Things&Ink

August 4, 2016August 4, 2022

Interview with Katie Shocrylas

31-year-old tattoo artist Katie Shocrylas tattoos out of a private studio in Vancouver, BC, Canada and creates mesmerising and bright tattoos inspired by the beauty of nature. We chatted to Katie to find out more about her distinctive style and what drew her to the tattoo world…

Screen Shot 2016-05-13 at 8.48.08 AM

Photo taken by rolydee.com

How long have you been tattooing? I have been tattooing full-time for about four years.

How did you start? What did you do before? I became fascinated with tattooing about a year after finishing art school, while I was travelling and started getting tattooed myself. After my apprenticeship I ended up going back to school for art therapy; I took a bit of a roundabout route but ultimately found my way back to tattooing and haven’t stopped since. Now, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

I did a lot of different things before I got into tattooing: I spent four years completing a Bachelor of Fine Art degree, a year travelling in New Zealand, and in the time between then and the beginning of my tattoo career had a variety of different jobs in the service industry. My apologies to anyone who got me as a server, I was always terrible at waiting tables and serving drinks!

Do you have a background in art? I have always drawn and painted, and have an undergraduate degree in visual art specialising in mixed media figure drawing and painting. I also danced semi- professionally until I was 18.

What drew you to the tattoo world? I have always loved the fact that tattooing allows you to make one-on-one connections with other people through images. I think it’s a really unique way to make even just a small difference in someone else’s life, and being able to learn a little bit about their experiences by creating a piece of really personal artwork for them. I am drawn to the directness of drawing directly onto someone’s body; tattoos are aesthetic and I love that they’re a way for people to adorn their skin with images they find beautiful and/or significant – I see tattoos as a movement towards self love and often acceptance and healing. Also, it’s really, really fun and super rewarding to be able to make art for people every day!

How would you describe your style, how has it changed? I always have a hard time describing my style but I suppose I would say I do illustrative, vibrant, somewhat neo-traditional and mostly animal-based tattoos. Over the past few years, I feel my work has become a little freer and more whimsical – my line work has definitely evolved to have a bit more of a sense of naturalism to it. Also, I find myself working with bright colour schemes in a way that combines black and neutral tones to contrast the hyper-vibrant rainbow palettes I love so much. I think my sense of colour is becoming more refined and I’m really enjoying the depth that results from that.

What do you like to tattoo and draw? Animals! Crystals! Anything that grows in nature. I love doing pet portraits, anything magical or whimsical, food tattoos are really fun (fruits and veggies and anything sweet), patterns, ornamentation, anything that combines the real world with an imagined world.

What inspires you? I am inspired by nature, pop culture (especially anything from the 80s), travel, and lots of other artists (tattoo and otherwise, both past and contemporary).

What would you love to tattoo? I really want to do more pop culture tattoos – think X Files, drag queens, iconic musicians, 80s inspired imagery. I’d also love to do more insects, snakes, and exotic as well as mythological animals. I really want to tattoo a zebra, if anyone’s keen!

Do you have any guest spot or conventions planned? I’ll be part of Art Basel again this December with my lovely sponsors Hush Anesthetics! Otherwise I am going to be primarily in Vancouver for the remainder of 2016 as I’ve been on the road a lot this past year and am looking forward to a few months at home. However, I am in the beginning stages of planning some North American and UK guest spots for 2017. I am also planning on heading back to Brighton for the convention in 2017, I was part of the convention this year and had a blast.

Can you tell us about your own tattoos? Half of the tattoos on my arms are cover ups, and my favourite tattoos rarely see the light of day – I’ve got a little collection of animals on my legs (a horse, toucan, squirrel, puppy, kittens – still lots of space on my one leg to fill with more creatures!) Steve Moore is doing a full backpiece for me, we’re two sessions in, I’m pretty excited about that as his work has inspired me since before I even started tattooing.

August 3, 2016

Tattooist Paul Hill on Sailor Jerry’s Ride

Motorbike collector, tattoo artist and owner of Vagabond Tattoo Studio Paul Hill recently joined the team at iconic American brand, Sailor Jerry for The Ride 2016, which pulled together the UK’s most legendary motorcyclists into three motorcycling teams –Kingdom of Kicks, The Originals and FTH – for an epic ride around the UK. We wanted to find out more about Paul’s love for motorbikes and tattoos…

Watch The Ride videos on Sailor Jerry’s YouTube channel…

Do you think motorbikes and tattoos go hand in hand?
Historically certain aspects of bike culture and tattooing have been intertwined. As cliche as it sounds I think that still exists. The kind of person that is into customising bikes is likely to be into customising other things, including their body. Bike styles of the 60s and 70s bring with them an interest in the aesthetics of that era and those bold traditional tattoos are a big part of that.

What made you first fall in love with motorbikes? And also with tattoos?
I’ve always been into customising and putting my own stamp on things, bikes are a good way to channel that energy and tattooing is the ultimate expression of that.

What was your involvement in The Ride? What was it like?
I’ve met a lot of new people and created friendships through tattooing and even more through motorcycling, often both. The community surrounding motorcycles is constantly growing, a lot of the friends I’ve met are in a similar position to me. Young(ish) person usually within the creative industry all supporting each other. For me it has a community feel that allows us all to work and creatively do exactly what we want. My friend James (team Kingdom of Kicks) is one of these people. We met through the bike scene and I tattoo a mutual friend. He got in touch saying Sailor Jerry were planning a ride this year and offered me spot – a bunch of us riding around the UK camping and partying courtesy of Sailor Jerry, hard to turn down!

What was your favourite moment from The Ride?
The ride itself was awesome, there are so many beautiful roads right on our doorstep bikes being the best way to take advantage of them. Riding through North Wales and the Brecon Beacons is hard to beat. My favourite moment by far was making a BBQ using a piece of slate over a bonfire. We had just finished a great day’s riding through some of the best roads we’d ever ridden and all sat around the fire until the early hours eating and drinking. Moshing in a hay bale bunker to Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes was up there too!

What do you like to mix your Sailor Jerry with?
I mix my Sailor Jerry with Ginger beer.

We asked Sailor Jerry to sum up The Ride in a sentence: This summer Sailor Jerry hit the road once again for round two of The Ride, this year three bad-ass, bike building teams from across the UK were tasked with a series of epic challenges and compete against each other on a hell raising journey of balls-to-wall riding.

Paul was in team Kingdom of Kicks, but unfortunately it was The Originals who took the crown. Better luck next year, Paul. Sounds like he had a great time anyway. Check out Sailor Jerry’s Ride competition on their website.

August 2, 2016

Launch of the new sketchbook: LÉA NAHON – Carnet 1

French publishing house Noire Méduse has just released the beautiful Léa Nahon– Carnet 1, a sketchbook by tattoo artist Léa Nahon.

This first volume features a selection of drawings taken from her own sketchbooks, which play a very important part in her life as an artist and through which Léa offers her interpretation of the world. She has developed her own style, including sketches, stencils, collages and sometimes text, with a dominance of black ink. Her illustrations, essentially portraits, are mainly inspired by her own environment. Léa returns to her artistic roots as a tattooer, by offering to ink these pages within the heart of the matter: the skin of her clients. All these designs are transformed into either paintings or tattoos, sometimes even both.

After a short introduction by the editor, this book unveils 64 pages of stunning drawings, the extraordinary world of this tattoo artist with her unique and unmistakeable style. Free from traditional codes of tattooing, Léa Nahon, originally from Paris became a leader in this innovative trend, an important part of the contemporary art dimension of modern tattoos. Indeed, she worked for a long time at “La Boucherie Moderne” (Brussels) one of the main centres of experimental tattooing, before opening her own shop called “L’Usine”, in Liège (Belgium).

You can purchase the book from: www.noire-meduse.com

July 28, 2016August 4, 2022

Interview with Karolina Skulska

25-year-old Karolina Skulska tattoos out of Kult Tattoo Fest in Krakow, Poland and creates wonderful floral tattoos. We chatted to Karolina about the natural world that inspires her and how she started tattooing…

How long have you been tattooing? It’s been two years since I took hold of a machine for the first time. But I’m not sure if my first steps could even have been called tattooing!

How did you start? What did you do before? Before I was studying journalism but after a short time I realised that the work didn’t suit me. During that time I was a customer of Kult Tattoo Fest and was getting tattooed by Edek. One day I noticed that guys from TF Mag (magazine about tattoos which is released by people who are a part of Kult team) were looking for another editor. As a journalism student and tattoo fanatic I was a good candidate. I worked there for few years and was drawing a lot of the time, I was tottally absorbed in the tattoo industry.

Do you have a background in art? I didn’t graduate from art school or academy, but I was always drawing a lot and also taking some drawing lessons. I was doing it for no real reason, but I felt that it might be useful in the future.

What drew you to the tattoo world? Since I remember I’ve felt that there’s something in tattoos that attracts me more than other people. When I was under the legal age I was begging my parents to let me get my first tattoo. Then work in TF Mag showed me this tattoo world from the inside. Doing interviews with tattoo artists was helping me to become more more interested in the craft. I wanted to try the things they were talking about and understand them. Now it’s my greatest passion and job all in one.

Describe your style, has it changed? I don’t think it has changed, my career is too short for big changes. I call myself a tattoo florist, because I love to put lots of flowers into my works, lots of leaves and other botanical aspects. It looks great on all body types as it’s easy to fit the anatomy lines of the body. I use strong outlines but in the same time add small details, I love pastel colours and dotwork.

What do you like to tattoo and draw? What inspires you? As I mentioned, nature is the most inspiring thing for me. In my camera roll I have more photos of botanical elements than food and selfies combined. I love drawing these things, I find a great sense of pleasure from the dots, lines and floral designs.

What would you love to tattoo? And what would you refuse to do? I don’t have a list of stuff I want to do, I simply love all tattoos. Colouring people and using machines is great fun and pure happiness for me, so I just want to do it! I will refuse to do motives that are harmful for other people like racist symbols etc. and I’m also not into religious stuff. I also refuse to make designs that I know will look really bad after a few years, like very small and detailed stuff or super fashionable white ink tattoos.

Do you have any guest spot or conventions planned? This summer I will go to Trondheim for a few guest spot for sure, but as I was travelling a lot last month I’ll probably take a break. Then I’ll start guest spotting with renewed energy next year.

Can you tell us about your own tattoos? Most of them are made by Edek, but you can also find on me works of Piotr Bemben, Bartek Kos, Marie Kraus, Davee, Mazak, Kay Lee. Most of my tattoos were spontaneous and creates in the happy moments of my life.

July 27, 2016July 27, 2016

Exhibition: Exit Voto

Our Italian contributor Ilaria Pauletti chatted to Rossana Calbi the curator of Exit Voto, the latest exhibition at Parione9 in Rome, on until August, 7th…

morg_sant'orsola (1)

More than 100 artists were involved in Rossana’s Exit Voto, and among them are some talented Italian tattooists including Miss Juliet, Diletta Lembo and Morg Armeni.

Everyone of the chosen artists had the task of recreating a holy picture on paper. They were all completely free from any obligation or limitations, Rossana simply choose the theme and the medium.

As you may already know, ex-voto is an offering given in order to fulfil a vow, normally the offerings are given to saints or divinities in gratitude or devotion (hence the Latin term, short for ex voto suscepto, “from the vow made”).
Rossana played with this ancient term to show a way that we can exit or enter the holiness that can be found in the everyday, and a way to explore other’s affinities with the divine.

diletta lembo_santa felicita When did the idea of this ambitious project come to you, how did it evolve to become what it is now exposed in the Roman gallery?
The theme of the representation of holiness has interested me for a long time. In 2011 I curated the exhibition Carpe Viam in Elsa Morante multi-functional complex of Rome, in that case the idea was to understand the artistic representation of holiness along the way. In that project were artists who have also been involved in EXIT VOTO, Marianna Pisanu and Pelin Santilli. Following Virgil’s admonition, carpe viam, I embarked on this journey and last year I decided to work with a hundred artists that could reinvent the holy pictures that I saw in the drawers of my grandmother’s home.

Have you commissioned a representation of each saint, giving total control to the artist or have you given them some guidelines? The only instructions I give when curating an exhibition is the theme, format, and in this case the medium- paper. What interests me and what I think is gripping is the development of each project, I love to see how each artist evolves the theme with different techniques and perspectives.

lucrezia U_santa vitalia_low
When did you decide to include tattooists and not just artists or painters? I do not make a distinction between the arts: cartoonists, illustrators, painters and tattoo artists for me are always just artists. I work without categorising the expression and choices of any artist.

What is your personal relationship with the faith?
I need to believe in something greater than me, I need to do this because I need a warning and above all hope.

And with the art of tattooing?
I was interested in the tattoo world when I was younger. I’m always very curious to see the pictures and study the ties they have with the people. Tattooing represents the evolution of symbols on the skin. Understanding the choices and the need to have a mark on the skin means you understand a lot about the individual and also of the group.

miss juliet_santa gertrude di nivelles

I personally think that tattooing is an act of faith, about trusting yourself. Deciding to change your body, to explore a feeling or taking control of your body, is an important gesture. What do you think about it? Do you have any tattoos? I got a tattoo of a lily when I was 18, and I never liked the result. The ink exploded transforming the design into something poorly defined. It took me years to trust a tattoo artist again. Well, I chose Nicoz Balboa to cover the tattoo on my shoulder with another lily, that should have been there in the first place.

Zoe Lacchei_The Penitent Magdalene_low

What is the Exit Voto that represents you the most? The holy picture that struck me the most is the ‘Maddalena Penitente (Penitent Magdalene)’ by Zoe Lacchei. As I said before I do not give guidance on the realisation of the work, but Zoe Lacchei heard what I was trying to produce with the title. But there are also works that I have enjoyed and that can eliminate the heaviness of my spirit, including the ‘Saint Honoré’ painting by Riccardo Bucchioni.