Work by tattoo artist Stefan 'Spider' Sinclair. Photo: supplied
When Stefan 'Spider' Sinclair, the founder of Auckland's Two Hands Tattoos, first saw the style of fine-line tattoos that uses a single needle, he didn't like it.
"When I first got into the industry in the late 90s, early 2000, a lot of the older guys I worked with were still working in that style, I honestly hated it. I thought it was the worst," Sinclair told Culture 101's Perlina Lau.
He associated the sketch-like tattoos that utilised fine shading and grey scaling with the baby boomer generation.
The more popular tattoos of the 1990s and 2000s favoured bold lines and colours. However, about a decade ago he started seeing the single-needle style in a new light and started experimenting.
Sinclair, who splits his time between LA and Auckland, is now known for his single-needle, fine-line tattoo work with clients coming from around the world to have his designs inked on them.
The style he is known for features prominently, as Two Hands Tattoos celebrated its 20th anniversary through two events: a retrospective exhibition that runs until February 20 and a tattoo convention this weekend with 40 tattoo artists coming from around the world. Both events are at Studio One Tu Toi in Auckland.
Typically, tattoos were created with seven, nine or 11 needles, leading to the bold look that pops on the skin.
However, needles were not available to inmates in California prisons where fine-lined tattoos first appeared. They used a sharpened guitar string instead and the lines were thin by default.
"It created a very very fine line and very soft shading..." Sinclair said.
Stefan 'Spider' Sinclair. Photo: supplied
The technique was first commercialised by a tattoo artist called Jack Rudy who set up shop in LA in the 1970s.
Rudy was asked to replicate the look people were seeing on former inmates so he created a single-needle machine.
"The reason I started doing it was because it was very much a lost art form. It had fallen very much out of fashion," Sinclair said.
"For us, it looks very nostalgic. To us it looks very California in the 1970s, 80s kinda feel."
Swapping styles wasn't the only change Sinclair had experienced in his 20-plus-year career.
The stigma associated with tattoos had almost completely dissolved, which created good and bad ripple effects.
Work by tattoo artist Stefan ‘Spider' Sinclair. Photo: supplied
"The main change is that the taboos associated with being tattooed has really disappeared, so I think as it became less and less of a barrier to employment, less and less your mum telling you off for getting a tattoo, I think more and more people have gotten tattooed to a point where it is very mainstream culture now."
"I would say there is not a lot of an obvious tattoo community now as there once was... it was a bit more of a tribe back in the day."
"...these days, people from all walks of life, every industry, everyone in whatever political mindset or whatever have tattoos."
Social media had also opened up the work of tattoo artists who no longer had to rely on images stuck to their shop's front window to show their portfolio.
This had fuelled different trends in what clients were after. At the moment, fine-line tattoos were one of the more popular styles.
"There are multiple clear trends that tend to get more popular and then slightly less popular over time but it takes a very long time," Sinclair said, adding that tattoo trends were far slower than, say fashion trends.
"The trends tend to last for a very long time and they don't disappear completely."
Work by tattoo artist Stefan ‘Spider Sinclair. Photo: supplied
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