Keisuke Hirata sits across from me, perched on a low stool. He’s wearing a sheer cardigan today. The artwork inked on his arms is visible through the fabric, which ripples with deep purples and bruised reds, occasionally interrupted by a burst of pale blue.
The air around us is dense with a mix of tobacco smoke and a burning candle, something woody and earthy — maybe cedar. It clings to the room, familiar. A tattoo bench sits to my right, next to trays of ink bottles and sterilized needles gleaming in silver silence.
This is Flat Tattoo Room, Keisuke Hirata’s studio, where doodles find permanence on living skin. Here, he expertly merges playful designs with traditional stick-and-poke techniques, earning him acclaim as a rising tattoo artist in Tokyo. Keisuke Hirata Hirata’s voice, when he speaks, is soft, despite the packs of cigarettes that lie scattered around the room.
Plants lean toward the weak afternoon light, their leaves brushing the window panes, as if they, too, are waiting to hear what he will say next. The surprising sense of gentleness that effuses from Hirata is reflected in his tattooing style; as a stick-and-poke artist, he works by dipping a needle in ink and pressing it into skin with a gentle hand. His work is light, whimsical, almost surreal, like something out of a strange dream.
The walls of his studio are a patchwork of these quirky sketches: a man morphing into a flower, a lopsided building, a globe sprouting from a tree. Each one looks like it.