A conversation with Jay Rose, new interviews every Monday.

Chrome 6 is your lovechild, it is the epitome of you as a person and so carefully curated. I was the first artist to come and guest when you opened (thank you), watching it develop as more artists come to work with you has been so wonderful to see. What's been the biggest learning curve/ the best thing about being able to curate your own space?

Well my studio is where I spent most of my time, - literally, sometimes up to 14 hours a day -so I wanted to make sure its a place I feel most comfortable at- not only for me but make it a special idea-nurturing place for everyone who works or visits. This sounds pathetic, but really, I wouldn’t want to work in a busy machinery soulless Ikea world. It really took me time to grow into this responsibility and find the balance between enthusiastic thriving and allowing onseself healthy and important breaks and slowdowns.

Your work is so identifiably yours. The mix of scientific illustration and motives in the way you draw them create a really interesting composition. You have a unique collection of reference books, some of which I remember your father giving you. What are your favourite books within your collection?

You remember right, amongst those classic tattooers library victorian books I own a few historic anatomy books my Dad found at the fleamarket, with hilarious doctor tips and methods from 1899. They’re like a little treasure, a greeting from the past reminding me how lucky I am actually living in this century. But I dont really use them to build collages. I actually am quite more interested in modern artists and Google image search :D- and bringing together the different epoches. I love the portrait/nature collages by John Stezaker for example.

Do you think your interest in scientific illustration and old German folk tales stem from childhood? Which is your favorite tale?

I’ve defintely always been a fan of tales in general, like the brothers Grimms or Struwwelpeter, but I guess it was more that I was forced to draw more graphically when I started tattooing, so I kind of re-discovered those stories but payed a lot more attention to the illustrations that time. If I had to name a favorite it would be red riding hood or ‚Rotkäppchen‘ in german.

Most, if not all, of your tattoos have fig.001 on them. Have you done them 1-current for flash or are they linked to specific references/drawings?

I’d like to be the mysterious idiot here and have people find out when they get tattooed hehe

You went to school for illustration (correct me here if that's wrong) do you find that your background in art helped your transition into tattooing?

I actually got my bachelor in fashion-design but started to work as an illustrator being at university. And Yes yes yes, as people often ask me how to become a tattoo artist - I think the best and most profound thing you could do is have any kind of artistic education beforehand. May it be goldsmithery, graphic or set design - you need to be equiped with a basic knowledge about form, proportion, colour, contrast and also learn how to be inspired but still create your own artistic identity. Its a lesson for life that can be useful for so many things. And I’m not only talking about official education, some of the most interesting tattooers I know did graffiti their whole life - so have spent years dealing with art before. Learning the handcraft of tattoing is one thing, but elevating to an artist is something that takes much longer.

If you weren’t tattooing now do you think you would still be illustrating in a similar way? Was this something that developed through tattooing or a style you had already evolved?

The illustrations I did actually were a complete different thing compared to what people associate with my tattooing style. Not intentionally but funnily I think my tattooing style slowly changes to my illustration style nowadays, maybe as I am more and more capaple of doing with the needle now what I used to do with pen.

Obviously Covid-19 threw a gear in the works in regards to forcing all of us to take time off we didn’t want to take. How did you find it affected you creatively? Did you try to take the time as a break or work on new things for when you were able to work again?

Ahh I mean I wish, looking back I had 9 weeks off and you’d think you’d be in creative beast mode finally doing all the things you’d always wanted to try out or whatever.. in reality I had to deal with being in hospital, turning 30 and all the mixed emotions about the whole situation really left me paralyzed. All I could think of was cooking, sleeping and Tiger King. ( of course ) I guess I need pressure or at least a reason, a goal to be creative, so things were on fire as soon as we’re allowed to open again.

Do you have any projects you are looking forward to starting/ finishing?

I started doing more bigger or complex projects like backpieces or head-pieces, so this is definitely a challenge. As frustrating I find it to not finish in one session, the bigger is the excitement, when you finally do.