Interview with Chingar
by Damian McGrath

Chingars Tattoo studio is located at No 1 Shanjing Hutong, in Nan Luo Gu Xiang, Dongcheng, Beijing.  While I am here putting on the Death Art show in Beijing’s famed 798 district with Marina Storme, Jamie Henderson and Chris Lowe I dropped by the studio to hang with Chingar whos has been coming to our show in Toronto for year’s and soon enough Marina started to book appointments at his shop for the rest of our stay which gave me some time discuss tattooing in China with Chingar and his lovely wife Carmen.

For those that are not in the know, a Hutong is best described as the old school architecture alleyways of which few are left in Beijing, now preserved as a tourist area as Beijing’s urbanization grows at breakneck speed. Thousands of these streets criss crossed the city until the urban ren eweal started with the industrialization of China’s Northern capital at the end of the last century.

Indeed the growth I have seen since my first visit here five years ago with Lyle Tuttle,  Mike Rubendall, and Chris O’donnell still continues to floor me. Traffic is nightmare as Mercedes, Audi’s and BMW’s driven by China’s bustling middle class fight with scooters and bycicles for domination of the road. Young girl’s with Hello Kitty rhinestones Iphones and Dolce Gabana glasses walk the hutongs sipping bubble tea.   Now I am sitting in Chingar’s studio five years later talking to him and his beautiful wife while my friend Marina Storme tattoos a full chest and half sleeve on Luke a writer for a video game firm that makes games for facebook, ironically enough in a country that still bans facebook from the internet.

Damian: So Chingar you started tattooing in 1998 ?

Chingar: Yes, I graduated from art school in University majoring in fine art painting. Then I thought if painting on canvas is easy, why not paint on the skin, I wanted to try different things. So I did the first tattoo on myself, on my left hand, a Celtic knot, In 1998 ipoked it by hand after I saw it in an old issue of the american Tattoo magazine.

Damian: So you never had a formal apprenticeship?

Chingar: No, it was impossible, at that time no one was tattooing in China. I just felt I wanted to try a different way to do painting. My inspiration was from old magazines from America. " Tattoo" magazine,  I had friends bring them from the USA and I drew all the tattoos I would see in the magazine.  At that time, I thought I would do traditional hand poking, but it was non existnent in mainland China, so I had no idea how to do it.  At that time we all taught ourselves, we never knew anyone tattooing, I used an electric machine that was suppose to be for cosmetic tattooing. 

Damian: How long did that last?

Chingar: I used the machine for three years before getting new equipment, I had no new needles, it was difficult to tattoo myself.  It was all single needle and after a while the needles were worn and so difficult to work with. 

Damian: So how did you get new equipment?

Chingar: I went to Guang Zhou, a city in southern China and found a company that imported machines from the US. They were very simple but expensive machines. At that time this was the only company that had tattoo machines in the country. For needles they imported I was charged ten dollars for a single needle.    

Damian: So how long before you started to work in a shop?

Chingar: After about four years, then I worked in a shop, but they weren’t tattoo shops, they were little boutiques that sold jewelry, and they would just rent me a space to tattoo in.  This lasted until 2002 when I finally set up my own shop in Lhasa, Tibet. It was a small shop, just three floors, a bar on the main floor, then a studio for painting on top, and a tattoo shop on the third floor. I stayed there tattooing for a year, tattooing Tibetan religious mantras,  mostly on tourists, but also on some locals.

Damian: So then you left Tibet?

Chingar: I thought Tibet had a great culture and envirement, but there wa not much opportunities for me to learn better tattooing practices, so I came to Beijing, it is the central hub of art and there is far more information and opportunities to communicate with other artists, and it is an international city so you can more easily find contacts and information. I could not have learned tattooing that fast if I stayed in Tibet.
So I arrived in Beijing in 2004 and opened a studio not far from where I am now.  I stayed there until I moved to my new studio in 2010.

Damian: Was it just you alone in the shop?

Chingar: No, I had a partner in the other studio, there were two other artists and then I opened Chingar Tattoo in 2010.  I prefer to have my own studio and run the shop the way I want to, now I have two apprentices and one artist working for me also. 

Damian: When did you start going to conventions?

Chingar:  I went to conventions in Berlin, Paris, and the Borneo headhunters show and did your show in Toronto in 2007.  I got to see a lot of different styles, and learn a lot about sterilization and contamination. It also gave me the chance to get new machines.

Damian:  I notice your shop is pretty progressive when it comes to safe tattooing, you use machine bags and clip cord bags as well as dental bibs but I don’t see that in a lot of other shops in China.

Chingar: I went to a lot of conventions and saw this being used, I also did guest artist spots in other countries and learned a lot of safe tattooing practices. Most of the Chinese artists still don’t know about this or still feel they can’t be bothered to do this or don’t care.  Last timeI was at a convention in China I was judging contests, I saw one guy doing great work but never covered his spray bottle, I suggested he should do this but he just doesn’t care.  They don’t think it’s a serious thing, but maybe in the future if something bad happens artists might start to care, but I think they should relize this is important to do it now properly. 

Damian: I agree with you. I am glad you think this way and hope you can show this kind of thinking to other artists here. So what  are your plans  for the future I know you just had a little girl.

Chingar: Yeah, I wont get to travel like i used to, but I think like Shige from Japan, I saw him travel with his wife and little girl around the world. I think I would like to do the same thing. 

Damian : So  where can people find you?

Chingar: I am going to go to your show in Toronto next June,  and plan to stay  to do a guest spot maybe at Abtract Arts.   Other than that I am at my studio in Beijing tattooing and if people want to get work the can go online to chingartattoo.com and get my contact info.