03 JUL 2020 My name is Daniel, I was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I moved to Berlin in 2011 and relocated to London to start working as a resident at Parliament Tattoo just before lockdown. I’m a tattoo artist specialising in freehand botanical tattoos. I’ve been painting and illustrating all my life, and it was about 7 years ago that I transitioned into tattooing from a career in fine art. My current practice also includes painting and photography, as part of my research in botanical subject matter.

Covid changed all of my plans, because tattooing was banned right after I moved to London. I also used to work as a guest every month in a different city around Europe, but all of this got cancelled, too.

It was only a few weeks after lockdown when I came to realise that I had the chance to do all those other things I never made time for. “Inner gardens” was my lockdown project—taking commissions for watercolour paintings of my clients’ favourite plants and flowers. I got a lot of requests for plants that I’d never painted before; this ended up allowing me to study different techniques of botanical illustration and learn new ways to represent my compositions.

In addition, I started regularly visiting the parks around my area with my camera to capture the spring blooms of an extended variety of plants. This was literally the type of project I had been planning for my late sixties after moving into the forest. I have really loved all the experimenting that phase has brought, and I feel very thankful that I had the chance to spend this past few months trying out new things.

During the last month, I’ve been spending more time outdoors, discovering the city on my bike. It feels a bit weird moving to a new city that is still not completely functional, but it’s a great opportunity for sightseeing without the crowds.

I was glad to see news about animals taking over spaces that would commonly be appropriated by us. It's very inspiring to see how quickly wildlife will take any chance to recover those places that once belonged to them. It was interesting to see the positive effect that these past months have had on the environment as a proof of how things could look like if we decide to change our impact on this planet.

After 3 months, still being unclear when we can tattoo in London again, I've decided to fly to Berlin for the month of July. I’m looking forward to spending time with my friends and enjoying one of the best months of the year in this city. I’m also looking forward to spending the weekends at the lake and finally starting to tattoo again!

If you’d like to get tattooed as soon as we are allowed to work again in London, you can reserve a spot on my waiting list through the booking form on my website. For anyone living abroad, you can commission me to paint a series of watercolours of your favourite plants and flowers!