I’m Alex, originally from Bacău.

I spent nearly a decade as a competitive athlete, until injuries pulled me away from sport. For a while I felt unmoored — sport had been everything, and suddenly I had too much empty time. It was then, during the pandemic, that the idea of tattooing first appeared — too much free time, too much curiosity. I dropped it quickly when I saw course prices: too much for a nineteen-year-old with no job.

I moved to Bucharest and was working in a café. A customer told me I seemed creative and asked why I didn’t try tattooing. I laughed it off — “that’s not a thing, it’s too hard.” But the idea stayed. Without telling anyone, I ordered the cheapest decent kit I could find. In May 2024 it arrived, and I started practicing on fake skin at home.

A month later I did my first tattoo on a person — Basquiat’s crown, on an acquaintance. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the start. I got lucky: through mutual friends, I was spending time in a tattoo studio. No one knew I was tattooing at home. I stayed close to the artists, watching everything, learning whatever I could; my breaks were only for the bathroom or water. When they found out I tattooed, I was invited in as an apprentice. I worked there until January 2025, when I chose to go my own way and tattoo privately.