Today we’d like to introduce you to Emma Larkin.
Hi Emma, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I started drawing at a very young age and encouraged by my parents, followed a Fine Arts path through college. As soon as I learned that one could be an artist, I never wanted to be anything else. Sometime around early high school, I began to be more aware of tattoos, intrigued by their boldness and mystery.
I would draw on my skin with ballpoint pens, and even considered an apprenticeship at his time, but did not find anyone I wanted to study with near me (this was before Instagram!). After completing my undergraduate degree in Sculpture and Painting with a minor in Philosophy, I became really interested in questions of identity and memory and how they intersect with the body. After a brief stint serving coffee and interning for artists after college, I had the good fortune to travel to India and then Turkey, where I found a tattoo studio to apprentice at.
After tattooing for five years in Istanbul, political and economic upheaval prompted me to return to the United States, where I worked in New York for two years before opening my own studio in New Jersey. Today, the studio is 9 artists strong (and mostly women!), with two apprentices and two staff.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
In my experience, no road is entirely smooth. Diving into my apprenticeship in a foreign country meant that I had the additional obstacles of learning a new language and culture as well as all the new skills required to make quality tattoos.
Perhaps the most challenging, and also the most rewarding, was learning how to navigate the often intimate personal interactions required of a tattoo artist. I quickly came to realize that this art form is not just about what you make, but who you make it with, and how you direct and shape that experience.
Tattoo artists are in the rather unique position of being curators of personal identity and guides in processing experience and thought, in addition to being masters of a technical craft. It requires a careful balancing act of the agency, vision, and needs of both artist and client, but has the possibility to be extremely rewarding for both parties.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I started tattooing when watercolor style tattoos were just beginning to reach trend status in Europe, and with a comprehensive grasp of color gained from my studies in painting, I quickly fell into this style. Though the work that I now make has become more distinctive and includes other elements, many people come to me for the way I handle color.
I am always striving to grow and change and make better work, and over the years I have developed specific processes for designing and creating tattoos that lend to my distinctive style. I collect references from the natural world – photos of textures and flowers, printed leaves, and painted brushstrokes – to build up a library of images that I pull from to create each design.
I have learned to always work with photos of my clients’ bodies, respecting the amazing variety of shapes and sizes that our species embodies, and pushing the boundaries of traditional placements. I trust my vision while remaining true to the spirit of the request and never do the same tattoo twice, though similar elements and themes can be recognized in the body of work as a whole.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
To me, getting tattooed is about having a conversation with yourself over time.
It is a record of your previous selves that you wear as part of who you are today, and continue to interact with. For many, it is a spiritual journey, and one of reclamation and transformation – a unification of mind and body. It is about choosing how you move through the world, how you represent yourself to others, and which parts of yourself you choose to amplify and wear as talismans against the inevitable challenges of life.
A truly unique art form and one of the oldest, tattooing is endlessly interesting in both its permanence and mortality.
Contact Info:
- Email: paintedsoularts@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.paintedsoularts.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paintedsoularts/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paintedsoularts/
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/emmagracetattoo/
Image Credits
Daniel Silbert and Emma Larkin
