about.

Tamara Santibañez (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, New York). They come to tattooing from self-taught DIY beginnings, going on to gain over sixteen years of professional experience in acclaimed New York tattoo shops, including the legendary Saved Tattoo. Tamara is author of Could This Be Magic? Tattooing as Liberation Work (Afterlife).  Santibañez has taught as a volunteer arts instructor at Rikers Island and with Rehabilitation Through the Arts at Bedford Hills Correctional. They have worked with the Women’s Prison Association and Resonance Tulsa to organize tattoo cover-up services for survivors of trafficking and women impacted by incarceration, and with Personal Ink to cover mastectomy scars for breast cancer survivors. They hold a Master’s degree in Oral History from Columbia University with a focus on tattooing and incarceration, working with the Rikers Public Memory Project and recording a series of histories at the intersection of the two subjects. Most recently, they co-authored a paper with Scout Silverstein on tattooing’s positive impact on body image within recovery from disordered eating.

The values they bring to their tattoo work are grounded by trauma-informed, prison abolitionist, and harm reduction principles. Tamara believes all tattooing— whether spontaneous or carefully planned, lighthearted or serious— is meant to be empowering and self-actualizing. They bring systems-thinking to tattooing as a profession and practice, considering the ways positionality and identity impact our experience of our bodies.