​

​

Born in the Netherlands Amsterdam and got my first tattoo in 1988 when i was 14 years old.

Some years later in 1998 a friend gave me my first home made tattoo machine and started experimenting myself.  

At that period i just came back from living 2 years in England, and was living in a squad in Amsterdam.

Here i found the space and freedom to create art, paintings,  sculptures, experimenting art performance, noise punk soundscapes on electric guitar, that's where the seed was planted.

​

The first memories of tattoos i can remember are the ones on my father and my grandfather, he had a hula girl tattoo on his arm and my father a anker on his hand and kept asking him how he made it.

My first tattoos were made on myself and later on my punk friends from the squad scene, they helped me with donating their skin and do crazy shit, it was the start of something i had no idea off.

This was around 2002 when a friend hooked me up with her friend Giorgio Quaresima, an old school Italian tattooist who started tattooing when he was 14 in Genua/Italy, the owner of Fox Tattoo Woerden, where i started my apprenticeship and changed my life forever.

He introduced me for the first time to other tattoo artist from all over the world, specially Maori artist from Aotearoa(NZ) who came to work in Giorgio's studio were my love for tribalism and tattooing only grew bigger.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After F.T.W. i worked for 14 years in different shops in Amsterdam, there i met and worked with many other great artists, learning even more about the arts and crafts of tattooing.

In 2016 it was time to open my own studio, called 'Blackinktatau', it's inside my house where i live with my wife Yvon en 2 daughters Skah en Yke.

The studio is based the lowlands of West Friesland, Hoogkarspel specialised in two different styles.

​

#Patterns from the past, traditional and inspired tribalism from over the world specially Polynesian islands and the pacific area.

​

#Graphic figurative, abstract and sketchy styled tattoos

Art Brut minimalism with a twist. (Piraatvandepotloodkrabbels).

 

Beside tattooing i am a autodidact polymath artist 

with a passion for crafts, skills like knife-making, forging: Kampman knives, painting and sculpting, bushcraft nature skills.

 

During work and many travels all over the world i made friends and met different people and artists who shared stories, knowledge, culture, skills and meanings of patterns that are the base of my tribalism as well as every design i make for each person. 

It is all about connecting, making and holding memories, creating something beautiful with the right intensions and meaning that will last beyond the visual aspects.

 

Tattooing has been practiced across the world since at least Neolithic times and humans have marked their bodies with tattoos for thousands of years.

The word tattoo comes from the Polynesian word ‘ta’ which means striking something and the Tahitian word ‘tatau’ which means ‘to mark something’.

The western word "tattoo" was brought to Europe by the explorer and colonialist Captain James Cook, when he returned in 1769 from his first voyage to Tahiti and New Zealand. In his narrative of the voyage, he refers to an operation called "tattoo".   

The Polynesian people believed that a person’s “mana”- their spiritual power or life force, is displayed through their tattoo. The vast majority of what we know today about these ancient arts has been passed down through legends, songs, and ritual ceremonies. Elaborate geometrical designs which were often added to, renewed, and embellished throughout the life of the individual until they covered the entire body.

 

In recent years tattooing has emerged to the forefront of popular consciousness, they are no longer for outlaws, sailers, tribes, circus people, soldiers and others anymore.

Today styles range from the traditional and native to the sacred and innovative, and is as diverse as the people who who wear them.

​

​