Pete Davidson is known more for his mental health struggles, many tattoos, drug addiction and short celebrity relationships. Photo / Getty Images
Pete Davidson is known more for his mental health struggles, many tattoos, drug addiction and short celebrity relationships. Photo / Getty Images
Opinion by Serena Solomon
Serena Solomon is a Digital Journalist from RNZ.
Comedian Pete Davidson has revealed his tattoo-free skin. What does that mean for tattooing and its transition from an alternative life to the mainstream?
At first, I couldn’t figure out why Pete Davidson was all of a sudden really good-looking. The New York City-based comedian and actor is known more for his mental health struggles, many tattoos, drug addiction and short, intense celebrity relationships than his actual entertainment.
And there he was modelling for the cool-girl brand Reformation, lying shirtless on the ground, propped up on one arm in a campaign that launched a few weeks ago.
Hang on ... All his tattoos were gone, screamed the internet in a collective revelation.
“Yeah, I was a sad boy,” he said on The Tonight Show when host Jimmy Fallon held up an old image of Davidson during a recent interview. He was scrawny and heavily tattooed with hollowed-out eyes.
“It was a weird time. Everyone was getting tattoos five years ago,” said Davidson, as he spoke about the painful and decade-long process he is in the middle of to remove 200-plus tattoos through lasers. He says he will keep two or three of his tattoos.
In some ways, Davidson personifies the cultural transition tattooing has been on. A decade or so ago, tattoos were still frowned on and carried the stigma of an alternative lifestyle. Now, they are thoroughly mainstream.
A tattoo poking out from the sleeve of a blazer in a boardroom meeting wouldn’t be out of place. Stylish and slick tattoo shops alongside espresso cafes are common in the gentrified suburbs of New Zealand cities.
In a linked but completely different phenomenon, tā moko, traditional Māori tattooing, is also in revival after the practice was disrupted by colonisation almost two centuries ago.
But has New Zealand, considered by many to be a heavily tattooed country, reached peak tattoo for work that isn’t considered tā moko?
Tā moko is in revival after the practice was disrupted by colonisation. Photo / Getty Images
“Obviously, things come and they go, and I think that sort of fashion, trend aspect of tattooing may perhaps go and then the more traditional aspects of tattooing will stay,” said Briar Neville, a tattoo-removal technician who founded Sacred Laser 10 years ago. She and her husband, tattoo artist Dan Anderson of Sacred Tattoo, share a building in the Auckland suburb of Kingsland. It is her side of the business that has an increasing demand.
“I’m already looking at opening another clinic. I’ve got one in Christchurch as well but yeah, I think it’s my industry that has the growth,” said Neville.
For Anderson, collecting small tattoos has peaked, but well-considered, quality work that is in harmony will endure.
“... Definitely after Covid but even before that, there was this huge intake of breath where tattooing really expands, and then it’s breathing in,” said Anderson, adding today’s kids will probably “rebel” against their heavily tattooed parents and be more restrained with tattooing.
Some of Neville’s removal clients want their tattoos dimmed so they can cover it up with another tattoo. Others want full removal because of poor quality work or because they no longer associate themselves with the image or the phase of life they were in when they were tattooed.
Removal starts at $100 per session for a small 5cm by 5cm tattoo and the price increases with tattoo size. Complete removal takes six to 12 sessions and fading a tattoo for a coverup takes two to four sessions. A small tattoo can take seconds or minutes to laser each session.
Each time Alison Brewer, 47, goes to Sacred Laser, she cries. It isn’t because of the pain of tattoo removal, although it is painful like short bursts of a soldering iron burning the skin.
“It’s a long road and it’s really quite emotional ... especially coming up to 50 [years of age] and not having this scribbling mess on my shoulder,” said Brewer, a makeup artist.
The mess she is referring to is a shoulder tattoo that started out as a sizable peacock done in Bali 25 years ago. The original work wasn’t great and four other tattoo artists tried to fix it or cover it up. Each new addition made the tattoo bigger and drove ink deeper into her skin.
Brewer has done four removal sessions and anticipates needing another 10 before the tattoo is gone. She is also removing a handful of others that she got at age 17 including a “weird little star” that was the cheapest on the wall of the tattoo shop.
“I don’t identify as that girl who was just trying out things not thinking whether the canvas of her body would be fine with it in 20, 30 years' time.”
Her words mirror Davidson’s. He spoke of wanting to be taken seriously as an actor.
“But I’m trying to clean-slate it. Trying to be an adult,” he said.
Hayden Ayrton is from Feather Touch Cosmetic Tattoo in Wellington and specialises in makeup tattoo removal, such as eyebrow and lip colour. He also does smaller body tattoos and fades larger tattoos for coverup work.
Women in their 30s and 40s make up the majority of Ayrton’s body tattoo removal clients and it is often to do with poor quality work.
“I find most guys aren’t really worried about it unless it’s the name of an ex and their new partner wants it taken off or something like that.
Women in their 30s and 40s make up the majority of Ayrton’s body tattoo removal clients. Photo / 123rf
“A lot of the stuff I’m getting at the moment, it’s a style of tattoo. It’s big, dark, old stuff that was done 10-plus years ago, and they just don’t want it there anymore.”
It’s rare that a client asks Ayrton to remove a tā moko. He has only removed one in six years.
“I’m Māori and I’m covered in tā moko and I just couldn’t even think about removing it ... but then again, I think it’s up to the person who is wearing the tā moko and if they want it or they don’t want it.”
Stefan “Spider” Sinclair does not see a decline in tattoos but he does see the shift away from collections of smaller, random tattoos that people would often start with. Now, he gets clients coming to him with no tattoos and wanting a full sleeve.
Sinclair, who considered himself a “tattoo collector,” loves the look of tattoos as they age.
“It ages like a fine wine. After 50 years, it has so much history and character and patina to it.”
Brewer, amid her painful removal process, recently got a tattoo that matches what her 40-year-old brother has. He has special needs and is battling cancer. Anderson of Sacred Tattoo did it in the same building where Brewer goes to get her shoulder piece removed.
“It’s like you go there for removal and then you also get ink put back in.”
