Giacomo Luchena is a tattooist currently based in Milan. His work is produced primarily in his bedroom or his kitchen.
Kind Regards had the pleasure of meeting him recently in Milan…

I live in Milan but my hometown is called Pesaro, which is located in the center of Italy, more precisely I lived in a district called “Pantano” which means swamp/bog.
Pantano in the 90s was a place where many kids used to go to bars and gain their territory also by fighting and making graffiti crews.

As a kid these things constantly came to my mind. I still remember the most dangerous places to avoid because of the street fights or for the drug dealers businesses going on. I grew up seeing graffiti taking more and more place in my city, especially in the sewers, where the halls of fame were.

I later  moved to Milan to study, now it’s been about 4 years more or less, and I understand how the world works outside the province reality.

My passion for tattoos was born when i was a kid. At the age of 8 or 9, I remember seeing my mum getting tattooed her arms in the most traditional style you can imagine. The tattoo studio had these awesome old-school tattoo flash designs on the walls which totally caught my attention. Seeing those great drawings on my mum created a great desire to reproduce them on me; but the economic resources for my own tattoo gear have always been limited until a few years ago.

After seeing one more tattoo website, I finally decided to start by tattooing a parchment on my leg with a sewing needle and ink.
The day after I couldn’t sit still so i went out and bought a kit of those Chinese shit, and I immediately filled my knee of drawing not really giving a fuck of the hygienic or technical standards, I have to say.

Then, thanks to my friends who believed in me and “gave” me their legs, over time, I learned the basics and started from there.

My work comes from a personal collection of images and ideas that I see and that comes out by living. At this moment the medieval inocography, alchemical images and old school tattoos flash designs are my favorite things. Im also influenced by graffiti from the 80s, 50-60s horror album covers, or ugly airbrush designs seen in theme parks, every day I’m always looking for new images that stimulate me. I often take a layout from medieval engravings, and I begin to draw lines.

I sometimes work with watercolors and ink and other thin tips markers to create different hatches so then I can photocopy the work and spread them out!

Lately I’ve also started using the airbrush to make Jeans jacket patches, it’s a funny technique to learn so it is inevitable to make funny elements such as lightning and chrome skulls!

I’m really into people’s tattoo ideas on what they want to be done, and for me, this is a good starting point, because I find myself interested in drawing things that otherwise I would not do by myself. From a certain point of view it really helps to grow artistically, while for other projects I’m starting a personal work made with animated gifs and screenshots. Things close to the idea of digital folklore, which has since been my university thesis.

Currently I’m still working from home. In the near future I really would like to work in a tattoo studio, so i can have the possibility to learn more techniques and tattoo culture that I realize, by myself, it would take ages to be discovered.

You can find more work here

Select photos courtesy of Edoardo Pasero and Robots Revenge

Look out for future projects by Kind Regards with Giacomo Luchena.