The Young Creatives to Watch Now: Female Tattoo Artist Sacha Armstrong

Sacha Armstrong was 21 when she got her first tattoo. “I was pretty late to the game, I knew people who got tattoos when they were much younger,” she says. This sparked the very beginning of a love affair with tattooing. As she got acquainted with the industry, she took the plunge straight after graduation to start an apprenticeship at Feather Cloud Tattoo Studio under Shane Tan, one of the country’s most internationally renowned tattoo artists.

Today, the 28-year-old has been in the studio for a year and a half. Does she see herself being in this line of work forever? “I personally can’t see myself doing anything else. I love tattooing so much.”

How would you describe your personal artistic style? I do a lot of illustrative stuff, leaning towards more fine line work. I love that, and dotted shading, which in the tattoo context is called stippling. I started experimenting in the beginning of my career, understanding what I preferred, what looks good, what I am more comfortable with, and then I decided that fine lines and stippling are my strong points.

What do you love about tattoos? I’ve always loved art, and tattooing is very, very personal. Plus, I realised as I was also working in F&B that I loved doing something more front facing. So working with people, collaborating, helping them with what they may think in their head but are unable to translate… I love that process.

Explain this process. The major part about tattooing is that once the person walks out of the studio, you have altered their aesthetic and their look. So collaboration is very important, because with tattooing as a medium, you have to understand what works well on the body, what flows well on the body... A drawing on paper may not be translated as well on tattooing and vice versa. And it’s also understanding the limitations of skin, especially if the person is active, in the sun a lot, and the type of lifestyle they lead. Tattooing is all about living in a person’s skin. You have to understand your client’s wants, needs and lifestyle. And nowadays, almost all tattoos are personalised. 

The tattoo industry is often perceived to be male-dominated. What is it like being a female tattoo artist in Singapore? There are a lot more up-and-coming females these days. But it is definitely still quite a male-dominated industry – in my studio, there are seven of us. I’m the only girl, though we just hired a new female apprentice. I think it is more about security. When I joined the studio, there was another girl in, so that definitely helped. The good thing about the studio I’m at is that the guys are very respectful towards girls, towards fellow tattoo artists and clients.

If you work in tattooing where you are handling skin, it may even require nudity, so it can be a very sensitive practice. But we try to ensure that the moment the client walks into the studio, they are a piece of canvas, so put on a work shield, you turn it on, and look at their body as a canvas. As a girl, there is not much difference, it just depends on where you locate yourself, where you’re working and the people you’re working with.

Any hopes for the future of the tattoo industry in Singapore? Now it is ever growing. There are definitely more people who realise that tattooing can be a proper job, and there are artists who are living really well, just by doing tattooing. But it is a lot of hard work. I hope people will be more open to tattoos. Nowadays, people are getting more small, sticker book style tattoos, but hopefully in the future if it is less stigmatised, they will be more open to doing bigger tattoos. That’s the direction I personally would want to see Singapore move towards.

Favourite tattoo on yourself? It’s my whale tattoo on my arm, done by a local artist, Ian Damian. He is a close friend of mine. I drew this whale myself, and I asked him to translate it onto my skin. Yeah, this is my favourite tattoo! Simply because of technique, who it is done by, and I love orcas as well.

Find Sacha at @sachatatt on Instagram