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Portrayed by mainstream media as a place ripe with desolate areas and where poverty and violence abound – just think back to the 2002 hit film 8 Mile, starring local rap superstar, Eminem – Detroit may be used to its bad rep, but if there’s one thing we learned from our visit to Ironclad Tattoo Co., it’s that you can’...
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In last month’s Skin Deep we had the pleasure of sitting down with the splendidly moustached, Kev James, part of Xoil’s Needles Side tattoo revolutionaries. This time, we catch up with the third musketeer and long-time friend of Xoil, Toko Lören, another master of the eye-watering graphic tattoo style that the studio...
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It’s funny stuff, cider… capable of reducing grown men to wreckage, turning ordinary evenings into murky, dimly-recalled nights of excess, and – if it’s the good stuff – doing it while still tasting perfectly innocuous.
It’s even capable of taking one frazzled apprentice from a slightly down-at-heel shop and, a pint...
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Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a dark and damp city where not much seems to grow, five friends got together, to drink beer and dream of a world where things were different, where they would work together, eat together and defeat dragons together, or at least draw dragons together…
Somehow, on that cold winter’s...
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Sometimes, the underground throws up a name that gets consistently bandied around as someone that’s seriously going places. It makes sense to make sure that these rumours are true, because nobody wants to go on record touting a flash in the pan. In the case of James Robinson, I should have trusted my instincts…
Then,...
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Not being ones to let a little language barrier stand in the way of some good art, we set Tom Abbott off on the trail of Ukrainian artists Alex, Ien and Kostya from Bone House to see what he could make of it, Nice work Sir!
It was Ien Levin’s black line-work that led me to seek out the artists behind Bone...
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It’s not often that we get the opportunity to mess around with the logistics of a busy studio and two touring and recording monster metal bands, but fuck with the system we have, and now proudly present you with:
A few months back, I wrote an article on Nipper Williams of Bridgend Tattoo Studio. At the time I...
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If you were hanging out at Bristol University around 2006, you might have crossed paths with two likely lads, Alex Brown and Ben Lakin. At the time, Alex and Ben were studying economics and marketing, but a mutual interest in tattooing was to push them onto another life path altogether…
Jump forward five years and the...
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Nestled on a quaint Edinburgh street, with its light blue façade, windows displaying flash-inspired posters and a carnival cutout of a foxy pin-up out front, Red Hot + Blue Tattoo may just be the most inviting shop you’ll ever set foot in.
Falling down the rabbit hole on a recent trip to Scotland, I was greeted by...
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One of the things that I love most about visiting studios and meeting tattooists is hearing how they got into the world of tattooing. For some reason, I always approach the subject thinking I have heard it all before and then I meet a new artist and a whole new story comes out. And I wasn’t to be disappointed when I...
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The call of Sydney with its legendary status among all the world’s great cities was never too far away on this road trip. Finally, Craigy Lee arrives in the promised land – and finds himself amongst a metropolis of polar oppositesThe call of Sydney with its legendary status among all the world’s great cities was never...
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It’s not every day one hears of a backpacking trip across Europe inspiring a complete career change and the founding of a tattoo shop – and it’s even less often one comes across a successful all-female shop. It doesn’t take long to realize Luvia Petersen and Justina Kervel are anything but ordinary.
Their story is one...
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Wall-to-wall oddities leave you with the feeling that you’ve entered into the realm of an eccentric collector of all things weird, rather than a tattoo studio, but then Cock A Snook is not your average tattoo studio…
Just stepping inside its doors transports you from the streets of Newcastle and takes you away to...
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Stroll through any city or town in the UK and you’ll easily find a selection of studios that are more than likely just a small selection of what the place has to offer. It makes the contrast with Iceland's capital even more remarkable. With five studios, all situated on two neighbouring streets, Reykjavik makes for a...
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What it is about Brisbane that I love so much? I can’t quite put my finger on it but if I was asked to stay in Australia this is where I would settle down.
The art museums, art house cinemas and suitcase markets (where you sell any art or handmade items so long as they can fit in a suitcase) boast the creative-cool...
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Nestled in between New York City’s fast-paced Chinatown neighborhood and trendy, artistic SoHo district, Sacred Tattoo’s location perfectly reflects the duality found within this NYC-based tattoo institution. One part tattoo studio and one part art gallery, Sacred began as Canal Street Tattoo in 1990 as a result of...
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The landscape of the modern city is one in constant flux. New developments springing up where old familiar buildings used to be, properties constantly changing hands and changing identities with surprising regularity, but still there are always landmarks which act as a point of reference. If the landscape of modern...
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Zombie dolls plastered with peeling St George's flag facepaint. Spinning geometric patterns. Books dedicated to images of Death in Mexican art on shelves dotted with skulls, next to flash drawings of Jessica Rabbit milking a giant phallus. Brightly coloured scarves and jewellery, hearts and hands, pretty flowers... a...
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As the months are thundering by I stop to look at my diary and realise we are now halfway through our trip; it has gone scarily quick...
We are already booking flights to New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand; however, for the next few months we are settling down in Brisbane.
Brisbane or ‘Brisvegas’, as the locals like...
Portrayed by mainstream media as a place ripe with desolate areas and where poverty and violence abound – just think back to the 2002 hit film 8 Mile, starring local rap superstar, Eminem – Detroit may be used to its bad rep, but if there’s one thing we learned from our visit to Ironclad Tattoo Co., it’s that you can’...
In last month’s Skin Deep we had the pleasure of sitting down with the splendidly moustached, Kev James, part of Xoil’s Needles Side tattoo revolutionaries. This time, we catch up with the third musketeer and long-time friend of Xoil, Toko Lören, another master of the eye-watering graphic tattoo style that the studio...
It’s funny stuff, cider… capable of reducing grown men to wreckage, turning ordinary evenings into murky, dimly-recalled nights of excess, and – if it’s the good stuff – doing it while still tasting perfectly innocuous. It’s even capable of taking one frazzled apprentice from a slightly down-at-heel shop and, a pint...
Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a dark and damp city where not much seems to grow, five friends got together, to drink beer and dream of a world where things were different, where they would work together, eat together and defeat dragons together, or at least draw dragons together… Somehow, on that cold winter’s...
Sometimes, the underground throws up a name that gets consistently bandied around as someone that’s seriously going places. It makes sense to make sure that these rumours are true, because nobody wants to go on record touting a flash in the pan. In the case of James Robinson, I should have trusted my instincts… Then,...
Not being ones to let a little language barrier stand in the way of some good art, we set Tom Abbott off on the trail of Ukrainian artists Alex, Ien and Kostya from Bone House to see what he could make of it, Nice work Sir! It was Ien Levin’s black line-work that led me to seek out the artists behind Bone...
It’s not often that we get the opportunity to mess around with the logistics of a busy studio and two touring and recording monster metal bands, but fuck with the system we have, and now proudly present you with: A few months back, I wrote an article on Nipper Williams of Bridgend Tattoo Studio. At the time I...
If you were hanging out at Bristol University around 2006, you might have crossed paths with two likely lads, Alex Brown and Ben Lakin. At the time, Alex and Ben were studying economics and marketing, but a mutual interest in tattooing was to push them onto another life path altogether… Jump forward five years and the...
Nestled on a quaint Edinburgh street, with its light blue façade, windows displaying flash-inspired posters and a carnival cutout of a foxy pin-up out front, Red Hot + Blue Tattoo may just be the most inviting shop you’ll ever set foot in. Falling down the rabbit hole on a recent trip to Scotland, I was greeted by...
One of the things that I love most about visiting studios and meeting tattooists is hearing how they got into the world of tattooing. For some reason, I always approach the subject thinking I have heard it all before and then I meet a new artist and a whole new story comes out. And I wasn’t to be disappointed when I...
The call of Sydney with its legendary status among all the world’s great cities was never too far away on this road trip. Finally, Craigy Lee arrives in the promised land – and finds himself amongst a metropolis of polar oppositesThe call of Sydney with its legendary status among all the world’s great cities was never...
It’s not every day one hears of a backpacking trip across Europe inspiring a complete career change and the founding of a tattoo shop – and it’s even less often one comes across a successful all-female shop. It doesn’t take long to realize Luvia Petersen and Justina Kervel are anything but ordinary. Their story is one...
Wall-to-wall oddities leave you with the feeling that you’ve entered into the realm of an eccentric collector of all things weird, rather than a tattoo studio, but then Cock A Snook is not your average tattoo studio… Just stepping inside its doors transports you from the streets of Newcastle and takes you away to...
Stroll through any city or town in the UK and you’ll easily find a selection of studios that are more than likely just a small selection of what the place has to offer. It makes the contrast with Iceland's capital even more remarkable. With five studios, all situated on two neighbouring streets, Reykjavik makes for a...
What it is about Brisbane that I love so much? I can’t quite put my finger on it but if I was asked to stay in Australia this is where I would settle down. The art museums, art house cinemas and suitcase markets (where you sell any art or handmade items so long as they can fit in a suitcase) boast the creative-cool...
Nestled in between New York City’s fast-paced Chinatown neighborhood and trendy, artistic SoHo district, Sacred Tattoo’s location perfectly reflects the duality found within this NYC-based tattoo institution. One part tattoo studio and one part art gallery, Sacred began as Canal Street Tattoo in 1990 as a result of...
The landscape of the modern city is one in constant flux. New developments springing up where old familiar buildings used to be, properties constantly changing hands and changing identities with surprising regularity, but still there are always landmarks which act as a point of reference. If the landscape of modern...
Zombie dolls plastered with peeling St George's flag facepaint. Spinning geometric patterns. Books dedicated to images of Death in Mexican art on shelves dotted with skulls, next to flash drawings of Jessica Rabbit milking a giant phallus. Brightly coloured scarves and jewellery, hearts and hands, pretty flowers... a...
As the months are thundering by I stop to look at my diary and realise we are now halfway through our trip; it has gone scarily quick... We are already booking flights to New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand; however, for the next few months we are settling down in Brisbane. Brisbane or ‘Brisvegas’, as the locals like...
