Interview with Pande-Lee
In today’s interview we have Pande-Lee.
He is living in Thessaloniki, in Greece, he is 35 years old and he dows a lot of Blackwork, Dotwork and geometry.
Of course, Pande-Lee is just a nickname, he is called Pantelis.
Please, tell us the moment you decided to become a tattoo artist.
I have made my first tattoo at the age of 17.
The whole process was something very unique and gave me a feeling that I want to learn more about it.
So I finished with my studies in Computing and Programming around 2004 and still wanted to learn even more about tattooing and then I decided to take my designs to a local tattoo studio to guide me.
They were pleased with my designs so I started as an apprentice in Cross bones studio.
After a year I wanted to learn even more so I moved to Nico Tattoo, one of the oldest studios in Greece with many artists.
There I started doing some tattoos and even more as the years passed by, until the 2010 that Dirty Roses was established, and I followed Kostas Tzikalagias and Alex Gotza the people who helped me a lot with techniques and tips.
Tattooing has nearly infinite styles, which ones do like more?
My favorite styles are the Japanese, Traditional and Neo traditional, Maori, Polynesian and of course Blackwork and Dotwork that I chose to tattoo.
How is the tattoo situation in Greece? How is it in the future?
Tattoo in Greece has changed the past years.
People feels more “free” to do bigger tattoos without the discriminations of their surroundings.
They are choosing to do something unique, something customized than the initial design they have downloaded from the internet.
I am very pleased with that because we must create, not copy other people efforts.
And what about young people, they are more tattoo-friendly than their parents?
The young people that were raised with the idea that tattoo is something bad, something that the criminals only have (hahaha!) they have to choose between 2 decisions:
To continue with that idea or to open their eyes to their own beliefs.
Every decision is respected despite the fact I love tattoos.
What is the tattoo you are proudest of?
I think I am proud of all my tattoos especially when I see my clients smiling with the result even after years.
Do you have a special routine for doing tattoos (music, training, preparation, etc.)?
I am always having my designs ready to transfer them to a thermal copy so I can have plenty of time to tattoo.
Every music is welcomed but I think I am more to the old school rap hip-hop.
Please, tell us a few tattoo artists who are worth today, in Greece or in the world.
In Greece we have a lot of artists than are known worldwide.
Manu Paterakis is a great artist in Maori-Polynesian, Alex Gotza Neotraditional.
Orge Kalodimas for Dotwork Blackwork, Giannis Doctor Pepper in Realistic, Raiden in Realistic too.
Yorg in traditional Tibetan-Japanese, Kostas Tzikalagias in Japanese, Aber in Neottrad, Christos Galiropoulos in realistic, Klark in new school and many more.
COVID19 is changing the world, did it affect you or your business? Did you tattoo some COVID related ones?
Of course, COVID affected the world of tattoo too.
All the artists worldwide were obligated to stop working for a period.
Here in Greece we were closed for almost 3 months. Despite the economic matters the biggest issue was that we were stopped from creating on a skin, something we all love.
Please, tell something to the people who want to become a tattoo artist, some advice you appreciated when you were starting.
The things that I followed, and I realized that helped me was first of all respect to my clients, respect to the skin, to the procedure of tattooing.
Second was drawing, that is a part of me now even in my vacations. Finally, you must love it and always be alerted for new things that can gives you inspiration.
