Kerry Irvine

Hey, I’m Kez!

Originally from Barrow in 'The North™' I did my apprenticeship in Pontypridd, Wales between working for BT (yeah I did that) to pay my rent and studying animation. I’d only been doing my apprenticeship for 6 months when I finished my degree. My housemates in Wales all decided they wanted to move to London and take me along for the ride, so I thought why not?

I first worked at a Studio called ‘Ouch’ in Ealing and then at their sister studio in Brentford - a standard street shop and I’d only been apprenticing for about 6 months this at this point, so I was totally chucked in the deep end! A street shop is a great place to really sharpen and honed your skills and I was there for 2 years before I moved to Skunx Tattoo in Angel, Islington. Whilst working at Skunkz tattooing - for me - really 'got under my skin'. Animation was put on the back burner and tattooing became my focus and passion. 15 years later and I'm still learning and loving what I do very day.

I left London moved to the midlands in an age old tradition - 'because of a boy'. I met Matt when I was working at Skunkz, He got tattooed by my then boss Nick and when he first came in I was like “god he’s got a mouth on him” I never though in a million years we’d end up married with a kid living on the outskirts of Brum lol! When I first moved up I bounced around a few studios looking for a home. I’d been asked to work at Modern Body Art in the city centre whilst working with Leah Moule at Spear Tattoo in Kings Heath but finally settled at Modern Electric.

I guess because of my love of animation I really enjoy doing illustrative and painted style realism tattoos. But I pretty much do everything. You see, when I started tattooing it was pre-tattoo TV and the 'interweb', names were charged per letter and Dusk ‘til Dawn tribal sleeves were the ‘in’ thing. So I get nostalgic doing the odd kanji symbol and bit of Cherry Creek Flash, upside down names on wrists and all that jazz! Oh, it takes me back!

When I’m not tattooing you’ll find me in the garden or at the garden centre. If I’m not knee deep in soil fannying about with rockeries and bonsai trees with a can of Fosters in my hand, then I get a bit mardy.

I’m also known to be a bit clumsy and waffle a lot when I’m tattooing. I’m starting to waffle now so I’m gonna end before I go off on a tangent. See ya!