Category: Tattoo Studios

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Interview with Elle Donlon

30-year-old tattoo artist Ellena Donlon works out of Sweet Life Gallery in Birmingham and creates traditional tattoos. We caught up with Elle to chat Korean tigers, as well as what and who inspires her work…

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How long have you been tattooing? I started my apprenticeship September 2015. Prior to that I went to the University of the Arts in London studying a degree in Fine Art and I think I graduated in 2012. Graduating was a tough time, I never really enjoyed my degree as I felt I had to stop drawing and painting to make way for more conceptual work to please the tutors, that meant I lost a lot of direction, so I decided to figure things out and move back to my hometown, Birmingham.

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What inspired you to join the industry? Did you do anything related to art before? Me and my partner opened up a record shop and as I started to get tattooed again after a good 5 year gap, I realized that tattooing would be my dream job. I started to seek out an apprenticeship, which took a long time, but I persevered it was the only thing I could think of that I wanted to do with myself, and that was worth waiting for.

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Can you describe your style? Starting off my apprenticeship my style was very different to what it is now. Then it was purely a case of turning my style of illustrations into tattoos. I’ve only ever really had traditional tattoos on myself, and as my career has progressed my designs have evolved into a stylised version of western traditional.

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We love your Korean style tigers and animals, what inspires these? What influences your work? What inspires you? Korean style tigers! They’re so freaky I love them, I have a huge one on my back done by Will Geary who has a crazy good imagination, it’s actually bonkers. I guess I’m drawn to beautiful oddities. I see no point drawing things how they are in real life, the world can be very monochrome it’s up to artists to mix that up, so I guess that’s why I’m drawn to them.

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Also you create more traditional women and flora is this inspired by something completely different? I get inspired by a lot of religious imagery particularly from Asia, I love south western tribal art, alchemy and witchcraft and the 70’s! But I must say my biggest push are other tattoos artists. Some of my inspirations are Walter McDonald, Dan Higgs, Robert Ryan, Windle Berry and Gregory Whitehead. All of these people adopt this weirdo traditional style, which is what I hope to one day pursue. I love that surreal style it pushes me to work harder with my own and attempt to think in different ways.

But my true loves are Claudia de Sabe, Rachel Rhatklor, Valerie Vargas, Wendy Pham and Lizzie Renaud. Apart from Wendy Pham these women predominantly tattoo traditional ladies and lady heads. Ladies and flora have always been my favorite subject to draw even before I tattooed, I can draw and tattoo them forever no inspiration even needed, it just cheers me up. I don’t really see my lady heads as a separate thing per se, but they certainly come a bit more naturally to me than my animal or surreal work.

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Is there anything you would love to tattoo? I’m desperate to do more famous lady heads. I Would love to do anything from a John Waters’ film, Dolly Parton, Cher, Poison Ivy from the Cramps, the girls from B-52s, Kim Gordon if any of those trigger anyone’s fancy!

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Can you tell us about your own tattoo collection. My personal collection is predominately traditional. The thing I love so much about a traditional tattoo is that is gets better with time, like fancy cheese! In my opinion this is the style (alongside Japanese traditional and tribal) that celebrates the body so perfectly, it is timeless yet has still evolved with each decade. I love Dan Higgs, I have tributes from both Nick Baldwin and Teide who are both fans of his work and I think they’re my favorites. Me and my partner are going to LA later this year we’re hoping to get tattoos from Derrick Snodgrass, And I’m saving my hands for Rachel Rhatklor, if I ever get chance to go over to Australia or she guests over here.

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Do you have any guest spots planned? I will be guesting at Crooked Claw in Sheffield in April and Death’s Door, Brighton in June, with some other exciting ones in the pipeline!

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Interview with Kerste Dixon

27-year-old tattoo artist Kerste Diston creates beautifully abstract watercolour tattoos at her tattoo studio, The Drawing Room in Coventry.  We chatted to Kerste about her style, and running a fully female tattoo shop…

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How long have you been tattooing? I’ve been tattooing around seven years.

How did you start? I started as an apprentice at a studio in my home town in Rugby where I worked for about four years.

What drew you to the tattoo world? Its always something I’ve been interested in. As soon as I turned 18 I was in studios getting work done. I’ve always been more interested in creative industries. I did footwear design at uni before getting my apprenticeship and I did art at college. I can’t imagine not doing something creative as a career.

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How long have you been a studio owner? How did it all come about? I’ve had my own studio for nearly two years. It just sort of happened – I left the studio I worked at in my home town in Rugby and I started working in Coventry. I had an old school friend who has their own business at Fargo Village where my studio is based. When I saw him posting on social media photos of Fargo I was intrigued. It’s a village for creative business and I thought that it would be the perfect place for a studio. They thought a tattooist would fit in well and they had a small unit available. My mum and dad encouraged me to go for it and set off on my own! I’m not sure I would have had the confidence without them to do it. But it’s definitely the best desicion I made. I opened in May 2016, and it started as a small private studio with just me. In May 2017 we expanded into next door and now we have myself and four other full time artists.

Who works in The Drawing Room and what kinds of tattoos do they create? We have myself who specialises in abstract watercolour and black work. Hanah who does super cute girly neotrad work, Emily our apprentice who does blackwork and Haley who does minimilist blackwork

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Was it your intention to have a fully female shop? To be honest it just sort of happened and now it’s a thing. Most of us have a mostly female customer base too because of the style of work we do so it all just sort of fits. That’s not to say if the right artist came to me looking for a job and was a guy I’d turn them down! It just happens that everyone so far that’s been right for us has been female! We also have lots of guest artists – we seem to have made this reputation where ladies like to come guest too, which is lovely! So many people think a big group of girls can be bitchy but honestly the studio is the complete opposite of that – it’s such a lovely place to work and I’m so pleased to have the team I do!

How would you describe your style? Has this changed? I do mostly rainbow watercolour work, however I’ve branched off into doing darker blackwork. It’s still quite abstract but it’s just opened up some more doors for me work wise!

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Do you prefer colour or blackwork? Is there anything you would love to tattoo? I like both colour and blackwork equally – it’s nice to break things up sometimes If I’ve had a week of all colour work and a blackwork piece comes in that’s nice and vice versa! Keeps things interesting! I love to tattoo all things nerdy/ponies and animals mostly!

Do you have any conventions planned? Just one more this year – Scarborough in May. We may look into a few more towards the end of the year though.

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Interview with Ruslan & Tonya

26-year-old Tonya and 29-year-old Ruslan are tattooers from Russia. The couple work together in their private studio Abusev Tattoo in Moscow. We speak to Tonya about their unique style of tattooing…

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When we’re not tattooing at our studio we travel around Europe, soon we’ll be working in Barcelona, then Istanbul and Berlin.

We started our tattoo collaboration over five years ago in Russia. Since then our tattooing has transformed into what we call BIOGRAFIKA. It is not a style it is more like a way to see form and composition on human body. We both tattoo in black and color ink, although I mostly enjoy playing around with my colours and Ruslan likes to stick to black.

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We both work on the composition of a tattoo, creating its shapes and forms. Although I enjoy using colour  in my work, I do agree with Ruslan that black fits best on skin.

Inspiration is what makes our collaboration so special. We inspire each other to be better people, better artists, better tattooers! Working together is not always easy, it takes a lot of patience, and a great will to create something truly unique! We always try to bring something new into every tattoo project.

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It is pretty hard to describe how we met and how we started tattooing together, but each of our lives had wild twists before fate brought us together. Ruslan was working as a professional tattooer when I found him, he did a cover-up for me, and it all went from there – it’s our crazy story!

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One which you would love to see in a movie. I truly love the place we have reached so far, it’s a happy life of two tattooers that never let eachother get bored. Tattoos brought passion into my life. And from what I see, every tattoo we create brings a new life chapter to the person wearing it.

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Interview with Joaquin Ardiles

Because music is in itself an art, it comes as no surprise that so many involved in the industry also have an affinity for tattoo culture. 31-year-old guitarist Joaquin “Jo” Ardiles of Good Tiger has taken his love of tattoos one step further by becoming a tattoo artist. When he’s not on tour, Jo can be found tattooing a mx of western traditional and illustrative styles at Kilburn Tattoo in London. 

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How long have you been playing guitar and how long have you been tattooing?I’ve been pretending to play guitar now for about 15 years, and tattooing for about six or seven years I don’t remember exactly.

Which one do you love more? Or is it like picking a favourite child? They are both a lot of fun and I enjoy different things from each of them, I’m lucky that I get to do both. I think I get the same enjoyment from playing a sickhead riff as I do from finishing a cool tattoo. I like the freedom the tattooing gives me to be able to go out and play music and I like that playing music means I get to be tattooed by people in different parts of the world that would be difficult/expensive to get to otherwise.

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What was it about each craft that drew you in and peaked your interest? How do they make you feel? I started playing guitar because I thought chicks dug that shit, but actually they like saxophone. I quit playing the saxophone to play guitar, so I really fucked up there. By the time I realised it was too late and I was already invested, so I just kept going. Also I wanted to slam some sick riffs and be Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine. Playing guitar means that I get to hang out with my friends and play a lot of Nintendo Switch with them in tiny backstages across the world, which is cool, I’m into it.

I started tattooing because I thought it would be easy and I could make some money in between touring but it turns out it’s not and I had to work hard for my place. Luckily I had a bossman that was ok with me going on tour, as long as when I was back I was at the studio watching and learning. I knew very little about tattoos when I started, I was a bit of an idiot actually. I love the world of tattooing now, I love that it’s not easy to get into, and I love that I still have a lot to learn.

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How would you describe your style of tattooing? What influences you? Are there any artists you admire? I think my style is a twist on western traditional, I like to keep things a little weird, make it’s something that’s mine as much as something the client wants. I’m influenced by other tattooers, by video games, music, comics. It all plays a part in influencing the way I draw, even if its not obvious in the piece itself. There are so many good tattooers out there right now, I could probably make a really long boring list but I think right now @greggletron is next level. @scumboy666 and @wan_tattooer have such a cool style, I wish people in the UK got more stuff like that I’d love to do shit like that. @joefarrelltattoo is the bossman at my shop he taught me everything I know and I owe him a lot. I work with @lauralenihantattoo and she has been putting out some bigboy pieces recently. HOLD TIGHT THE KILBURN MASSIVE.

How does your music and tattooing go hand in hand? I like to try and get tattooed while I’m on tour if I can. It’s not always easy depending on routing and timing and such, but it’s a nice way to meet tattooers and visit cool shops. Playing music means I get to meet a lot of people and tattoo a lot of people that have found me through the band. Also the music world is full of people with tattoos, I’ve been lucky enough to tattoo people in my favourite bands or talk to musicians about their tattoos and where they got them. I think both those worlds are interlinked, the first tattoos I saw were on musicians in magazines and on tv.

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Good Tiger released their new album We Will All Be Gone on Feb 9th 2018 via Metal Blade Records. Can you tell us a little bit about the new album, what is your favourite track? The new album rules and it’s gonna make me bigger than Kid Rock I think. We really pulled it out of our arses with this one, managed to make a non stop, start to finish, banger after banger, perfect album. Have you guys heard Dark Side of the Moon? This shits all over it and then some. My favourite track is Blue Shift because I think it will make me the most money/chains/emerald encrusted pimp canes.

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Photo taken by Kayla Surico

Will you be touring? What can fans expect? We will be yes, our next tour is in the states, little headline run followed by a load of dates in the US/Canada with our favourite beanheads Protest the Hero. Fans can expect a lacklustre show because we are old now and don’t have the gusto or the legs to put on a show with any kind of enthusiasm. Gonna keep it tight though and play real good. I might get a rat tail haircut again so if I turn around during the show, the front row is going to get a real visual treat, a battering of the senses, even. Prepare yourselves.

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Lionel Fahy Tattoos

Tattoo artist Lionel Fahy is co-founder of the Parisian shop Les Derniers Trappeurs (LDT). A graduate of the Orleans Institute of Visual Arts in France, he has been creating illustrative drawings and tattoos for twenty years.

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My style is DREAMLIKE. Full of dreams, hope, wishes, secrets, double readings, and protective symbols. It does not meet any of the standards of classic tattooing, it is minimalist and stylised.

I love the work I create. I am lucky compared to many other artists. My customers come from the four corners of the world to get tattooed by me. To get something in my style and I am so grateful.

My biggest influences are my customers, my kids, my partner in life Tal and some books, and museums. I am inspired by my work as a duo artist with Tal. You can see our work on our blog.

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