Ah, yes. The old time question. Who am I? Who is anyone, really. While I could yap for hours about a variety of random topics it’s really not so easy for me to talk about myself. Perhaps being raised in a catholic household in post soviet block Poland has made any self centred fixation feel self indulgent and vane. But let’s try anyway!

My name is Gabriela Monika but I go by Gabbie. Vasquez is an art name I’ve found myself stuck with (not that there is anything wrong with it) after using it everywhere I could get away with not using my real surname since I was a teenager. It was borrowed from my favourite at the time (and still one of the favourite) graphic novel artists, Jhonen Vasquez. I really wanted to do something art related since early age, just didn’t know exactly what yet and haven’t quite developed a style at the time. I wanted to go to art school, but my somewhat practical and insecure self, feared I should do something a bit more… realistic? practical? in my academic endeavours. So I graduated from a Graphic Design high school in Faenza, Italy, and then moved to Scotland, which I love and thanks to wonderfully welcoming people here, consider home. Here I graduated from Game Art and Animation course in Caledonian University in Glasgow. Eager to be done with school, I didn’t bother with any post graduate courses and threw myself into the madness of apprenticeship and tattooing.

When I’m not tattooing, I