Interview with Tattooist Laura Gascoyne

21-year-old Laura Gascoyne works out of Never Say Die in Croydon London where she creates black dot work and pattern tattoos. We chatted to Laura about what inspires her, how she started in the industry her own tattoo collection…

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Photo taken by Nick Evans

How long have you been tattooing? How did you start? In September 2014 I popped into Never Say Die on a friend’s recommendation. Originally I thought they may just offer me a receptionist position but after seeing my portfolio Kali (the shop owner) offered me an apprenticeship. I was over the moon! I did my first tattoo about six months later and have steadily progressed since then. I’m obviously still learning, as with art and tattooing I believe you never stop learning, but I have recently become more confident with my skills and am building up a decent client basis.

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What did you do before? Do you have a background in art? I’ve always been passionate about art since I was a little kid and always knew I wanted a career in art. After completing my GCSEs, I went on to study art at a college but dropped out after a term, as I felt like the things they were teaching me in college weren’t helping me to progress.

How would you describe your style? How has it developed? Where do you see it going? That’s a really hard one to answer! Before I started tattooing I specialised in drawing realistic portraits and then went on to start drawing lots of mandalas. However once I started my apprenticeship I began with tattooing quite simple mandalas which progressed to more pattern styled work. However as a custom artist I get asked to design and tattoo all sorts of things, which I love because it really helps expand my drawing skills and pushes me out of my comfort zone.  Generally everything I draw is quite pretty and lots of patterns and dot work.

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What inspires you? Everything! Whether it be a pattern on an old tile in a bathroom, or a tattoo made my someone else, we are constantly surrounded by art work and patterns and I really see the beauty in everything, especially nature. I’m very much inspired by Tibetan and oriental style patterns and I love tattooing Thai ornamental patterns. Although I haven’t tattooed that many, I do love tattooing beautiful woman, and a lot of my large scale drawings have a woman’s face as the main feauture.

Do you admire any artists? Do they influence your work? Even before I started my apprenticeship, rather than being inspired by painters and fine artists I was always just looking at tattoos for inspiration. On Instagram 90% of the pages I follow are tattoo artists, I won’t pick out any names in particular because there’s just so many who I admire so much! Of course everything I see has the ability to influence my work in some way, as my work is a combination of everything I’ve ever seen and felt, and everything that has inspired me.

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What kinds of things do you like to tattoo and draw? If I’m just let loose in my sketch book I find myself drawing very detailed and patterned orientated large scale pieces, with a very spiritual and symbolic feel about them. I am a very spiritual and positive person myself so that’s the sort of thing I would like to predominately tattoo on people, as for me tattooing is all about sharing my art work and spreading messages though art.

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Can you tell us about your own tattoos?  So my right leg is basically a sticker book of random tattoos given as gifts and just spontaneous ones, and a fair amount of tattoos I’ve done on my self. My left arm is for tattoos I’ve put more thought into, all just black ink and quite dark, but all revolved around the beauty in nature and positivity. I have a few small random tattoos dotted about, included a handpocked unalome on my ear, a smiley face on one of my finger tips, and the seed of of life on the back of my neck. I have a full back piece in progress which so far has just been four sessions of solid black work.

Interview with Jessica O

We chat to 28-year-old tattoo artist Jessica O who works out of Lado Clássico Tattoo in Blumenau, in the south of Brazil, about what inspires her traditional style and the tattoos she creates… 

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How long have you been tattooing? I’ve been tattooing for about three years now, counting my apprenticeship.

How did you start? I had tattoos and loved them, but never imagined myself as a tattoo artist because I was afraid of creating bad tattoos. I was in a very bad year of my life, at the end of 2012, I had just quit an awful job and wasn’t happy at all with my professional life. So I decided to do what I had always loved the most: drawing. Then I started to study and understand tattoo flash and read about the old tattooers, Coleman, Bert Grimm, Percy Waters, Dietzel and fell in love with it all. A friend of mine saw my paintings and offered me an apprenticeship at his studio and here I am today!

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What did you do before? Do you have a background in art? I worked within the fashion and product development sector of the textile industry. I have been drawing since I can remember, but I’ve never taken classes for it.

How would you describe your style? I don’t know,  it’s too detailed to be traditional and too simple to be neo traditional I guess. But I like to say traditional. I try to make tattoos that are solid and long lasting, anatomically correct (little OCD especially with hands), bright and beautiful to look at from close and far away.

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What inspires you? I especially like vintage photography, circus and old postcards. I love looking at old tattoo flash sheets, and the history behind tattooers and tattooing. Early renaissance paintings are beautiful but I’m most of all I’m inspired by people that make things with love.

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Do you admire any artists? Do they influence your work? I admire a lot of today’s artists, too many to count! For the most part they’re women. Since the beginning of my career I have looked up to lady tattoo artists. I discovered Ashley Love, Claudia de Sabe, and I thought “God, I hope to be this good someday!

What kinds of things do you like to tattoo and draw? Mostly human figure, ladies, cats, dogs, mermaids, roses and hands.

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Can you tell us about your own tattoos? On the palms of my hands I have a butterfly, that was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. Most of my tattoos were done by friends and people that I admire. I mostly choose flash from the person I’m getting tattooed by. I plan on going to Europe to get tattooed by a lot of awesome people someday soon!

Interview with John Avanti

35-year-old John (Lupo) Avanti works out of Ocean Avenue Tattoo in San Francisco and Lucky Drive Tattoo in San Rafael, where he creates surreal tattoos. We chatted to John about his style of work and how he likes the idea of reading people through their tattoos…

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I began tattooing  about five years ago, after my friend Joey Cassina decided to open his shop Ocean Ave Tattoo in San Francisco. I used to work in construction so I helped to get OAT built and eventually spent enough time at the shop to pursue an apprenticeship. The apprenticeship was going great but was cut short, so I decided if I was going to keep tattooing then I would have to figure it out on my own. I quit Ocean Ave and started working out of my basement in Oakland tattooing friends and locals to build my portfolio up enough to get in another professional shop.

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Fortunately, the guys at Lucky Drive tattoo saw I had some potential and gave me a sort of soft apprenticeship. I was at Lucky Drive for about a year until I decided to take my tattooing to Australia. I spent three years in Australia and just recently moved back to work at both Ocean Ave and Lucky Drive where I started. A bit of a complicated start but I really love my friends and family in San Francisco and I’m proud to have made the long journey back.

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Tattooing has been the best way for me to do what I to do best. As I said before, I was in construction but over the years I also worked part time in many other forms of illustration including: animation, comics, large-scale murals, and commercial illustration. The only formal training I have was a trade school style animation course I took in Vancouver. I also did a landscape painting class in Italy. That’s probably more artist experience than most tattooers have starting out so my style has a lot of influences.

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Coming from San Francisco I was initially focused on doing traditional tattoos but after my time in Australia I wound up wanting to make tattoos that resemble a style closer to my acrylic paintings. If you had to put a label on it – you could describe it as “neo traditonal surrealism.” Italian style tattooing and George Burchett tend to be my “go-to” influences but it’s hard for me to draw things without it being overly imaginative. I want people to like my designs without fully knowing the reason why they like them.

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A good image will always jump out at you and you don’t always have to understand it. It’s that geo treasure kind of searching for new iconic designs that makes it interesting for me. I also tend to think about what people will look like when they are dead and in a morgue having their bare bodies examined. I like the idea of seeing a person’s tattoos and understanding who they are without knowing them. Sometimes I just want to make designs that are classic with little to no distortion but most people like my more artsy pieces. Usually they are simple concepts in unique combinations.

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I don’t put many restrictions on what I want to tattoo but it also depends on the person. If the person is not familiar with my work then I don’t just put a fine line surreal image next to the their sailor Jerry eagle. I am also careful when it comes to people with intense mental illnesses. Tattoos are therapeutic in troubled times but I will never tattoo a person who’s mental condition is constantly changing.