About　MICHI

Born in Hyogo, Japan, Michi’s journey into tattooing began at the age of 25, after getting his first tattoo in Toronto during a year-long working holiday in Canada.

That experience became a turning point in his life. Fascinated by tattoo art, he began drawing seriously and creating his own tattoo designs. After seeing his sketchbook, a tattoo artist told him he had a good eye. Soon after, friends began asking him to design tattoos for them — and what started as curiosity quickly became a passion and eventually a career.

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Over more than 12 years of tattooing, Michi has continued to develop his work through tattooing, watercolor, oil painting, and other forms of visual art. Originally drawn to black and grey, his exploration of painting gave him a deeper understanding of color, texture, contrast, and movement — elements that continue to shape his work today.

Portraiture remains at the heart of his realism. Michi is especially drawn to the expressions of people and animals — the small details that reveal emotion, personality, and character. For him, however, a portrait is never simply about recreating a photograph. He wants to understand the story behind the subject and the meaning it carries for the person wearing it.

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His more experimental work is heavily influenced by punk music and the idea of translating sound into something visual. Michi approaches Trash Polka almost like the distortion of a guitar — raw, broken, chaotic, and full of energy. Cracked surfaces, distressed textures, typography, abstraction, watercolor and controlled disorder become part of the composition.

Where others may see decay, ruins, or imperfection, Michi often sees beauty. Those imperfect textures give the work history, emotion, and character. By combining them with realism and fine detail, he creates pieces that balance beauty and darkness, control and chaos.

Today, Michi works from Vancouver, BC, while continuing to tattoo and travel internationally. His work has received six awards at tattoo conventions across Europe and North America, including awards in realism, portraiture, color portrait, graphic work, cover-ups, and large-scale tattooing.

For Michi, the philosophy behind tattooing has remained the same since the beginning: every tattoo carries a story.

“There is strong meaning behind every tattoo. Each one carries a memory, a feeling, or a part of someone’s life. My job is to understand that story and turn it into art they can carry forever.”