An Interview with Ghinko
Aimee Resnick (she/her) - January 24, 2024
Ghinko is a globally-renowned tattoo artist who practices in the illustrative fineline and microrealism style. Based in New York, her tattoos are known for their attention-to-detail and customization. She is also defined by her commitment to tattoo therapy, starting each session by asking clients, "tell me your story.” Fostering healing through tattoo art, Ghinko creates pieces that are both beautiful and deeply meaningful to clients. You can find her tattoo art @ghinkos on Instagram and explore her work on paper @inkskin. This week, we sat down to discuss at-home tattooing, the meaning of pain, and tattoo feminism.
NAR: In previous interviews, you’ve stated that every tattoo tells a tale. In fact, when welcoming clients, your tagline is, “Tell me your story.” Tell us a story about one of your tattoos.
Ghinko: A lot of people come to me with pre-planned stories for their tattoos, but I tend to get my own tattoos in the spur-of-the-moment. One of my more meaningful tattoos is a little star on my foot. It's a four-pointed star, almost like a compass. It's probably one of the smaller tattoos that I have, but it's special because it was done by my friend two years ago.
I've been friends with the same group of girls since middle school.Today, they all have very normal, corporate jobs. But two years ago, on my birthday, they all made this little tattoo on my foot. The star is for one of our friends that passed away almost seven years ago.
It's not the best star – clearly, because it was done by people who are not tattoo artists — but it's probably one of my favorite tattoos. It was so fun to see them just obsess over each little line and fight over steering the machine. So that's my most storyful tattoo.
NAR: Like your friends, many people picked up a tattoo gun for the first time during the pandemic. How do you feel about the rise of at-home tattooing over the past few years?
Ghinko:The popularization of Tik Tok has prioritized video content, which is great for tattoo artists. In response, tattoo artists have more informative videos out there, which I think is great. When people that are curious about tattooing see this content, I think they feel inspired. They think, “oh, let me try that,” you know? It’s definitely caused a surge of tattooing at-home.
At first, I was against it. I had a more traditional apprenticeship, and the first thing you’re taught is the importance of being sterile. They teach you how to set up properly, prevent cross contamination, and break down safely. So it’s kind of weird when I see younger kids tattooing in their house or their dorm or wearing the wrong type of gloves or setting up on a material that’s not stainless steel. Health-hazard wise, it kind of alarms me: ultimately, you’re dealing with open skin and stuff.
But in terms of art, I love it. At-home tattooing has truly led to a more abstract, less technical approach to tattoos. It’s more fluid.
NAR: Generally, how has at-home tattooing changed public preferences for tattoo art?
Ghinko: In a traditional apprenticeship, you have a mentor who tells you how to do everything. They tell you, “this is how it's done. This is how you pull lines. These are the classics. These are the styles that you should master.”
But when you're tattooing at home, you don't have a mentor. You're just doing whatever looks cool, you know? There’s fewer expectations: creativity is rewarded. There's less rules. When art has no rules, it becomes super creative.
NAR: In your fine-line illustrations, you often explore themes of death and pain. Most artists don’t work on mortal canvas. How do you grapple with the impermanence of tattoos?
Ghinko: Death is one of the hardest things for people to come to terms. Whether it’s losing someone they love or recognizing your own mortality, we have a hard time comprehending and digesting death.
When clients want a tattoo, one of their recurring motivations is the death of something. When someone’s mourning a loss, I try not to make the tattoo super negative or dark. I try to make it more positive so that when they look at it, it breathes a happy memory.
To memorialize loved ones, a lot of people want to get the day that they were born and the day that they died. I really dislike those tattoos.. I just think it's unnecessary to include their death date in the tattoo, you know?
And so I usually convince them to do the year they were born, or a happy memory of them, you know? I want to address it in a more positive, motivational, strengthening way.
Tattoos are forever, and you want them to help you move forward.
NAR: How does tattoo art act as a healing force?
Ghinko: When people come into my shop, they're usually going through something. There's that meme where people use tattoos instead of therapy, haha. People usually come to get tattooed when they've hit an obstacle in their life.
A lot of tattoo artists don’t have the emotional IQ to handle their situations with honesty and meaningful conversation. I want to be different. I want to receive people and collaborate with them.
So when people come into my shop, we almost do narrative therapy. The more people talk about their obstacles, the more they realize the deeper reason why they want the tattoo. It becomes an emotional experience on top of the physical pain. That's really the magic of tattoos, you know? You get to have an emotional breakthrough through the physical breakthrough of being stabbed by a needle.
NAR: How does the physical pain of getting a tattoo inform the medium’s meaning?
Ghinko: It's very vivid, getting a tattoo. I don't know if you've had a bad injury, but it's a traumatic experience. Pain makes memory vivid and that translates to tattooing as well.
That's why it’s so important that a tattoo artist be professional, be polite, be a good person and listen to clients. It’s critical that people feel comfortable when they get their first tattoo.
Often, it's a spur-of-the-moment decision to get your first tattoo. You’ll walk into a shop with a group of friends and get an artist who doesn't really care about your tattoo. They’ll treat you like a canvas – not even like a canvas, because a canvas breeds art. A lot of tattoo artists who just see the money, right?
I was just talking about it with a client yesterday. When she got her first tattoo, the artist kept making lewd jokes. She came with her girlfriend and kept asking if they needed a third person in their bed. He made her feel super uncomfortable.
Other than the fact that he was gross, you’re in a vulnerable state when you're being tattooed: you’re at the mercy of somebody else and there's physical pain involved. It’s a physical trauma.
If you have a bad tattoo experience, it can easily become a hard thing to carry on your body. The pain of the needle exacerbates memory. Especially for women.
NAR: Expand on that. How does womanhood inform tattoo art? How do you use tattoos as a medium for female empowerment?
Ghinko: Before social media, tattoos were primarily bolder tattoos, more brazen. In tattoo history, classic pinup girls were designed as flash works for sailors. At tattoo conventions, male artists would specifically seek out bodacious women and offer to tattoo them for free as a portfolio piece. As an asset.
There’s always been this weird misogyny in tattooing that drove many women away. Women felt like they had to get big, bold tattoos. Or they felt like they had to be bodacious for tattoos to look good on them.
It also used to be a very male-dominated industry, you know? It’s almost like an OBGYN: many women prefer to see a female doctor. A lot of women wanted female tattoo artists, and there weren’t enough of us to go around.
I first noticed this when I was doing my apprenticeship. It lit a fire in me pretty young: I knew that I wanted to become a tattoo artist to work with predominantly female clientele. Back then, there were not a lot of female fine-line tattoo artists. I wanted women to have a female tattoo artist that would treat them like a friend. Treat them with softness and understanding.
When I started out, I only saw women. I felt like the industry needed the deeper insight into emotional situations and tattoos and art that only women can offer. Nowadays, my clientele is about half men, half women.
NAR: Recently, I saw a viral video of someone getting a Kenergy Tattoo after seeing Barbie: it made me giggle. In your life, what’s the funniest tattoo you’ve ever seen?
Ghinko: There’s a lot. The tattoo that first comes into my mind is from when I guest-spotting in Ireland. One of my clients had flown in from London with his friend, and they were great. Super nice guys.
While I was tattooing him, I turned to his friend and asked, “do you have tattoos?” And he's like, “yeah, I got one.” And then he shows me this inner lip, and it says “No Ragrets.” And I was like, did you do this on purpose?
Not all tattoos have to be super serious. I'm a fair advocate for tattoos that just make you laugh.
Please note: this interview has been edited for length and clarity.
