Permanent Impermanence: Kozo Stages a Collision of Versailles, Tattoo Craft and American Muscle
The multi-disciplinary artist channels a decade behind the tattoo machine into oil paintings, mixed media and a hand-painted 1965 Mustang at the West Village’s Free Parking
Multi-disciplinary artist Kozo has unveiled his most ambitious exhibition to date. “Permanent Impermanence,” presented by CART Department at the West Village gallery space Free Parking, runs from 15–24 May 2026 and turns on the tension between the fleeting nature of human existence and the enduring legacy of art.
Drawing on his roots as a tattoo artist, Kozo has reoriented his practice by bringing his tattoo machine to unconventional surfaces. “I realized I could actually make a mark on canvas, on paper and leather, on different surfaces, and that sparked an idea like, what if I bring the visual language of my tattoos into other mediums?” he explains. The approach collapses the distance between fine art and a personal history spanning more than a decade in tattooing.
The exhibition’s thematic core is rooted in the immigrant’s journey. Having moved to New York to pursue his artistic ambitions, Kozo draws on the grit of the city, situating his signature miniature worker figures in scenes of relentless effort. A significant layer of the work, he notes, involves “exploring the tension or the contrast between something that’s temporary and something that’s permanent.” Human life is fleeting, but art endures—a conviction Kozo states plainly: “To me, these sculptures are for life. They’re bigger than life. They’re here forever.”
The centerpiece is a 1965 Ford Mustang Coupe. Across its surface Kozo has meticulously recreated François Lemoyne’s The Apotheosis of Hercules, the vast ceiling painting that crowns the Salon d’Hercule at the Palace of Versailles and depicts the mortal hero’s ascent to divinity—an apt allegory for an exhibition preoccupied with what outlasts a life. Kozo found the classic American muscle car a fitting canvas for his experience of living in the United States. “I’m a romantic kind of person, and I romanticize on classic cars,” he says, observing that the cream-colored Mustang offered an ideal match for his negative-space compositions. As his painted miniature figures clamber across the vehicle, they disclose layered histories and underscore the weight of collaboration and labor.
Surrounding the Mustang are 24 further works, among them four original oil paintings alongside mixed-media variants. Kozo frequently deploys optical illusion to unsettle perception, an approach indebted to trompe l’oeil, the centuries-old technique of rendering painted objects so convincingly they appear three-dimensional. “The trompe l’oeil effect is always each and every one of my paintings,” he says. The mixed-media pieces carry an unusual mark of authenticity: the actual tattoo needle used to make each work is embedded near the signature, a permanent relic of the act that produced it.
The exhibition was made possible by the generous support of CART Department, HexClad, Hennessy, Maison Ruinart & Illycaffè, Golden Goose, FLYBLACK, DYNE by Sarah Ysabel Narici, Red Hook Detail Co. and No. 9 Agency. Among them, Red Hook Detail Co., the Brooklyn-based automotive detailing studio, where Kozo painted the 1965 Ford Mustang Coupe centerpiece.
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