Mike was born in Stockholm to a Latvian mother but grew up in Västerås to where he has gone back after a while away. If you can’t pass by Västerås to get tattooed by him you can always find him on either Stockholm Ink Bash or Umeå Tattoo Fest.

Today Mike works at Royal Arch Tattoo in Västerås and before that he ran the shop Karma Tattoo in Strömstad for six years. As a teenager he and his friends used to build their own machines using Sony Walkman motors and syringes attached to a spion. They ran on 9V batteries and even though the machines didn’t turn out awesome the passion for tattooing grew steadily from there.

He enjoys doing black and gray motifs with a lot of texture, especially fur.
-Some would probably call it realism.
His best tattoo memories are all of the times he’s had happy clients, all of the laughs and all of the joy which comes from creating someones tattoo are the best memories.
-I’m living in those memories together with all of my clients and fellow tattoo artists as we speak.

The best part of being a tattoo artist according to Mike is being able to be a free spirit, to be one with creativity and do what he wants to do.

He believes most tattoo artists has someone to look up to and be inspired by, this is true also for him, he finds a lot of inspiration and creativity in and from his kids, he also says that Instagram is great for this, new artist show up every day and he uses this as a tool to connect with other artists around the world.

Lastly I ask Mike if there is any one tattoo artist he’d like to read about on Swedish Tattoo Society to which he answered that Västerås has a lot of great artists to offer. -You could interview anyone from here, like Johanna or Jayjay at Bluebird or my colleague Frej Lind.
Thank you Minke for being a part of Swedish Tattoo Society!