21 Mar “You’re not just creating an image, you’re becoming part of someone’s self-expression and their story,” interview with Grace

Tattoo artist Grace (@tatsbygrap) recently completed an MA in Contemporary History – she wrote about the history of tattoos, which complemented her contemporary research on the subject. She combines historical analysis with feminist methodology and oral history. For her dissertation on the history of tattooed circus women, she conducted interviews with tattooed circus women. While she sat and chatted she also tattooed images of other tattooed circus women on to their skin – using the act of tattooing itself as a site of historical conversation. She frames this as a way of writing history collaboratively, centering lived experience, embodiment and dialogue rather than distance.

What drew you to become a tattoo artist? How long have you been tattooing and how did you get into it?

I’ve always loved drawing, especially for other people, ever since I was little. Art has always felt like a way of communicating, of giving something meaningful to someone.

I started getting tattooed when I was 19 and I just thought it was the best job. You can travel, you can be your own boss and making a living from your art was so appealing. But more than that, I loved the thought that your work would live on someone’s body.

You’re not just creating an image, you’re becoming part of someone’s self-expression and their story.

I’ve been tattooing for two and a half years, and it kind of fell into my lap because my partner at the time bought me a machine and said I should learn. Then one summer, I started teaching myself on fake skin. After a month or so of tattooing on real skin, I got a spot in a studio. Now, I’m based in Brighton where you can find me at Blind Pig studio and Wishbone studio – you can book via my own Instagram @tatsbygrap.

What was your first tattoo?

My first tattoo was a tiki on my ribs. My grandad is half Māori, so it felt important that my first tattoo connected to that part of my heritage. It wasn’t just decorative but marking something ancestral on to my body. At the same time, my family are very against tattoos, which definitely shaped how I approached it. I chose to get it somewhere discreet, on my ribs, where it could be hidden and also getting something sentimental made me think it would be more palatable to my family. All of my tattoos are blue; I had this idea that I wanted to look like a China tea set, which I’m glad I stuck to.

The blue also makes them feel connected – even though they represent very different things. Some are deeply sentimental, marking important people, memories or moments in my life. Others are purely decorative, chosen simply because I find them beautiful. I don’t separate those two categories too strictly, though. Even the decorative pieces become meaningful over time because they remind me of who I was when I chose them.

Grace’s back tattoos

I think of my skin as a personal gallery where I collect artists’ work and preserve fragments of my own history. Each tattoo is both an artwork and a timestamp. They symbolise certain periods of my life. In that way, they’re not just images; they’re markers of growth and change. I get tattoos partly because I’m drawn to beautiful things. I love the idea of being surrounded by and even covered in imagery that I find aesthetically pleasing. There’s something empowering about curating my own body in that way. It feels intentional and expressive.

What was the first tattoo you did on someone else like?

Funnily enough, the first tattoo I ever did on someone else was completely different in tone to my style now. It was a butthole illustration from a Kurt Vonnegut book, tattooed on my friend’s arm. I was really nervous. Up until that point, I had only worked on fake skin, and even though I’d been practising, tattooing real human skin was completely different. Fake silicone doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t move, it doesn’t belong to someone.

If I’m honest, I was sort of peer pressured into doing it. But that push is probably what I needed. If I hadn’t done that tattoo, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to actually start.

Can you tell us more about your MA and your journey to do this work?

I did an MA in Contemporary History after finishing my undergraduate degree in History. At the time, I wasn’t ready to leave education. I knew I loved researching and writing, as well as tattooing.

During my undergrad, I started to realise that I was especially interested in people’s lived experiences: identity, memory, emotion and representation. By the time I applied for my MA, I knew I wanted to explore something that felt personal and culturally relevant. Tattoos kept coming back to me, both as an academic subject and as something creative I was drawn to.

The MA gave me space to bridge those worlds. Studying contemporary history allowed me to think about bodies, identity, gender and self-expression in a critical way. It also helped me understand tattoos beyond aesthetics as social texts, as markers of class, rebellion, heritage and belonging. In a way, my academic work deepened my relationship to tattooing before I had fully stepped into it professionally.

How did you choose your dissertation topic?

I wrote my MA dissertation on the history of tattooed circus women. Traditional tattooing historiography has been heavily male-centric, focusing on soldiers, sailors and criminals while largely overlooking the experiences of women. I wanted to move beyond the fragmented historical documentation to provide a more nuanced understanding of heavily tattooed women, particularly those in the circus, who were often dismissed through stereotypes of deviance or sexual objectification

My lived experience as a tattooist provides a specific lens through which to view the complexity of these women’s lives. Tattooing is more than just a scratch on the skin; it is a powerful art form for expressing identity and asserting agency and self-determination. My dissertation allowed me to explore how these women transformed their bodies from objects of spectacle into “historical agents”.

A major driver for this work is tracing the evolution of women’s motivations for getting tattooed. While 19th-century performers were often driven by economic necessity and framed by fabricated “captivity narratives”, contemporary performers use tattoos for empowered self-expression and identity formation. My dissertation methodologically reflects this shift by moving from archival research in the first chapter to an autoethnographic and participatory approach in the second.

My journey involved a deeply personal and unconventional research method: conducting video-recorded interviews while simultaneously tattooing these women. By tattooing images of historical “tattooed ladies” on to contemporary performers (who are also close friends), I created a collaborative space that disrupts traditional power dynamics between researcher and subject. This process reimagines history as something that is not just “told” but lived and inscribed on the skin.

My desire to do this dissertation is linked to feminist research goals. I aim to centre the voices of women who have historically been silenced, using the tattooed body as a site of resistance, reclamation and narrative creation.

I view the tattooed body as a living archive that carries personal and political meaning, challenging dominant beauty standards and patriarchal norms.

What was it like speaking to tattooed circus women while you tattooed them?

Speaking to contemporary tattooed circus women was a collaborative, and performative experience that moved beyond traditional academic interviews. Because I conducted these video-recorded sessions while simultaneously tattooing your subjects with images of historical “tattooed ladies,” the process became a “ritualistic re-inscription” that bridged the gap between past and present.

The environment of the interviews was unique because the participants were close friends, fostering an atmosphere of mutual trust and openness. Rather than acting as a neutral observer, I participated as a friend and practitioner, creating a fluid exchange where knowledge was co-authored through shared histories. This method reimagined history as something lived and inscribed on the skin in real-time rather than just a story being told.

Tell us about the tattooed circus women and any highlights from your chats.

I did the interviews at the studio I was working at the time called Oddluck which is based in the lanes in Brighton. I met these two tattooed circus women at punk gigs where we clicked and became close friends.

Orla Connolly (@o_connolly_creates_) is a contemporary performer influenced by clowning and physical theatre, she told me about her journey into performing and the impact of tattoos on her identity. Her interview provided a powerful example of how tattoos function as tools for healing and reclamation. Having grown up in a Catholic Irish family where tattoos were stigmatised, Connolly used ink to claim sovereignty over a body she felt was “over-regulated”. She also uses her tattoos to re-engage with her body, shifting her focus from criticism to artwork and personal symbolism. A major highlight was her description of the “angry, gnarly demons” on her stomach. Rather than being mere images, she views them as protectors of her womb, a site of chronic pain due to endometriosis.

Felony Fox’s (@felonyxfox) journey into the circus started with pole dancing at home during lockdown and has been performing for three years. Her takeaways centred on agency, financial independence, and the subversion of beauty standards. Fox deliberately embraces a “gross” and “disgusting” stage persona—involving blood play and gore—to resist being a “passive, consumable female form”. She describes her tattoos as “war paint” that helps her feel like her authentic self on stage, providing psychological fortification for her intense performances. A surprising takeaway was her reframing of a heavily tattooed body as a marker of “good time keeping and budgeting” and financial self-sufficiency, challenging the stereotype that tattoos signify impulsiveness.

A significant theme across both interviews was the rejection of the “victim” narrative. Fox noted that strangers often project “narratives of damage” on to her, assuming her tattoos are a cry for help or a symptom of trauma. She firmly resists this, asserting her tattoos are rooted in pleasure and aesthetic choice.

While historical performers like Nora Hildebrandt had their stories crafted by male managers, contemporary performers like Connolly and Fox are the sole authors of their images, using tattoos to navigate their own emotional truths rather than trying to appear “palatable” to a Victorian audience.

Connolly specifically uses her tattoos to explore gender ambiguity, using her body as a “queer archive” that resists binary categorisations and challenges what femininity “should” look like.

Has this work inspired the tattoos you create? Has it influenced your style?

It inspired me to draw some of the tattooed circus women I wrote about into flash, which I’ve tattooed on people as well as paintings on canvas. The historical tattooed circus women have very traditional tattoos, although I do occasionally do traditional tattoos, my style is very much a mixture of dot work and blackwork.

What’s next for you?

I’m tattooing full-time and planning to turn my dissertation into an exhibition, showing it in galleries in Brighton, Bristol and Cardiff. Rather than keeping the research confined to written text, I want to represent it visually and experientially.

The idea is to project the video interviews from my dissertation within the gallery space, allowing visitors to hear directly from the people whose voices shaped the research. I want their words, and reflections to be central, not just quoted on a wall, but present, embodied, and immersive. Tattooing in that space collapses the boundary between research and practice, observer and participant.

I’m considering doing a PhD, ideally something that would allow me to research tattoos more deeply their cultural history, their relationship to gender, heritage, identity, and self-expression.

Alongside that, I’m looking for opportunities to write or research about tattoos more formally whether that’s academic work, journalism, exhibition curation, or contributing to projects that treat tattooing as a legitimate cultural practice. I’d love to be part of expanding the conversation around tattoos, moving them beyond stereotypes and into discussions about art, history, and embodied storytelling.

Thank you Grace! Make sure to follow @tatsbygrap on Instagram for more tattoos and exhibition updates.

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