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In Memory of Hannah Oliver

Screen Shot 2018-08-07 at 18.34.0625-year-old tattoo artist Hannah Oliver (Han Maude) passed away this weekend from a rare form of lung cancer. Having followed and supported her short yet vibrant tattooing career, we’d like to take the time to celebrate her work and her life. We’d also like to send our thoughts to her family and friends at this difficult time.

From Jekyll & Hyde in Rugby to Infinite Ink in Coventry, Hannah grew her talent as a remarkable dot work tattoo artist, and she showed her sense of humour and passions through her work. Known for her hoop earrings, long nails, and her love of Disney and blackwork tattoos, Hannah was much respected and loved throughout the tattoo community. She was also involved in conventions and Things&Ink exhibitions; she created a super cute kewpie inspired by Sailor Moon and cats for our Miniature Ink 2 art exhibition. Our editor Rosie owns and treasures the kewpie created by Hannah and displays it with pride in her home.

Hannah was also involved in the 100 Hands Project, curated by Alice Snape,  in which she tattooed a latex arm with an original dot work design. Her hand is now on show at the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth, until 6th January 2019. So go down and see a piece of her original work. It’s a little piece of history and a little piece of her.

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Donna Reid, a close friend who worked with Hannah has set up a GoFundMe page to help Hannah’s family with the funeral costs:

We have lost our amazing friend Hannah. She has been taken from us all way too soon, and there will be an irreplaceable hole in so many of our lives now. She leaves behind so many people who adore her and who are going to miss her every single day. She has suffered with severe Crohn’s disease for quite some time now which has lead to her health declining dramatically. She was recently diagnosed with a very rare type of terminal cancer that attacks the blood vessels in the lungs. She fought it with everything she had, in true Hannah style! However, her battle with cancer was a short one, and on Sunday morning she had a heart attack and was taken from us.
It is now time for Hannah’s family’s to arrange her funeral. Before she passed, she had decided how she would like her funeral to be. I am reaching out to you all to ask if you will donate towards helping with the cost, no matter how small. Every penny will go to her family so that this awful time they are having to go through can be made a little easier. Thank you, Donna x

If you would like to donate click here.

Before she passed away, Hannah got in touch with us hoping to raise awareness about the rare form of cancer she was diagnosed with, and how she could support and fundraise for the EHE Rare Cancer Charity, so that she could help others. Sadly Hannah never got the chance to spread the word about this charity and the work it does, if you would like to donate in Hannah’s memory, click here.

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Interview with Tattooist Çağdaş Mutlu

Çağdaş Mutlu is a tattoo artist from Izmir, Turkey who creates black work tattoos, we caught up with Çağdaş to find out more about his work…

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Having graduated from Dokuz Eylül University Fine Arts Faculty in  2005 with a fine arts pattern design degree, Çağdaş has been designing and drawing for the last 15 years. While he has been tattooing for the last five years, focusing on dot work, lines and a black style.

Since he had been designing patterns for year, it was time for him to permanently mark those designs onto skin. His inspiration is providing a result that everyone is happy with and seeing the desired artwork come alive on the skin. There hasn’t been a favourite piece for Çağdaş, but instead seeing how his different designs emerge and develop everyday, watching the process that has been his favourite part.

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Describing his style, Çağdaş says:

HUMANART is a tattoo way and a brand that combines the art of tattoo with illustration and graphic design with narrative expression. We do not address this art that we perform on the human body as tattoo.  What we create is an art of people. We do not define this as tattoo, but as HUMANART.  This is how we represent our brand and this is the way we initiate a new movement by painting people’s lifes, philosophies and secrets on their own bodies.

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Rafa Alvarez Illustrations

We love this illustration created by Rafa Alvarez called The Paradox created for Opticks Magazine… 

Personal piece used as cover for art magazine “Opticks”.
I wanted to make an apparently normal image but full of visual contradictions. I used a beautiful stock photography by Tim Platt as reference for the initial pose of the couple, then drew tattoos intertwining with the arms and bodies making the hug impossible. The predominant “never together” tattoo could only be read when the couple is actually close to each other, becoming another paradox. Many of the details like the Moebius strip refer to classic impossible geometry (M.C.Escher) and I also couldn´t help to throw in Schrodinger´s favourite pet. Definitely a lot of fun to draw.

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Interview with Tattoo Artist Ruby Quilter

26-year-old Ruby Quilter, is a tattoo artist at Sang Bleu Tattoo in London. We chatted to Ruby about being a female tattooer, and her fine line style…

How long have you been tattooing? I’ve been tattooing for about five years now, I began my apprenticeship at 21.

How did you get into the industry and what inspired you to do so? I started getting tattooed quite young, and from then it sparked something in me to learn more about different tattooers and tattooing history. I actually hadn’t considered tattooing as a job, even at that time, being a female tattooer had some social connotations. I felt like it was quite a huge step away from the path I was on. I decided to look for an apprenticeship and a really amazing shop near where I’m from called Scarlet Rose took me on.

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What did you do before? I didn’t have too much time after leaving school to get into a career, I’d had a few different jobs, mostly retail work, and was studying fashion and originally wanted to do something along the lines of visual creative direction. I feel incredibly luckily I found tattooing.

How would you describe your style of tattooing? Fine line black and grey.

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What inspires your designs? Loads of different things; I reference a lot of old flash and I look at a lot of religious imagery. I also love looking at old fantasy art. I collect a lot of older comics which have some incredible ideas that can transition into tattoos.

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 Are there any artists that influence you? Definitely; Jack Rudy, Kari Barba, Juan Puente, Freddy Corbin among so many others. I love the work of Nathan Kostechko, Juan Teyer, Ben Grillo, Zac Scheinbaum. I could keep going!

What would you love to tattoo? I would love to get more into fantasy, I have some incredible customers who are really open with what they get, and give me the opportunity to try something new. I’d also love to take on larger projects, I would love to do some back pieces!

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Do you have any guest spots or conventions planned? I definitely have more plans to travel, my best friend Jack and I plan to make a trip to Barcelona soon, and make the most of travelling within Europe. Last year I worked the London Tattoo Convention, which was a huge opportunity for me and I would love to do that incredible convention again.