Blooming ink gardens

Text: Santana Preap / Photo: Ira Evora / 29.05 07:41

Tattooed BURSA girls

Avelina
Avelina
Vlada
Olya's Ninja Tune logo
Olya's Bjork
Vlada's Godmother
(click on image to view more)

May is a month of blooming in our mini BURSA zine. We asked our beautiful BURSA girls to tell about growing ink flowers on their skin gardens.

Olya, ASTHIKxBURSA manager:

When I was 14 years old, I really wanted a tattoo, and I made it at the most inscrutable place, so that nobody swore me. It is a colorful ladybug slightly below the stomach.

Parents accept tattoos very calmly, because I am doing it for a long time. But there are always controversy about why they are so ugly. I love stupid tattoos like children seem to draw. I'm often asked if this is they are completed, but I love to make them look unpretentious.

I did not count how many tattoos I have, I’ve lost count after the thirtieth. My tattoos do not mean anything, it's just pictures on the body that I want to see everyday.

My favorite tattoo is a graphic portrait of my beloved singer Bjork, when she is 16 years old. I am fond of looking at her, I immediately remember her songs, and how mysterious and beautiful she is.

To make a tattoo, I need a favorite master to arrive and a special mood. I do it spontaneously, there is no such thing that I think about sketch for a long, then I am searching for tattoo master for a long. My tattoos done not by masters, rather they are artists improvisers, but I like when the tattoo is knocked out. I do not like perfect tattoos, in realism and color.

A professional tattoo can be done by anyone, but stupid one — not by everyone at all. It seems to me that stupid tattoos speak of your courage, that you are not afraid to look funny, terrible, these are just drawings. You can always get rid of them, but I do not want to get rid of any, even of the first one, though now it looks senseless. Tattoos are some memories of the stages of life, complex or easy.

Avelina, White Noise Coffee & Bistro administrator

I began to do tattoos at 15 years old, so I have a some stupid pictures, which I would not do now. I began to do tattoos by myself at the age of 16, I bought the first car, and that’s it. Now I do it when there is time and I get great pleasure, I love this business, and there are projects and works that I treat with special love.

Parents are not delighted with it, but they accepted it. I still sometimes hear: "When will you stop?" and "Well, is this the last one?". It's funny to hear from my grandmother: "Oh, that's new, and that is too?" When did you make it? " about the tattoo that has been on me for several years.

In general, I perceive tattoos as just pictures I am inseparable from.

I do not know, how many of them I have. Once I tried to figure out, it turned out more than thirty.

One of the most beloved is Satan on the stomach. But in general, I divide it on those I really like, and those I need to do something with to really like.

I understand that the time has come for a new tattoo when some kind of cool idea comes to my mind, and I realize it, or I see the sketch of master, I fall in love with it, and it finds itself on me.

People on the street continue to pay attention, despite the fact that now it’s 2019. Especially the attention is paid on the face and hands. Opinions on the face tattoo are very different, someone says that it's cool, someone looks with some sort of contempt, but I don’t care, it's my pictures that are always with me.

Vlada, White Noise Coffee & Bistro waitress

The first tattoo appeared in 19. At 16, the first thought about the tattoo appeared, but it was some kind of showing off, I didn’t understand anything then. My mother told me the very right thing — to wait until eighteen years old. I think if I had made them then, it would be very regrettable. Then I met Avelina at the birthday of BURSA Gallery, and I said to her: "Hey, you! Make me tattoos, I know, you're doing it." We were not very familiar then, just from the one company, and the next day we made a tattoo. She said, "I dare you to do Speedo logo, that you have in the instagram profile", so it appeared on the leg, and then the one on the neck, the most significant. This is in Greek, translated as "Here and Now".

My father only accepted the neck tattoo two months after when asked what that means; he is categorically opposed because of the old tattoo notion as a thing convicts do; furthermore placement of my tattoos and barbed wire is a bit of a prison issue. And mom says that I do it thoughtfully and they are nice, she doesn't like people with blue skin, but she doesn't mind.

I have an ideological placement of tattoos that man heads up to heaven, to God, and his feet are on the ground, paradise and hell. I have a snake on my leg, the Virgin Mary on the stomach in a barbed wire, because she prays for my freedom, and Cupids do not let her free, as vices do not let human beings free. Tattoo is a decoration of the body, you are always decorated even if naked, you are beautiful.

My tattoos are not finished yet, I came up with an entire composition. I think if we meet in a year, there will be much more. But Avelina is the only one who I trust it, and we cannot do it right now, but I always want to.

My favorite tattoo is the Virgin Mary, it is handpoked. For me, handpoked tattoos are much more significant than with a machine, because the master invests more and the person who suffers too, it has more soul in it. We did the Virgin Mary for seven hours, we even quarreled with Avelina, because I constantly squeaked and ached, because we did it without anesthesia. It was a painful tattoo. Now the Virgin Mary is praying for me to become better.