Category: Therapeutic

Adriaan Machete, Acclaimed Neo-Traditional Tattooist

Inspired by the work of Renaissance and Art Nouveau painters, German tattooist Adriaan Machete is renowned worldwide for his delicate and exquisitely colored body art. His professional tattoo career began around 2007 after he apprenticed with Iban Maya. His major break came in 2010 when he was invited to be a guest artist in various […]

Taki: One of America’s Finest Japanese Tattoo Artists

Takahiro “Taki” Kitamura was born in Tokyo in 1973 and moved to the United States with his parents when he was two. His father taught for 18 years at the University of California, Davis (UCD), and his mother instilled Japanese culture in her children, from cuisine to folktales, to preserve their history. Kitamura got his […]

El Nawal’s Black-Ink Tattoos Embody Energy

Alberto Hartleben is known as “El Nawal” in the tattoo community. A Guatemalan native who has lived most of his life in Brazil. In 2021, he co-founded a private tattoo studio in Houston, Texas, where he currently resides and works. As a tattoo artist, he employs black ink due to its beauty and longevity. In […]

Jio’s Tattoos Express the Joy and Pain of Life

Jio was born in Dzerzhinsk, Russia, and emigrated with her family to the South of Portugal, where she spent part of adolescence and eventually studied in Lisbon’s prestigious university (Faculdade de Bela-Artes da ULisboa). Even though she still has a strong connection to Portugal, that country did not give the opportunity she deserved to become […]

Kavan the Kid Interview: Art Saved His Life

American photographer Kavan the Kid has expressed his disquiet emotions in the surrealist imagery that he produces. Fears, anxiety, depression are aspects unfolded in his visuals, and he talks openly about these personal struggles in this interview. He has collaborated with Human Code to create a candle with his artwork, to be sold online and […]

Nikko Hurtado: Work Smart and Be Grateful

We met up with tattooist Nikko Hurtado at the end of a warm-winter day at the conference hall, a building located across the Golden State Tattoo Expo in Pasadena, where he and other prominent colleagues Joe Capobianco and BJ Betts conducted workshops to aspiring artists. Hurtado, the event co-host and studio owner of Black Anchor, […]

Nothing to See: Photography by Tim Tadder

“Nothing to See” is one of Tim Tadder’s latest photographic series where he works with model Jeane Turner to embrace her alopecia and raise awareness for others; his imagery is also a reflection of his frustration and anxiety of the current sociopolitical landscape in the United States. Strongly using red, white, and blue pigments to represent […]

Radical Beauty: Elizaveta Porodina with Lily Moore

Elizaveta Porodina is a Munich-based (Moscow-born) fashion and fine-art photographer. Her work is experimental, bending reality with colour-burst surrealism and black-and-white romanticism. The emotional symbolism underlying her work derives from her studies in clinical psychology. Featured here is her contribution to Radical Beauty, a photo project aimed at challenging beauty normativity in contemporary culture. The […]

Tattooing is Meditative: Interview with Mo Ganji

We met up with world-renowned tattooist, Mo Ganji, in his private studio in Berlin. At the door we’re greeted by his loving dog Cleo (short for Cleopatra), who was sleeping during most of the interview. Before starting, we were excited to understand why the artist does not tattoo at conventions, and what it was like […]