Shop Reviews

For almost ten years, residents and visitors of Memphis, TN, and surrounding areas have sought after artist Saint Ian Christopher - SIC for short - for his unique and highly detailed tattoos. Although he is continuously evolving, SIC's black and grey photorealism - as well as his color portraiture - has gained a lot of notoriety among many other professional tattoo artists in the mid-south.

As he works to develop himself and his tattooing through various genres of art, SIC says eventually he also would like to incorporate more biomechanics style in his pieces. "I noticed that most people only do one thing, and that's like their thing. I'm trying to do all of them and, hopefully, combine all of them. I look at other successful tattoo shops; like take Brandon Bond's for example. With All or Nothing in Atlanta, he has an artist for everything. Similar to what I'm doing with this one."

By "this one," SIC is referring to his newest brainchild, The Skull & Rose Tattoo Collective - his own shop seated in the heart of Downtown Memphis. Saint Ian, the businessman, says, "I chose to move downtown because I was bored. Downtown is like a whole new adventure, where I can start from scratch and create whole new tactics. Abstraction gives you a break from realism and allows you to appreciate it more. Sometimes, you have to take a break from a stagnant situation in order to reanalyze and formulate a solution."

Although still maintaining his other tattoo shop - Touch of Ink, located in East Memphis - SIC is now investing a large amount of his energy into making his vision for The Skull & Rose Tattoo Collective a reality. "If we're not painting, we're drawing. If not drawing, we're tattooing. If you're going to paint, just paint and get it out. Don't worry about making it perfect - just paint and get it done. So I've been going back and forth between being quick to get the idea out and making something dope that I'm really taking my time on."

Trying not to dive too deep into a conversation that could last for hours, Ian says this about a non-licensed, home-kitchen tattooist. "Basically, what you're saying is, I can take an artistic dumbass and teach him how to tattoo [in two weeks]."

He likens learning the craft of tattooing to riding a motorcycle, "You have to conceptualize what you're doing and see what you're doing before you just pick up and start doing. You have to physically see yourself doing the sh*t before you actually go out and do it. You can get around, but you'll fall - youll f*ck something up. It takes a long time just to pass through the 'not-f*cking-up-sh*t' stage. I don't see how you can learn even the basic fundamentals without professional instruction, time, patience, diligence, and a lot of heart."

The Skull & Rose Tattoo Collective
10 S. Second Street
Memphis, TN 38103
901-347-3854
Facebook.com/saintianchristopher
Twitter.com/saint_357

Article by Dez Ward