Behind the art
Nico is an award-winning, internationally recognized tattoo artist specializing in black-and-grey photorealism and color realism, anything drawn from photography, mythology, or architecture.
Nico did his first tattoo in 2006 at just 16 years old! But his is passion for art was just starting. He found his passion for fine art in the most unlikely place, a NYS prison. Determined not to waste a second of his sentence, he studied every way he could, drawing and painting daily for five years. The prison contracted him to paint murals on its walls, and the portraits he drew for other inmates gave him a sense of freedom he couldn’t find anywhere else.
Within two years of his release he was working among the world’s leading artists, traveling for his craft, tattooing at Bang Bang NYC among the biggest A-list clients in the world. Dominating the Tattoo industry at just 23 years old. But still…something was missing. His younger self had always wanted more impact, to help others. To do something bigger than himself, so he became a paramedic and eventually an FDNY firefighter, all while tattooing full-time. After years of juggling both lives, he realized his hours making art had been helping people in ways he hadn’t realized before, he’d been making an impact all along. So he put everything into the work. Tattooing and educating artists are now at the forefront of his life.
The work here wasn’t made by a man chasing art trends or success. It was made by a man who found his purpose in it. That’s what you’re looking at.