My family’s quite multicultural in the sense that I come from two different immigrant backgrounds — my mother was born in Laos, but as a kid during the Vietnam War, she escaped to France. And my dad was born in Malaysia to Chinese parents, but his family moved to Australia.
I guess they met in China while studying, even though they were from opposite ends of the world. The family story was like a big play – a very big, confusing play <haha>.
I was born in Melbourne, Australia, and was raised between there and France. I moved to London a little over three years ago. I grew up traveling with a multicultural worldview, so I feel a need to see everything. It’s sick that I’ve been able to do some of that through my job.
Tattooing came about kind of randomly. I never thought I might end up doing this professionally, and I never thought I’d get any tattoos. But I’ve been drawing my whole life, and my mother has been painting as long as I can remember. I did art in school next to all the science and math notes I took, thinking I might end up a vet or a marine biologist, something like that.
I remember studying at uni when my sister’s friend started tattooing stick-n-pokes; it interested me, so I asked her how she started. She gave me some needles & ink & that kind of started an obsession.
I was tattooing myself heaps before tattooing anyone, even before getting a tattoo from someone else. I wanted to do an apprenticeship, but that same friend was opening up a private studio and invited me to work there, to teach myself. So I joined their studio with five other stick-n-poke artists back in Melbourne.
We were all young, people of color, and queer. I think that was one of the first little private studios in Melbourne to really take off.
It was behind a friend’s storefront, and we had to enter and take our clients in sort of secretly. Towards the end of that era, the owner of a traditional tattoo shop in the same area found out about us, and she told the city council. So overnight, we freaked out and got rid of everything. We were so scared. Now I think she was more questioning, “Who is this younger generation doing all this sh*t?” <haha>.
But nothing happened. I think we ended up calling the council before they could slam us, and they just told us what we needed to become legit. It was kind of a blessing in disguise, even though that studio was great, to move into proper studios.
Soon after, I started jumping between walk-in shops and private studios across Australia until I had a string of locations lined up to travel to, working guest spots long-term.
For those first 10 months, I was living out of a suitcase, bouncing around Europe, then to New York and back. It was fun, even though it was so chaotic. And I found community…
I met all the people I had made friends with online across the ‘worldwide scene,’ or whatever you want to call those social media spaces we build and take part in. Mostly, I did two months here in London and three months in Berlin, thinking I was gonna end up moving to Berlin. But my time there was spent very intensely partying, and I feel like I can fall into bad habits easily.
I didn’t move to the other side of the world to do the same sh*t I was doing at home, or worse. So I ended up back here to settle a base.
I strive for balance in my work – a mix of cleanliness in technique with darker elements & composition.
I would say tattooing’s the main thing I do here in London. But being here has allowed me so many other opportunities to redefine my work.
I had a solo show quite fast after moving and have been part of a few group shows, too. To be honest, I never knew I could even do that, much less entertain finer art scenes. I’ve airbrushed, screenprinted way more merch… A little clay work, more digital printing fabrics. I’ve done some modeling stuff as well, which has been sick, but it all just merges into one anyway. It’s a range of opportunities that I know wouldn’t have happened for me if I stayed in Melbourne.
Regardless, these days, I feel like you can’t just tattoo anymore. Any friend of mine who has only been tattooing has been asking themselves, “What’s next? What do I need to do now?” The scene is changing.
When you first travel as a guest, you get busier because people jump on appointments more. But now that I’m based somewhere again, it’s slower.
You either have to keep traveling or have another side gig. At the same time, that’s granted me much more time to paint & branch out.
I recently came into my own studio as well; however, I have to let it go until my visa renews.
Even though I loved the space, it did keep me stressed at times, and stopped me from traveling as much. I could have subleased it out, maybe, but having a studio is like building your own little sanctuary – feels a little weird to lease such close access to how you create. It definitely allowed me to work on much larger-scale pieces. It also helped set a routine or somewhere else to go.
Imprisoned in my body.
This was a digital print on vegan leather. But I made it when I didn’t have a studio, so it was literally in my room, standing and painting on it. Half on my bed, half on the floor. That took up all the extra space in my room.
As of late, as much as people hold a love-hate relationship with Instagram, a lot of people’s careers and work portfolios depend on that one website. Personally, I can’t imagine not having it. If Meta imploded one day, so many of us would be stuck staring at our feet thinking, “Well, what the f*ck do I do now?” And probably something like, “Who even am I?” <hahaha>.
I’ve been working on a website to finally archive everything on my own terms, but I really can’t imagine not having social media. The whole underground tattooing scene, especially traveling artists, who I feel like are most of my friends, only ever gets anywhere because you can network through people’s art. And then you go to their city to hang out or meet up. It connects everybody and provides a lot more open opportunities.
It’s obviously a bit frustrating and can get hard to navigate when the algorithm fluctuates so much, but I try not to think about it too much. Just make the work, put it out, and pray for the best. If something happens from it, that’s amazing. But try not to overthink it.
I feel like every creative should have an opinion on what they like and don’t like. You need to be true to yourself and what you think, but also open to change and differences in mentality. Even if I disagree with someone’s art or tattoos, it’s a person who found their way to make a living creatively and pushed through whatever they had to do to make it. So, fair enough. Let the next newcomer try to do their thing.
-Inès Ting for Dead Relatives.
