Our Artists
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Sophia Blum
Sophia (she/her) is a resident artist and Co-Owner of Thorns.
Sophia implements hand poking and machine tattooing techniques into her practice, while pulling inspiration from textiles and botanicals. Sophia has been tattooing since 2016.
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Rex LC
Rex (they /them) is a resident artist and Co-Owner of Thorns.
Originally from Mexico City, Rex specializes in large custom and freehanded abstract and naturalist black work. Nature, flow, and the influence of capitalism on the body are heavily explored in their process. Rex has been has been tattooing full time since 2016
Rex habla Español.
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Maren Preston
Maren (she/her) is a resident artist and Co-Owner of Thorns.
Maren started tattooing after years of working in the mediums of printmaking and painting. She finds inspiration in the natural world, and the moments that exist in-between and beyond categories. She loves doing large scale botanical, animal, and abstract black and gray work. Maren has been tattooing since 2019.
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Faride Bustamante
Faride (she/they) is a resident artist and Co-Owner of Thorns.
Faride is a queer immigrant originally from El Salvador. She loves to incorporate color, bold lines, texture, and illustrative imagery into their work. Her work often explores the intersection of queerness, identity, gender variance, and mental health. Faride has been tattooing since 2019.
Tambien habla Español.
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Jake Lions
Jake (he/they) is a resident artist whose tattoos are bright, clean, and quick. His inspiration stems from nostalgia, traditional tattooing, video games, dreams, city life, cartoons, animals, and his love for music. He provides a large variety of designs in his flash book and takes customs upon request. To book with Jake please DM him directly on instagram or by email at plantstaretattoos@gmail.com
Jake has been tattooing since 2016.
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Adrianna Adams
Adrianna (she/her) is a junior resident artist who apprenticed under the communal guidance of senior artists at Thorns in 2022.
She has been tattooing for a year. Her work is inspired by all things botanical/ floral. Her designs are inspired by her background in printmaking & painting.
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Malaya Tuyay
Malaya (she/they) is a junior resident artist who apprenticed under the communal guidance of senior artists at Thorns in 2022.
She has been tattooing for a year. Malaya has a background in printmaking, jewelry, murals, and textile art.
She also organizes with Liyang Network and other community efforts (mutual aid, direct action, care pods, etc). You can also find them on instagram under @mah.lie.yuh
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Alex Rae Phelps
Alex (they/he) is a resident artist and the Studio Manager of Thorns.
Alex is a trans hand poke tattooer who specializes in black ink dot work in realist, illustrative, and abstract styles. Their background in sculpture and embroidery informs their delicate hand and three-dimensional interpretation of tattooing. Alex has been tattooing since 2018.
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Becca Reilly-Self
Becca (she/her) is a resident artist who was born in London but grew up in Costa Rica. She moved to Oakland in 2007, fell in love with the city and never left. She started tattooing in 2019 but has a background in photography and video production. She draws inspiration from textiles, architecture, botanicals, lithography, and world crafts.
Becca habla Español.
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Lael FS
Lael (she/her) is a resident artist, whose tattoo style is influenced by her years of leatherworking, printmaking, and drawing album art for metal bands. She likes creating large flowing tattoos as well as tough little bangers, often depicting scaly, shiny, spiny, or feathery forms out of nature or fantasy.
Lael has been tattooing since 2019.
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Violet Moon
Violet (she/they) is a trans tattoo artist, apprenticing under Lael FS . She is pursuing a combination of botanical, illustrative, and traditional styles. Violet draws inspiration from her work as a queer botanist and clinical western/energetic herbalist, and incorporates flower essences in her botanical tattoos. She is 11 months into her apprenticeship, and has been tattooing since 2020.