Tattooing is her vocation and travel is her inspiration. Caroline Karénine inks out of her private salon in Montpellier, a soothing setting which helps set up the organic flow between her and her clients. Ornamental lines and details cross peonies and chrsyanthemums on adorned skin.Self-taught and hard-working, she has fashioned her own technique to better master her art.
I heard that you caught the bug for tattooing when you were 8 and went with your brothers for their piercings, I thought: that’s amazing, at that age ! Do you remember how you felt ? How that spark came about ?
It was at Lukas Zpira’s first salon, down a tiny street, and when I went inside it was all black with kind of weird lamps everywhere, I’d never seen anything like it. He had his first set of head implants and I realized that maybe work could be something other than conventional or boring, that it could lead to real freedom. I guess that this feeling of freedom while working is what attracted me, but when I was 8 years old, I didn’t imagine I’d become a tattoo artist one day. I didn’t even really know what it involved, but I definitely knew that I wanted to do something creative where I could travel and attain a certain level of freedom and independence. Also I felt that I wanted it to be related to the body, but I hadn’t yet found the term ‘tattooing’ to describe it – although the intention was there -and I’ve followed that feeling ever since.
I might not be the only one wondering this : is your name a reference to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina ? And if so, why ?
Quite simply because at the time I was, as I still am today, a huge fan of Russian literature and particularly of Leon Tolstoy. As I read his works, the book ‘Anna Karenina’ really echoed within me. I’ve always been touched by stories of tragic heroines, so that story really struck a chord. Also, she is disapproved of by men, and when I started tattooing it was a male-dominated profession, but in the end she manages to find emancipation.
You are self-taught and started at the age of 17. How did you begin ? How did you learn ?
In high school, I studied visual communication and we had to do internships. I knew I didn’t want to work in advertising, but I knew a tattoo artist in Montpellier, not far from where I lived, and I built up the courage to go there and ask if they were looking for anyone. I went there every day for a month so they realized that I was really motivated and finally accepted to take me on for a month. I observed them working, soldered needles, sketched and found out how it all worked. This experience confirmed my desire and from then on I knew I wanted to do that as a career. After that, I completed my studies, got my diploma, went to art school for a while and at the same time started training myself up by inking on myself or my friends. I did that from 17 to 20 years of age and then I looked for a shop to join. I met a piercer who was looking for a tattooist, that was in Montpellier.
Did you first learn how to do everything and do you think it’s important to master all the techniques before making a choice and perfecting one’s skills or at least experiment ?
I learned how to do everything, pretty much all the different techniques, because it reassured me to know that I could do anything. I told myself that at least when I started doing what I really wanted to do, I could be criticized for anything except for not knowing technique. The context at the time meant that if you didn’t know how to do everything, you didn’t get work. There were far fewer clients so you had to be versatile if you wanted to have a clientele and make a living. It was less popular in those days, so you had to be more adaptable. I found it was really important to know how to work with color, to do good shading, and nice lines, whether they were thick or thin, because that’s the language of tattoos. Then you can go on and develop your own style. Actually, that’s my vision: you can develop your own style once you’ve mastered all the tools. You can pick and choose tools according to how you feel, what you’re interested in or your artistic vision. But I also had to have this wide spectrum to be able to really go into the detail of what I wanted to do, perhaps because I didn’t have the same training as others. I’ve built my artistic universe through tattooing. I had to develop my own language through techniques to be able to then really choose what I wanted to do .
You’ve moved quite a bit between Paris, Brussels, Barcelona and Montpeller. Why do you like changing and moving around so much ?
Because I can’t stay in one place ! That’s definitely contributed to my development and construction. I left Montpellier to go to Paris, which is where I joined Tribal Act. It was amazing at the time, the golden age of tattoo. We were all together, the whole team and we got on really well. We’re still friends today actually. Tribal Act was a reference with Alexis Calvie, Guy, Raph and so many others. I’ve always compared Tribal to a laboratory. Everyone went there to experiment, develop their style and take radical directions, like Yan Black. It was truly a melting pot of ideas where anything and everything was possible. That time was a real turning point from an artistic and personal point of view for me because it was when I decided to stop doing a bit of everything and started concentrating on ethnic and floral motifs. After that I went to Barcelona where I had my first private salon. Then I went to Brussels where I set up Purple Sun with Marine and Indy. Then Paris, then Barcelona and now back to Montpellier. I’ve completed a cycle, well until the next one anyway !
How do you define your style ? As a kind of ethnic melting pot ?
Even I don’t really know how to define it. There’s what I put into it or my artistic universe and then I work 50/50 with the client so there’s also what they bring with their own references and travels, which means there’s always a mix between my own artistic style and the client’s universe. Although I have an identifiable style, a theme can sometimes take over. Whether it’s more ornamental, floral or inspired by Japanese styles, or other times landscapes or more figurative ideas. It really depends on the union between my client and myself. I thinks it’s great to have a real exchange where one idea leads to another. For me, tattoos are magical, there’s an alchemy, something happens that you can’t explain. When the motif is the right one, it’s just evident. I work on instinct, the magic happens and it just feels natural. A tattoo is just an assembly of details, so if we can make as many details function well together, the result will obviously be better. It’s a marathon not a sprint, it doesn’t respond to an immediate need, it’s part of a process.
So how did you find your own style ? How did you work on it so that it became your trademark ?
It happened pretty naturally. Working with other people, trying out different styles until I felt ready. I systemized all my equipment, the same sized needles, the same way of using them, that set a foundation. I work with layers, I add dots, take away flat tints, I work with emptiness and fullness. I think it’s a bit of everything that led to me forming my own artistic style. I also take inspiration from travel, books I’ve read, architecture and drawings.
Where do you find your inspiration especially regarding ornamental details ? How do you find them and what feeds that creativity ?
When I travel it comes from architecture, textiles, everything I come across. It might even come from flowers and leaves. I always travel with a notebook where I add photos and with a clear head I assemble them together. I try to be open to what’s around me and send time thinking about it. I also look at a lot of art books. I’m a visual person so I can be inspired by a poster, a book or totally different themes.
I know that travel is very important to you. Why is that ? And how do you manage to translate what you’ve seen or experienced during your travels into your work ?
When I’m traveling, I spend a lot of time in observation, I don’t run around trying to see as much as I can. For example, after spending time in Japanese temples, my attention will go to the details and I focus on how I can create a shape or an ornamental cutting from what I’ve observed.
Which countries have inspired you the most ?
Japan, I really love it there. Nepal too ! Really I want to say all the countries I’ve visited. The Sahara as well, which really opened my mind. It changed my vision because you feel like there’s nothing there, but actually you just have to spend some time observing and you see that there’s life everywhere, a multitude of details. I feel like that experience taught me to be able to read a tattoo up close as well as from far away. You have the impression that it’s really simple but when you get up close, it’s full of tiny details. Sometimes it’s not even linked to something graphic, it’s just a feeling. Latin America inspired me too in terms of the space, nature and the lushness of it. But you don’t always need to go far for inspiration, every little trip adds something to the mix.
Now that you’ve found your style, how do you manage to stay fresh ?
A few years ago I felt like I was photocopying myself, that I was always being asked to do the same things. I thought ; all these years of work to get where I wanted to be and I end up bored and feeling like I’m not up to par. It bummed me out so that’s when I started being a bit more radical with my choices but also leaving more space for my clients. Then I started doing bigger pieces around the same time. You have to find a fresh outlook otherwise you’ll stop enjoying doing tattoos. So you have to be aware of yourself in order to keep evolving in your work.
Is it important to you to not only work on skin ? Why have you chosen to explore other mediums and impose other constraints than skin alone ?
Often it makes me come back better. For example, when I realized that I needed a fresh outlook, I started working on murals which confronted me with new challenges. It allowed me to free up my technique because until then I’d been working on much smaller spaces, so having this huge wall in front of me… It totally opened up my vision of what a creative space can be, so when I got back to working on skin, larger scales weren’t a problem for me anymore.
What link is there today between your work on ceramics and tattooing ?
It’s the only time where there’s a real split. When I was making ceramic vases, there was a coherence because I was tattooing with a machine. Now I’ve gone in a totally different direction repeating petals, ceramics and assembling different materials. It’s a space of pure creation, more closely linked to my perception of nature and space, which is difficult to render in a tattoo because it’ll involve figurative work which isn’t my favorite thing to do, whereas representing nature through abstraction is something I really enjoy. It’s another part of my creative self, more linked to portraying an emotion in front of a landscape. You could say it’s my new found freedom. @carolinekarenine_ttt @carolinekarenine_
