Black Eyecon

Black Eyecon
From the Lost Drawings Series by Peter Bogdanov
Ink and pencil on heavyweight Bristol board (1996)
Before the brand, before the studio, before the hurricane scattered decades of work—there was Black Eyecon.
Drawn in 1996, “Black Eyecon” is both personal icon and artistic milestone—an adaptation of an earlier self-portrait Peter Bogdanov had painted in art class, reimagined here with bold lines, stark contrast, and a fierce symbolic clarity. More than just a face, it became a flag—ultimately serving as the logo for one of his first San Francisco tattoo studios, Beyond the Flesh, a space that would help launch his name into underground art and tattoo culture.
Staring straight at the viewer, the figure is part human, part archetype. One eye is blacked out—not in injury, but in intent. It’s an eye turned inward, an emblem of self-reflection, sacrifice, or seeing through a different lens. The lines are deliberate and minimalist, but heavy with meaning. The contrast between shadow and light, presence and void, feels almost mythic. It doesn’t just look at you—it marks you.
This drawing represents a threshold: the moment when a student becomes a studio owner, a face becomes a brand, and a sketch becomes a symbol others rally around. It’s identity as visual language.
The original piece was tragically lost in the 2024 Florida hurricanes, along with the bulk of Bogdanov’s early works. What remains is this high-resolution scan—an echo of a moment when everything was still ahead, and a single image became the eye of a movement.
To collect “Black Eyecon” is to hold the origin story of an artist—not just the face he drew, but the symbol he became.