ORIGINALITY IS KEY FOR OUR TOP TATTOO ARTIST
RICHARD Rayner knew he wanted to be a tattoo artist before he had even finished primary school.
He remembers flicking through his dad’s motorbike magazines as a nine-year-old living in Ipswich, his eyes lighting up with excitement as he was inspired to draw everything he was seeing.
By the age of 12, he was coming up with his own tattoo designs, mostly “ugly, graffitistyle” skulls – spurred on by a healthy competition with his schoolmate ‘Megsy’ whose drawing skills he envied.
As soon as he hit 15, Rayner jumped on his pushbike to “hound” the town’s three tattoo studios in the hopes of getting an apprenticeship.
When one finally did take him on, there was no stopping his rise.
Mr Rayner would spend the next few years practising on everything from roast pork to orange peels to his own parents, aka his “guinea pigs”.
In 1995, he opened his first studio. Bowen Ink Tattoo and
Gallery, which he opened in February 2020 after relocating from Warwick, is his sixth studio.
There, he and his apprentice Tyler Newman offer tattoos, and a selection of piercing jewellery. Soon, they will also have a display of Mr Raynder and his wife Sonya’s original airbrushing and resin art.
Mr Rayner recently got into airbrushing as a more permanent art medium.
As he explained it: “Tattoos do last forever but the art goes with that person – that’s a bit of my art in the ground”.
He makes sure to individualise every design idea a client presents him with, and he believes it is this approach, combined with his easygoing nature, that won him the Best Tattooist prize – and many others before it.
As he accepted his Whitsunday’s Best Tattoo Artist Award, Mr Rayner said he wanted to thank everyone who voted for him and gave a special shout out to his wife Sonya, with whom he recently celebrated 25 years of marriage.