From skin to story

During the 2008 housing crisis, the local sawmill in my hometown shut down, causing my family to sell our home and move across the country. Determined to create a better life for our family, my mother - an extremely talented and classically trained oil painter - opened her own tattoo shop, establishing a respected name in the tattoo industry on the East Coast of Canada. Growing up in this environment, I was fortunate enough to be trained by my mother in both art and tattooing.

When my grandfather passed away in 2018, my mother brought home a cheap watercolour kit for us to use together and distract me from my grief. As a traditional oil painter, she had never used watercolours and was curious about the medium. Although it wasn’t her cup of tea, I fell in love. The fluidity and unpredictability of watercolour quickly captivated me, and I spent years refining my skills, learning how to harness the medium’s power to create depth, movement, and emotion. As a tattoo artist, I ended up specializing in feminine, vibrant, illustrative watercolour pieces that flow with the body. The same philosophy also applies to my picture books.