The Star: November 18, 2021

The Star Thursday November 18 2021
16
OUR PEOPLE – BRAD RAVEN
Mastering the needle: A lifetime of tattooing,
Brad Raven’s journey
through life is mirrored
by the images he inks
onto clients in the
serene confines of his
Bryndwr studio, and the
art work fading from
view on his own body.
A career tattoo artist,
the 47-year-old works
through his labour of
love with Chris Barclay
When did you grit your teeth
for your first tattoo? What was
the motivation?
I always had a fascination with
tattoos and art. I come from a
family of artists, drawing was
just a natural thing for me. I was
14 when I tattooed a web on my
hand using a needle and Indian
ink. I got in a lot of trouble for
that one. Mum said ‘If you wait
until you’re 17, I’ll pay for you
to get a tattoo’. I got three done
for my birthday. I pretty much
started picking up tattooing the
next day and I’ve never stopped.
When I saw I could actually
draw on people and it would be
permanent, that was the clincher.
What was the design of the
first tattoo you had done in the
legendary Len Brownie’s studio
down Colombo St?
It was kind of a candle with
smoke and a wizard’s face. Total
‘90s art, really cheesy. It’s gone
(covered up/lasered) now. I was
one of those kids that was into
heavy metal music, the dark
imagery really appealed to me
back then . . . skulls, demons,
that kind of thing. I was on that
route initially.
Was it easy to make your
mark, as it were, in your own
studio?
Len gave me some advice and
I opened a studio in 1993 when
I was 22. Tattoos weren’t very
popular back then. There were
three studios in Christchurch,
now there’s over 50. Tattooing
was very underground, very old
school. You had to be brave to
step into a studio back in the
day. There was one in Addington
with bullet holes in the windows.
That’s kind of how they were.
NEEDLE WORK: New technology makes Brad Raven’s job less painful for him – and his
client – when working in his Bryndwr studio (below).
PHOTOS: GEOFF SLOAN
Tattooing can be an art form
indelibly to crime, organised or
otherwise, can’t it?
For the longest time tattoos
were marks of criminals and
sailors, workers. But if you go
back a hundred years before that
it was royalty getting tattooed,
high society. It wasn’t an art for
common people. Now there’s less
of a criminal element. Criminals
definitely get tattooed, but they
don’t really get tattooed in
professional studios now.
From a health perspective,
is tattooing safer now than it
was when you opened your first
INDELIBLE MEMORY:
Brad Raven inked a web
on his hand when he was
14 years-old, the first of a
countless number of art
works adorning the tattoo
artist’s body. He went on to
open his first studio at 22.
studio at 697 Gloucester St?
Yes, as far as equipment goes.
Everything’s disposable. There’s
a very low risk of contamination
now. I wear gloves for every
part of the process and probably
wash my hands and sanitise 40
times a day. Everything I need to
touch – lamps, tables – is covered
by a disposable contamination
barrier.
Can you remember your
first client, the first person you
tattooed?
It was my cousin. We did
some really horrible tattoos on
each other. From there, friends
were willing to be tattooed. I’d
practise on them.
Do traditional techniques
still apply today?
There’s different techniques,
but it comes down to three
things: line work, shading and
colour. Generally the majority of
tattoos have a structured outline
around the design, usually in
black. Then you’ll have shading
to give you your shadows and
contrasts. Then colours if it’s a
colour piece.
How difficult was it to master
those techniques from scratch?
When I started tattooists
‘Through the ‘90s to the
late 2000s, it was the wild
west. Everyone wanted to
be a rockstar. You’d get
crazy clients. They’d walk
in, pick a design and get
tattooed on the spot.’
– Brad Raven
wouldn’t talk about techniques,
they kept it closely guarded for
fear of losing business. There was
a book, The A to Z of Tattooing
by Huck Spaulding. He was a
legend in the ‘60s. No tattooist
would give it to you but I
managed to get a copy. With the
advent of the internet, it opened
everything up. I contacted a
lot of artists overseas and we’d
bounce ideas off each other.
Because you were overseas you
were no threat to them.
Eventually you went abroad
to expand your portfolio.
I went to Brisbane when I
was 24, for 15 years. I walked
into an amazing job at Wild at
Heart with a world-renowned
artist (Bernie Olszewski) who
had been tattooing since 1980.
Everything I knew about
tattooing, I threw out. I worked
on the Gold Coast for five
years under Paul Braniff. He
was my true mentor. I learned
everything about tattooing and
being a good human.
Then it was Surfers Paradise
to Los Angeles.
I walked into another amazing
job with one of the original
legends of tattooing in America,
Gil Monte, in Hollywood. He
tattooed every celebrity under
the sun in the ‘80s and ‘90s. It
was on Sunset Boulevard. From
there I ended up in Salt Lake
City, Las Vegas and Miami.
Do you focus a particular
style? Has your outlook
changed since those ‘dark’ days
in the ‘90s?
I specialise in realism. I pride
myself on my portrait work. I
do a lot of memorial tattoos,
portraits of loved ones passed.
It’s a huge honour for me to do
that because it’s healing process
for them. Having their loved one
on them forever is massive
for them.
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