It’s no secret that we at Books and Bao love Taiwan. It might be our favourite country. Taiwan is a hotbed of art that celebrates literature, film, and visual arts in all their glory and with real gumption and fervour. Taiwan loves art and we love Taiwan. Tattoo art, likewise, is big in Taiwan, as these Taiwan tattoo artists proudly demonstrate.
You’ll find plenty of unique and exciting tattoo artists in Taiwan, with plenty of options depending on your preferred style for when you visit Taiwan. So, let’s take a look at eight of the very best Taiwan tattoo artists.
Many of them, you’ll find, have a distinctly Japanese edge to their style because of the close ties between the nations and because of just how popular Japanese arts (including anime, manga, and video games) are in Taiwan. Anyway, let’s crack on!
Giant Lee
Anime tattoos are quickly becoming my favourite kind of tattoo. We’ve already covered other incredible anime tattoo artists before – like Adam Perj from New York and Stickypop from the UK – and here is Taiwan’s own king of anime tattoos.
Giant Lee is a Taipei-based Taiwan tattoo artist who covers both styles of anime tattoo: recreations of blast colour anime art and still from your favourite anime, and perfect copies of iconic manga panels, complete with Japanese text.
The difference in style here is immense and impressive. Giant Lee is able to bring thick lines, bold colours, and heavy personality to his tattoo art with broad strokes when he needs to, but he can also imitate the fine linework of black and white manga panels in excruciating detail.
If you love anime tattoos or manga tattoos, this Taiwan tattoo artist is the man you need!
Find Lee on our list of artists of geeky tattoos!
Kubrick Ho
This Taiwan tattoo artist from Taipei is celebrated across the world. In fact, words fail me when talking about his art. Kubrick Ho crafts tattoo art that defies description, but given that it’s my job I’ll do my best.
There’s a softness to his tattoo art; thick linework is non-existent; instead, everything flows together in one soft tone and shape. Much of Kubrick’s tattoo art depicts flowers of black and grey or muted, pastel tones; or Japanese-inspired women.
Geisha tattoos, women samurai, or women in traditional Edo costume. The expressions on their faces, the subtle watery motion of the art, it’s all so human, so alive! Kubrick’s art is mesmerising, and it’s what makes him easily one of the very best Taiwan tattoo artists working today.
Read More: 7 Best Tokyo Tattoo Artists and Studios to Check Out
Ting Jue
Do you like black and white photorealistic tattoos? Well, Dion’s are some of the best around. Working out of Coffin Cricket tattoo studio in Taipei, Dion delivers tattoos of people, wild animals, machinery, sci-fi gizmos, steampunk contraptions, biblical figures, and more with a tattoo style that’s so convincing you’d think you were gazing at an old black-and-white photo.
Dion is one of the most unique Taiwan tattoo artists in the business and someone to keep a very close eye on. If you love photorealistic portraiture in your tattoo art, book in with Dion on your next trip to Taipei.
Mick Gore
Mick Gore tattoos out of Gore Tattoo in Taoyuan, Taiwan. And his tattoo art is as neotrad as neotrad gets! Faithfully harking back to the Sailor Jerry style traditional American and British tattoos of yore, this Taiwan tattoo artist delivers faithfully old-school and badass tattoos for your pleasure and delight!
Neotrad tattoos never go out of style (I myself am covered in them) and they just do something that no other style of visual art can do. They tap into the very core of tattooing, and Mick Gore’s neotrad tattoos are an absolute blessing. You’ll not only see it in his style but also his designs. Mandalas, boxers, gypsies, native Americans, ships, anchors, praying hands; you get the idea. Neotrad, as I’ve already said, at its absolute finest.
Read More: 10 Spectacular Things to Do in Taipei
East Tattoo Hua
From Kaohsiung, Taiwan comes one of the most viscerally astonishing talents in that tattoo industry. Hua is a wrecking ball of talent. I cannot be hyperbolic enough when describing Hua’s artwork.
Specialising in massive pieces inspired by Buddhist, Chinese, and Japanese artwork, Hua commits usually to massive back pieces and full sleeve tattoos in bold primary colours and thick linework. His pieces are explosions of colour and beauty.
They appear, at their very finest, to move and breathe and express their emotion with displays of power. Tigers, samurai warriors, dragons, geisha, koi fish, and more can be seen in his artwork looking the best they’ve ever looked. One of my absolute favourite Taiwan tattoo artists.
Gin Wang
It’s not often you see tattoos this creative and this captivating. Gin Wang, a tattoo artist from Taipei, has a style like nobody else in the world. Like, it actively excites me. She is able to blend thick black linework with splashes of bold, heavily defined colour to create a statement of a tattoo.
Much of her work mixes colour and black linework to create a kind of dichotomy of style that works so well, especially with the designs she mostly focuses on: Japanese and anime-inspired tattoo art
Here, you’ll find a lot of cyberpunk, body horror-inspired, anime-esque delights in Gin Wang’s repertoire, as well as some delightfully pastel coloured kawaii creatures and flowers. This diversity in style makes her one of the finest Taiwan tattoo artists around.
Read More: 5 Books to Read Before you Visit Taiwan
Chris Lee
From Shen Tattoo Studio in Taichung comes Chris Lee, an absolute tattooing powerhouse. All black and grey, all soft yet defined, all beautiful. Whether it’s cute creatures, body horror, or sci-fi inspired scenes you want, Chris Lee can deliver it in classy black and white deliciousness. There’s a refined maturity to this Taiwan tattoo artist’s style and execution that I absolutely adore.
And if an artist can make you care about a style that you normally glance over, that says a lot about their skill and their design choices. Amazing work. Amazing.
Shan Qiu
Shan Qiu is a Taipei-based Taiwan tattoo artist who excels at small and intricate tattoos of geometric patterns that blend thin and minimalist linework with splashes of pastel colours for a mesmerising effect. This is a style that’s hard to define, being so abstract as it is. There’s less a cogent design aspect to Shan qiu’s style and more a modern art conceptual style, like a very happy trip of colour and shape.
Some of Shan Qiu’s designs use portraits or flowers to ground the art in a single concept, while others make allusions to the mathematical side of artistry, but every single piece is captivating and fascinating in an unknowable, difficult-to-grasp kind of way that makes this Taiwan tattoo artist one of the most daring and unique in the whole country.