About Arkay

Hey! My name’s Rob (Arkay), and I’m a tattooer and visual artist based in Napier, New Zealand.

I’ve been creative for as long as I can remember. At school I was usually doodling characters, making comics or filling books with ideas instead of doing whatever I was probably meant to be doing.

That part never really changed. The medium just did.

ALWAYS CREATING

I enjoy a lot of different forms of art.

From music to painting, writing to sculpting, I express my ideas in all sorts of different ways.

I’ve played in underground metal bands for more than half my life, with countless shows across New Zealand along the way. I’ve made rap projects, designed logos, album covers and shirts, filmed and edited videos, created my own card game and even written a book that I’m still figuring out what to do with.

I get inspired easily, my imagination runs wild, and there are usually more ideas floating around than I’ll ever have time to finish.

THE LONG WAY INTO TATTOOING

My first attempt at tattooing was around 2009, when my brother bought me a tattoo kit and told me to start practising on him and myself.

I tried getting into the industry, but it was very hard to get a foot in the door, and I wasn’t progressing much on my own, so eventually I packed the machines away and focused elsewhere.

That led me into printing, where I eventually got offered an offset printing apprenticeship.

Then in 2015, tattooing found its way back.

My tattoo artist at the time, Glen Schollum, offered to take me on. I was already committed to finishing my printing apprenticeship, so I ended up learning both at the same time.

I really appreciate everything Glen did for me, and one of the many things he taught me that still sticks with me today is:

“Appreciate every single line.”

Around that time I was also getting tattooed regularly by KVL, who showed me heaps of new techniques and different ways of approaching tattooing. He became another big influence on me in those early years.

FINDING MY OWN WORK

In 2018, Glen, KVL and Levi opened The Collective in Napier and I was offered the chance to join them full-time.

Leaving a secure career in printing was a huge decision, but it turned out to be the right one.

Working alongside all three of them taught me a lot.

In those early full-time years I tattooed almost anything and everything. A lot of my work revolved around pop culture, comics, anime, games and mashups.

I still love tattooing that kind of work, but over time I realised I got much more satisfaction from doing my own creations.

I’ve always been drawn to darker art, horror and surreal imagery, so naturally my own work started moving further in that direction.

One of the biggest influences came when a client asked me to tattoo a painting by Zdzisław Beksiński. The more I explored his work, the more I fell in love with the strange forms, atmosphere and incredible amount of detail.

These days I’d describe my own direction as surrealism crossed with illustration.

After a few different chapters along the way, I eventually found my way to Think Tattoo in Napier, where I’ve now been working for the last three+ years.

It’s been a great place to keep developing my work, explore my own direction and work alongside a talented crew of genuine GC's.

BEYOND SKIN

Getting back into drawing and painting more seriously has had a huge influence on the way I tattoo.

When I design for someone now, I’m not just trying to make an image fit into an available space. I work from photos of the body, sketch around the anatomy and build the design to suit the person it’s going on.

I’m constantly looking at my own work and figuring out what I could do better. Every project teaches me something that I can carry into the next one.

My favourite tattoos are the ones where someone trusts me, gives me room to be creative and commits to enough time to properly realise the idea.

That’s usually where I feel I can push the work the furthest.

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

In early 2024 I held an exhibition at CAN in Napier called Down the Rabbit Hole.

The show brought together a collection of paintings exploring things like perception, identity, love, surveillance and some of the stranger corners of modern life.

It was a massive project for me and took a ridiculous amount of time to finish, but it proved that I could take one of the big ideas in my head, give it a deadline, and actually see it through.

OPENING THE GATE

After Down the Rabbit Hole, I wanted to push myself into something even bigger.

I wanted to create a large, detailed piece that felt completely mine and could eventually become something more than just an artwork on paper.

That piece became Opening the Gate.

It took far longer than I expected, and the style evolved a lot while I was working on it. I planned the composition digitally, then built the final piece by hand using ink pens, Prismacolor pencils and white gel pen highlights.

Somewhere along the way, the project started growing beyond the artwork itself.

That eventually became Arkay’s Art Cave.

ARKAY’S ART CAVE

The Cave gives all these different parts of my creativity somewhere to live.

It’s a place for tattoos, original artwork, prints, clothing, stickers and whatever else I feel inspired to make. Some things will come from older work, some will be completely new, and some ideas will probably appear out of nowhere.

Over time I’d love to grow it into something even bigger, including collaborations with other artists and more ways for people to connect with the work.

Maybe that means a huge multi-session tattoo. Maybe it’s an original painting. Maybe it’s just a sticker you thought looked cool.

Underneath all the dark artwork and strange ideas, I’m really just a pretty chill guy who loves creating things.