This Artist Creates Ugly Tattoos and People Are Loving It
People get inked for all kinds of reasons, whether it’s an expression of your personal aesthetic or to declare your love for your S.O. (i.e. all those celebrity relationship tattoos). And while there are a lot of different styles out there — like watercolor, traditional, or Japanese, to name a few — one artist is gaining a lot of attention for her unique take on body art: purposely ugly tattoos.
Helena Fernandes, owner of the Malfeitona studio in Brazil, has gained quite a following on Instagram with her self-described “ugly” tattoos. The 26-year-old’s feed is filled with designs ranging from stick figures, emojis, and cartoon animals to renderings of well-known characters like Batman, Wonder Woman, and Rick and Morty.
Her drawings look like they’d be right at home in a kid’s notebook, and people can’t seem to get enough of it (she currently has over 16,500 followers). Her work falls into a growing tattoo category known as ignorant style tattoo, which was pioneered by French street artist FUZI UVTPK and is defined by its black-and-white, almost-childlike nostalgic simplicity.
Fernandes calls her work tatuagens peba, which is Portuguese for “trash tattoos.” Her Facebook page is filled with five-star reviews, and recipients say her work is quirky and unique; one person even said it reminded her of cave paintings.
View this post on InstagramO OUSADO CHEGOU ! #neymar #neymarjr #psg #barcelona #ignorantstyletattoo #ignorantstyle
A post shared by Malfeitona Tattoo (@malfeitona) on
If you’re headed to Brazil and want to get a trash tattoo of your own, you can send Fernandes an email at malfeitona@gmail.com. If not, it would be just as fun to give her a follow and see where her art goes next.
What do you think of these ugly tattoos? Do you have any ink? Tell us @BritandCo!
(h/t Teen Vogue; photos via Malfeitona/Instagram)