Michail Kryatatas (@mikekyrtatas) born and raised in Athens, Greece, discovered his love for tattoo artistry after pressuring an education in graphic design.
Throughout his education, he began creating and selling hand painted tee-shirts for spending money, all while fueling his desire to tattoo. Designing something to be printed on cloth, to then be worn on someone’s body wasn’t close enough, he wanted more. As most journeys do, Michail’s started out a bit rocky. After making the mistake of purchasing a tattoo starter kit on eBay, and about 5 or 6 tattoos later, he realize what he was doing was completely wrong. He began the process of finding a real shop to learn the craft from, and from there began his real journey in Athens.
To keep his skills sharp, Michail not only worked as a tattoo apprenticeship, he also took drawing classes in the meantime. Developing his artistic abilities was, and still is extremely important, it is an honor to apply his art to another persons skin. Most of his free time in his early days were spent either at the shop, in classes or drawing random people he saw on the subway; an activity he still quite enjoys.
As most tattoo apprentices do, Michail spent his first few years diving into many differently styles. Quickly though, his style blossomed into a mixture of sketches and watercolors, both styles he particularly enjoyed working with and people loved. Later he experimented with different styles and ideas; he went through a phase of colorful but more solid and flat designs, very cubism inspired. Very much the opposite of the free brush strokes and sketchy lines.
The last year or so he is working in another direction, while borrowing tools from ways he worked in the past and adding some new. Most designs are monochrome or with one additional color. Form is created with stippling shades while adding graphically and conceptually abstract elements into the composition. He likes to think of his tattoos as images that float into the surface of someone’s body.
During these past years Michail has worked in different countries such as UK, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, France, and Indonesia. Bali held the top place in his heart as it was a perfect balance between tattooing, social life and nature.
He is currently in Athens, Greece and keep creating unique abstract designs.
More info: Instagram
