A work of art

by Will Harmon

“I knew that I wanted to do it since I was about eleven,” says Oli MacIntosh, a 24-year-old tattooist and third-year Wimbledon College of Art student.

MacIntosh, who will graduate this year with a BA in Technical Arts and Special Effects insists sculpture is not his soul passion: “I get a lot more out of tattoos.”

He goes on to say: “I used to buy tattoo magazines when I was really young, I’d draw a grid over [an image], and then draw the grid bigger and try to copy it exactly and try to do that with every single thing in the magazine.

"That’s probably not the right way to learn, but that’s what I did.”

His fascination with body art grew through the years until he got his first tattoo at the age of 14.

“It was some piece of shit star on my stomach from some guy in his garage in Cornwall. It was £15. It was a start,” he chuckles.

He continued drawing tattoos through his teens, often for friends who would then go have them done professionaly.

Several tattoo parlours were impressed with his illustrations and one day a shop in Hammersmith asked if he would like to do an apprenticeship.

He started working for them when he was 18 and has been tattooing full-time for two years.

“I go into college in the morning and get home at three o’clock and tattoo till like seven or eight every single day.

"And then I’ll take about two days off in the week and I’ll tattoo all day on the weekends.

"I do more of that than college stuff, which is bad, because my college work suffers.”

Has attending an arts university helped him in his tattooing skills?

“No, it’s totally different. That’s why it’s very difficult I think. Because one is 2D (tattooing) and one’s very 3D (sculpture).

"They are both very technical and you have to have good attention to detail for both of them, but they are in no way related.”

MacIntosh says he enjoys ‘everything’ about tattooing.

“I like how old it is as a profession. And how everything is the same, it has stayed the same for 70 to 80 years.

"You still use the same machines that they used to.

"The imagery is still the same.

"Like if you draw a tattoo on a piece of paper, it’ll still look like it’s supposed to be a tattoo.”

One thing he dislikes, however, is tattooing himself.

“When you learn, the first tattoo you ever do, obviously, has to be on yourself.”

But, he continues, “I never really wanted to tattoo myself that much; that really sucks.”

He prefers to get tattoos from his friends, as it’s more comfortable and admits he’s not “a people person.”

But being a tattooist has helped him with that.

Interacting with clients and being able to make a living from something he loves doing gets him through the day.

In the beginning, it was very stressful altering people’s body’s for life, he says: “As more and more people started asking me to tattoo them, your confidence goes up, and then you are not really so worried.”

With tattooing you learn from your mistakes.

But MacIntosh explains it’s a learning process, and with each tattoo, as an artist, you get better and better.

“Generally I think it’s the design that makes a tattoo look good.

You can have the odd wobbly line or the odd bit of shading that is not perfect, but if the overall image is a good design, a good drawing to start off with, it will come out all right.”

MacIntosh currently has a six month waiting list, however, he adds: “If people come to me and say they want a snake or a skull or an eagle or something I’ll put them higher up on my waiting list; just because it’s stuff that I like to do more.

"My waiting list is around 50 people right now.”

He explains that he tattoos in three basic styles: traditional, LA Chicano, and recently he’s been getting into Tibetan imagery.

When asked what he plans to do after graduation, he simply says: “Probably not gonna do much sculpture.

"I’ll probably just tattoo.”

To see Oli MacIntosh’s work visit: olivermacintosh.blogspot.com