“Originally from Australia, my family settled into the San Francisco area shortly thereafter. I pretty much started drawing as soon as I was physically able to, with sharks becoming a focus fairly early on (thanks to Jaws coming out in 1975, I was FOREVER changed). As a kid who embodied his own brand of “weird” -I was fascinated with tattoos from when I first started noticing them. Maybe obsessed. Throughout high school, and then my time in the US Army, and throughout the 1990’s, I would get tattooed when I could afford to, drawing and painting constantly, always having this fantasy of somehow doing “this” for a
living. For years I looked for a way inside this magical world, falling in love with it more as time went on. It never diminished. It finally came in 2001, and I’ve been nonstop since then. Engulfed in it. Obsessed with it. There’s no other way to be.

After living most of our lives in Northern California, my wife Brigid and I moved to San Diego in 2019, and I came over to Full Circle Tattoo a few months later. In the last 20+ years I’ve had the privilege of working with so many of my heroes - who have
absolutely influenced me, in shops all over the world, conventions, and points in between. I’ve met some of the finest humans from everywhere who I’m connected to for life, and I’m beyond grateful. Tattooing is a very special thing. It always will be.

My work these days
-while it’s very much rooted and influenced in American Traditional and Japanese tattooing, it's evolved to a mashup that's influenced by my music taste, spaghetti westerns, horror and mad science, UFO's, monsters ....and especially the sharks! Always the sharks! Until the day I can't any more, I'll continue to push this "thing" I'm trying to capture; this vibe in this shimmery world I have in my head. . I'm more obsessed and have more love for it every day, and I always hope my work reflects that.”

https://www.matthowse.com/