Born in 1966, Freddy Corbin began tattooing in 1987 in San Francisco. He apprenticed with Erno Szabady for two years and is inspired in parallel by Henry Goldfield’s techniques who regularly tatooes him at the time. He met shortly after Ed Hardy who offers to come work for him at Realistic Studio with Bill Salmon.
In this bikers street shop, Freddy Corbin, who comes from the punk scene, discovers the anarchist ideology of those who simply come to get a tattoo while developing his own sensitivity to religious imagery and memento mori. He developed a unique style that he refuses to limit to a single definition: his tattoos are inspired by the California black and gray, the iconography of traditional American tattooing and lowrider, and carries a passion and great skills for lettering.
It was also he who, with Scott Sylvia, popularized the Sugar Skulls, images of skulls from the Mexican iconography of the Day of the Dead, after admiring its designs in a painting by Mike Malone. In 1998, he opened his shop Tattoo Temple in downtown Oakland, then a few years later, Thirteen Tattoo. The fidelity of the artist to the worlds that feed his tattoos can even be perceived in this geographical choice, far from being among the finest and most fashionable districts at the time.
In 2007, he was asked by the producer of the famous series Sons of Anarchy to create the patch of the bikers and to play the role of a tattoo artist. His painting, representing a body suit covered with Russian prisoners tattoos references to the political and social situation in the United States and presents anarcho-critical elements against the hegemony of these, was part of the now historic exhibition Tatoueurs, Tatoués at the the musée du quai Branly (May 2014-October 2015), in which Anne & Julien were the curators. His work was on cover of the magazine HEY! modern art & pop culture issue 18.