Entrevue magazine TTT Tattoo 2018
Maïka Zayagata
Place of birth: Quebec, Canada
Main studio: Tatouage Royal, Montreal, Canada
I like to look at modern architecture and urban landscape in decay or in construction for inspiration and try to use that influence in some of my work, Maika Zayagata explains.
That investigation makes up the "industrial" half of Zayagata's two-pronged, 'organic and industrial’ geometric style. For her, 'organic’ refers to how she adapts elements of the design to the body and. ultimately, the way it moves. Combined with linear forms, as well as a penchant for turquoise (or other blue hue) colour fields, Zayagata's tattoos become instantly recognizable.
Zayagata began learning to tattoo in 2004 while also studying for a degree in film animation: ‘I would do between 10 to 15 tattoos a day, taken out of books the shop had. Most days I would come in not knowing what I would tattoo, sometimes doing the same flash three to five times in the same week, or even sometimes the same day’, she remembers of her first job. ‘It actually took me four or five more years to only begin to feel like I wasn't an imposter! The conditions I learned in looked nothing like what my work life looks like now.’
Around the turn of the decade, Zayagata realized her aforementioned style. She worked with Yanick Bleau at Excentrik until 2013, then moved to spend a year at Imperial Tattoo Connexion before taking residence at Tatouage Royal. Travel abroad, especially to Germany, also accounts for some of her maturation as a tattooer.
‘I feel that the better you get at tattooing, the harder this gets’, Zayagata says. ‘Because once you master your craft. How do you keep challenging yourself?’ One way is following others who inspire you. For Zayagata, three tattooers play that role: Jay Marceau at Enlight in Quebec City, Black Ink Power's Kenji Alucky and Blut & Eisen's Gerhard Wiesbeck.
‘I look to "observe" people like Kenji or Gerhard, because they still manage to impress us from one tattoo to the next’, Zayagata says. ‘That's what is so good about tattooing. too: no matter how good you get at it, the challenges don't get easier.’
