My name is Coen Mitchell and I'm from Auckland in New Zealand. Currently I'm
travelling full-time and at the moment I am guest spotting at Aurora Tattoo Studio in Lancaster.
I've been tattooing for four and a half years now.
Ever since I was a kid, I've always had a love and passion for art
and any sort of art practice. I started off just drawing with pencils and
crayons and stuff through I was a kid, and making presents and gifts and things
like that for people's birthdays and then I kind of just developed from there.
I started playing with different media and then all through high school
I started picking up all the different art classes: art history, photography and
things like that, and then I always thought that when I would grow up that I
would become some sort of draftsman until I fell into the love for tattooing.
I got into the tattooing industry when I was about 16. I went into the local
tattoo studio when I was in high school and to have my first piece done, I was
just in the chair watching the artist at the time - his name was Richard Warnock
in Palmerston North. It kind of instantly clicked then when I was just looking
down at my arm while he was working on me that tattooing could be a career for
me to pursue my love and passion for art. So basically I just followed from there
and studied at university and was lucky enough to fall into an
apprenticeship and yeah it just took off from there.
What inspires me in my tattooing career? Basically the different styles and patterns and different
techniques that I approach when I tattoo and using things involved with tattooing.
It isn't just artists that I see or look at on social media, like a lot of it is
involved but especially coming from New Zealand, a lot of like the Tā Moko
and Māori styles influence a lot of my work as well, especially a lot of the korus,
and the spirals and the swirls. Sometimes I can take those sort of art forms and
put them into work myself, kind of more of a contemporary spin in that sense.
When I was a kid, we did a lot of school trips to meet
and look at the maraes and the architecture and the shapes and the
forms of the buildings, so even just seeing all the beautiful wood carvings and all
the different kōwhaiwhai patterns and stuff on the ceiling, a lot of that
I just always remember and can kind of reference back. I have a big appreciation
and understand a lot of that sort of art form and just overall admire a lot
of that sort of shape and fall in the Tā Moko art world.
The highlights of my tattoo career are basically, like, having the privilege to be able to travel and
meet different people and tattoo all over the world. A lot of careers you
can't really do that with so definitely traveling has been a big highlight in my
career and I'm still looking forward to doing that a lot more of that in the future.
For my two different styles, the realism and a lot of the mandala and
line work, my main favourite and inspirational artist at the moment would
be Carlos Torres with his black and grey. I've watched him work a lot in person
at different tattoo conventions and just the way that you can definitely see
that he has a passion for what he does and he loves what he tattoos.
Just seeing the way he applies the different grey wash to the body and the way he makes
his pieces smooth and the flow and the placement on the body is just is quite
inspirational in that sense. And then when you come over to the mandala and
the line work type side, there's a guy called DotsToLines. The way he shows himself
as an artist via like social media, the way he presents his art. You look
at his work and it's just a lot of line work and it's perfect and it's pristine,
so when I kind of look at that, it's kind of what I want to take my art form to in
that sense is getting it as perfect as the way he does it so it gives you a
drive to want to be like someone who does what you think is perfect. So, yeah.
My advice for anyone wanting to get into the tattooing industry is: do a good apprenticeship.
I definitely believe that you should be put through a hard
apprenticeship and to do the hard yards in order to become a successful and
well-built tattoo artist in the future.
My apprenticeship was hard but I learned under the right people and the
right guidance in order to get me to where I am today, so having a good
apprenticeship, I think, is one of the biggest things in starting.
Over the next 12 months coming up, I think that I will probably just keep continuing to
travel like I am now. I'm not based in a studio full-time at the moment,
I'm just sort of travelling around booking each month as it comes.
I don't really book years in advance or anything like that. I'm just travelling,
living out of my suitcase, tattooing in all different studios. I think right now
for me that sort of freedom is what's going to be best to grow as a person
and as well as an artist