaves curly Quaver-like skin pieces as a by-product) isn’t all that different. After making two shallow parallel cuts, you remove the tissue between them. That can be any amount you like, but commonly between a couple of millimetres and a couple of inches, depending on what kind of design you’re looking for. Then you can agitate the scar to make it rise, try to make it go partially inverted, or simply leave it alone, depending on what you want the eventual scar to appear like.

Quentin, from Kalima Studios in Worthing, is a professional scarifier. When he had his first scarring done he wanted a special look that could only be achieved by some extreme aftercare. “My first scarification was on my arm; I had my daughter’s name done in runes,” he explains. “I’ve always envisaged runes being carved out of rock, so I wanted them carved in my skin. I felt scarification was the best option. I really wanted to keep it carved out, so I developed a technique of brushing out the wound as the scar healed, so my scars go in not out. A lot of people irritate them to get them to raise, but I wanted mine dipped so they actually go into the skin.

“I brushed mine out for three days with lemon juice and a toothbrush and removed the lymphing [the white blood cells you secrete when healing, which partially make up a scab]. As I don’t lymph much, after three days I got a very dipped scab that healed. A few days before that was naturally coming out, I soaked it and lifted it out. Then I spent a few months rubbing all the regrowth out.

”The lemon juice is the bit most people find uncomfortable once you’ve brushed it out, and the first time I did it I jumped around for about 15 minutes swearing. Some people have said they nearly passed out. I’ve never found it that bad. You’re not trying to irritate it so much it bleeds. Standing in a shower using a power shower is very good as that softens the lymphing up and it starts to naturally come away from the skin.”

The pain aspect of scarification is interesting. According to Quentin, although a lot of people are attracted by the organic aesthetic of a cutting, the prospect of pain puts them off. “I think when you mention cutting or branding, lots of people subconsciously imagine someone coming at you with a hot piece of metal or an almost Sweeney Todd the Barber-like slashing at people.”

But there are some pain junkies who’d love just that. While Quentin might have been jumping around, and his clients passing out from the pain, everybody’s different. There is something hardcore about getting someone to cut you for two hours in a ‘blood ritual’, and, for some, the sustained pain is an integral part of the appeal.

John Durante, who had scarification done on his face at the top of the Aztec Pyramid of the Sun, at Teotihuacán in Mexico (see above), admits scarification can be painful at the best of times, and says he occasionally questions people’s motivation when they come to him. “A lot of people approach it in an unhealthy manner,” he says. “You have plenty of sadomasochists that, instead of sitting cutting themselves, will pay an artist to do it for them. I never like to contribute to somebody’s illness.”

Ryan, too, admits he sometimes gets people coming to him with the wrong idea about scarification. “There are some people who want work purely for the shock value or want to rush into getting work for no good reason. If a person is not really ready for it or wants it for the wrong reasons, I’ll definitely refuse them.”

But a lot of people are somewhere in the middle. The pain might not be their motivation, but makes it more worthwhile. “I don’t think people should be able to get a cutting and it be completely painless, as there would then be nothing special about it,” says Ryan. “I sometimes use a mild anaesthetic gel, but people still feel it and that’s all part of the process. That’s also what makes it interesting when you see people with large-scale scarification work, as it really shows what they had to go through in order to get to that stage.”

That’s more pronounced in different cultures. When Ryan was in Japan a couple of years ago, it was so different it was almost surreal. “I went to Japan in 2005, and when I did cuttings, everyone sat perfectly, no whining, no crying. They wanted the art and they realised to get something like that, it hurts… I think the more the cutting means to someone, the less they will react to the pain.”

The pain factor also makes scarification a more intense experience for the cutter. “It’s quite a personal thing between two people,” says Quentin. “Maybe it’s because we don’t do it all the time. I really enjoy cutting. I really, really enjoy it. It’s quite a special thing to do.”

And John agrees: “It definitely takes a lot more out of you, because you know you’re going to be putting someone through pain for maybe two hours. I want to achieve a beautiful scarification piece for my client in the most efficient manner possible but I’m also trying to move right along. I know what they’re going though – it takes a lot out of the artist as well as the client.”

As cutting becomes more popular, and possibly mainstream, new developments will have to be made for when some Pop Idol winner is showing off his scarification on Popworld. Already people are fusing tattoos, scarification, branding and other body mods together in the same piece. “It’s an exciting time,” admits Ryan.
And Quentin has been scarifying tattoos for a while. “For a few years I’ve been burning out black tattoo work so you can get white scars inside the black, totally removing the ink,” he says. “It’s something I’ve worked on. I’ve done a friend’s whole leg – he’d blacked his whole leg in – and I burnt stars out of it, so he now has white stars inside the black. That was always possible, what limited us was thinking, ‘Can we do it?’ It’s like anything; the only thing that really limits us is what we think is possible.”