October, 30th, 2013

MONTREAL | L’Anthropo-Punk Anarchist of Life | RICK GENEST IS ZOMBIE BOY

Ego is just .. [E]dge [G]one [O]ut ..

RICO THE ZOMBIE grew up in a working class family in Châteauguay Quebec, and is the oldest of two siblings. He got his first tat too (a skull and crossbones) at age 16 on his left shoulder, sparking a fascination deep within him for the art form. After graduating high school, Rico left home at 17 and immersed himself in the underground punk rock scene in Montreal, and was initiated in to the street culture of tat toos, piercings, music and DIY fashion. He survived by becoming a “squeegee kid” and living in ab doned buildings with his new family of friends who gave him the moniker ‘Zombie Boy.’

By 19 he was committed to his full body tat too project and stayed loyal to Montreal artist Frank Lewis, who inked the majority of his body over the next six years following Rico’s visionary. Eighty percent of his body is covered, including intricate designs of an entire skele ton (skull included) and is thematically, the depiction of a body decomposing—complete with flesh eating insects. To date Rico has spent close to $20,000 on tat tooing his body and will continue until his tapestry is finished.

His extraordinary art display has earned him two admissions in to the Guinness book of World Records: one for the most bones tat tooed on the body (134), and one for the most insects tat tooed on the body (176).

“My tat toos symbolize life through death, or death through life. They’ve been a part of me forever – before I even got them done. They reveal how I feel on the inside. I’m so used to how I look now that I don’t see them anymore.”

Discovered by Lady Gaga’s personal stylist and Creative Direc tor of fashion powerhouse Thierry Mugler Nicola Formichetti, Genest first appeared on the fashion scene when he was featured by Mugler in the Paris fashion show in January 2011. In addition to walking runways for Mugler, he models for other designers in Milan, Berlin, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Rio, New York and Toron to.

As the first ever male spokesperson for L’Oreal, Zombie Boy has become the face of Dermablend in its award winning ‘Go beyond The Cover’ video which attracted more than 16 Million views and 750,000 likes on its Facebook. In the process he has become a social media phenomenon, with more than 100,000 Twitter fans (@ricothezombie) and 175,000 Likes on Facebook.

He is currently the face for the iconic Jay-Z Rocawear br and in Europe.

Now, he branches out in to performance art, bringing his skills in freak show to a UK audience for the first time

He is the coolest shy gentleman I have ever met ..