“Exploring self invention & unconventional beauty through the medium of tattooing”
WHO AM I?
My real name is Cooper, but as a tattooer I work under the name N333DLES. This name has a visceral quality, one that exudes feelings of pain and precision. It manifests the angel number “333” to encourage creativity, intuition, and healing during the ritual act of tattooing. N333DLES is the marriage between those concepts and an homage to the iconic tool of this trade…the N333DLE.
WHY DO I TATTOO?
When I picked up the tattoo machines for the first time I was captured by the allure of its criminal stigma. Tattoos were a great beast, a threat far from the safety of the small suburb in Ohio I was raised in. They were kitschy, exotic, and sinful. The memories of growing up in that town and how I felt about it was something I was thinking about when I started putting needle into flesh. As I have grown I realize that my true passion for tattooing comes not from criminality, but from a deep appreciation for unconventional beauty and self invention. The more I tattoo the more i can see its relation to these ideas. My goal is to encourage those relations as much as possible. I am asking everyone who sees my work to have more empathy. I want them to consider aesthetic options that might not be standard and to open their hearts to a different kind of beauty. I will have fulfilled any potential I had to make a positive contribution to the world if I can show people to have more kindness and tolerance in their thinking.