Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Macarena Bravo Espinoza. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Macarena , appreciate you joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

Fortunately, yes.

It was a long and complex process, which cost me quality time, a lot of work and a lot of energy, but I don’t regret any of the decisions I made along the way.

It wasn’t like that from the beginning, I worked as a waitress for a year while I finished my thesis and a year after l finished university I learned to tattoo.
Since my approach to tattooing was only from the curiosity of painting on another medium, it wasn’t my priority. My priority was to become independent and not have to depend on my parents (they already had enough expenses between normal life and my three younger siblings who were just finishing primary school), so I stopped my tattoo practice and started working as a photographer in a jewelry store. A month later I was working as an art director in a digital advertising agency, creating content (such as photographs, videos, DIY processes, models, papercraft, food styling and stop motions for different brands and web platforms).
I managed to stay in that job for a year and a half, but the last 6 months I was there I felt a huge emptiness in my soul and heart. Although my job was entertaining, every time I had free time I painted, drew or did something else creative, but it wasn’t enough and I questioned what I was doing with my life and I kept telling myself “If I studied art to dedicate myself to painting and I’m not doing it, why did I study art? I’m wasting my years of study; this doesn’t make sense.” At the same time, I started practicing tattooing on the weekends (after one of my friends from the agency discovered that I knew how to tattoo) and at that moment everything clicked.
I realized that I missed doing tattoos and that I enjoyed it a lot, so after thinking about it for a few months and talking about it with my closest circle, I quit my job.

I quit without savings and without certainties. My experience as a tattoo artist was very limited and as a visual artist, I was a little better, but not that much better and in a big city like Santiago, no one knew my work and I was still practicing and practicing to improve the basics of tattooing.
In order to survive the cost of living, I did everything I could and was within my reach. I took freelance projects offered by the agency I worked for once every two months or at any irregular frequency (months could go by without new project offers). I taught painting and color theory classes at my house, personalized one-on-one painting classes, we created a ceramics brand with my best friend and we went to design fairs to sell our creations. All of this happened in parallel, in addition to tattooing in my free time (I managed to do 2-4 tattoos a month), I was always very tight with my budget because I only charged for the materials. My tattoos had a very symbolic price that allowed me to practice (in addition to identifying myself as an apprentice, it seemed unfair and unethical to charge more, even if it wasn’t enough for anything or it took me many hours to do something). It was a dizzying journey day by day and month by month. I was on the verge of giving up on my goal several times, when I didn’t have a job, or fairs to participate in or people to teach how to paint, but every time I was on the verge of abandoning my decision something happened that helped me with my problems. For example, two people wrote to me to get tattoos or offered me a project to collaborate on, I felt very grateful and lucky on all those occasions.
I thought that life was testing me to have more patience than I thought I had, more courage and to check if this was really what I wanted (or at least that’s how I interpreted it).

Little by little the times were reversed, I began to tattoo more and in my free time I could make ceramics or take on some art direction project. I was so obsessed with achieving it that I tattooed every day of the week so that I could continue practicing and improving, without even caring about the appointment time.
Little by little, word began to spread and I tattooed a friend of a friend of a friend. Social media also helped me share my work and more people could find out what I did.

After that, I joined the first studio I worked at in Chile (Inside Tattoo). A colleague and now friend (@yalabes, the first hand-poke tattoo artist in Chile) recommended my work to the owners of the studio who were looking for someone who could tattoo without a machine. They called me in for an interview and that’s how we started working together.

I think the most important milestones or steps were: quitting my job, the support and trust I had from my close people, from the people who have been part of the process of tattooing and learning to tattoo, my clients, patience, trusting the process, being grateful. Self-discipline and perseverance too.

And without a doubt it was very important to join the Inside Tattoo team. Being part of that team helped my work reach a larger audience, the studio owners and my colleagues trusted me and my technique a lot, they made me feel more confident about the path I was taking. Inside Tattoo is no longer active, but in its years, it was a very important studio in Chile, attracting many artists and a lot of people in the country, organizing the most important tattoo conventions of that time. I was very fortunate to be part of its history while we worked together.

Change something?
You could always change the past history. When you look back, you think “I shouldn’t do this” or “why didn’t I think of this before?” and I would be lying if I said that I wouldn’t have liked to achieve better results sooner, but as I said at the beginning: I don’t regret anything. I wouldn’t change anything, because I believe in the philosophy that life and time are very wise, I don’t usually skip anything, I love the rules, I love the methods and the step by step of each process. I wouldn’t be who I am or be devoting myself to my arts in this way if all these years hadn’t passed and I lived them the way they did.
What I do try to change at present is to try not to lose the balance of my time, the quality of life, the time to rest and share with the people I love (it’s something that’s very difficult for me, because I’m a workaholic, I love doing what I do and I accidentally lose myself in stages where I do nothing but art, without socializing, but I think it’s because my job is already very sociable and that’s why I don’t realize it).

Macarena , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Macarena, I’m a Chilean multidisciplinary visual artist. I studied a Bachelor of Arts and I dedicate myself to doing color tattoos, abstract, and hand-poked (free-machine tattoos).

I learned to tattoo ten years ago. First, I learned with a machine and then I explored the hand-poke technique, which consists of pushing the needle with your hand and tattooing dot by dot.

Ten years ago, I was an apprentice to a Chilean tattoo artist (Marcial de la Fuente). He taught me how to tattoo with a machine in his studio for two months and told me about the “hand-poke” technique. He recommended that I try it even once, to learn and understand the difference between doing a tattoo with and without a machine.
At first, I wasn’t very convinced by the technique, but a couple of years later I ventured to try it again, with my mind in a different place, inspired by a Korean artist (@baka.tat) and with a little more practice too. That break did me a lot of good, because I became obsessed with the technique and began to delve deeper into it.

After having explored so many materials, techniques and styles, plus my years of study in the arts, I began to integrate my specialties into tattooing. At the University I took Photography and Painting as electives, both based on light and color theory, but one approaches it from physics and the other from chemistry. I began applying that knowledge and little by little I felt less lost in what I wanted to do and less afraid of showing my ideas. I really love realism (although my current work does not convey it) and that’s how I paint or draw naturally, but little by little I moved away from it, because it was more challenging and difficult for me to abstract things, it was a problem I always had (and I say problem, because it really was a problem in composition classes, because I did very poorly in that subject at the University). When I was studying it took me at least a year to make my brain understand that not everything was literal or concrete when drawing, painting, creating, and it has taken me more years to perfect that way of being able to translate reality and the objective into this more “ambiguous” narrative. Ironically, I was always in love with Kandinsky and the Bauhaus, with minimalism. I loved abstract art and I didn’t understand why, but I think I just skipped the theory for a while or didn’t pay enough attention to it, in addition to focusing a lot on the most logical and concrete explanation than perceiving it from interpretation, symbolism, metaphor.
While I was writing my thesis (2013-2014), I began for the first time to deconstruct my works and change my usual realism, using more geometry and composing in a more minimalist way, and I was also reading “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” by Kandinsky, which helped me a lot in that process.

That path led me to be able to interpret people’s ideas in an abstract way (or poetically, as I sometimes like to call it), trying to represent the invisible through colors, shapes, space, compositions. So, my job consists of knowing the ideas my clients have, discussing options, defining color palettes, reviewing visual references that help me understand what they expect as a result, and then I design their tattoos.
It becomes very interesting to try to match two such subjective visions to reach a concrete result, using theory, because I’m very technical and methodical in matters of composition, the use of color, shapes within a space, prioritizing the unity and balance of the elements, light. Also, in tattooing we don’t only compose the design, then we must compose on the body, considering the tattoos that are already there, the directions and angles of the body, muscles, bones, volumes, curves, proportions. There is a lot of theory and technique throughout the process.
I like to help my clients go a little further, think outside the box, look with the eyes of the soul and let the senses guide us through what they perceive.

I think what distinguishes my work is connecting with people through the senses and the set of factors that compose it: tattooing without a machine, abstract style and using color theory are three things that are almost never together in a tattoo, that can be characteristic (but little by little more people appear exploring these horizons).
And from the materiality: I use the second smallest needle to do 99.9% of my tattoos (3 round liner). It’s unusual, because from some points of view it is impractical and takes a lot of time, but I’m already used to it and it doesn’t take me as long as it did at the beginning. And it’s not that I have not tried other sizes, I have already tried different types of needles, different sizes, but there is nothing that is similar to my favorite needle, for my hand the sensation is unique and the result for my eyes as well, it has no comparison. My colleagues always make jokes about it and say that I’m crazy and that I love to complicate my life by using that needle, but the truth is that I’ve always worked like that (when I paint it’s the same, I always use the smallest brushes no matter the size of my canvas.)
Also being a multidisciplinary artist gives me another perspective, because sometimes I plan a tattoo thinking like a ceramist or I see it like a knitting project or ceramic (I practice drawing, painting, knitting, ceramics and photography).

What am I most proud of?

Having people trust my vision, my technical knowledge, my ideas. That’s what allows me to explore, experiment, and to continue feeding my curiosity. I think that being curious is something that allows me to never want to stop learning, to always be open to all possibilities, to stop, to make mistakes, to retrace my steps, to discard an idea, to recycle it, to mix it with something you never considered. I can afford all of that thanks to the fact that there are people who want to carry my art through life and forever. In other words, I’m at a point where my clients let me represent sounds, music, emotions, the sensations of a memory or a moment, and I find it phenomenal.

They should know that I take each of their projects as seriously as they do, that I would never force them to choose a path that doesn’t interest them, even if that means not completing the project. I’m always open to the challenges of new proposals (I love experiments!), I really like to listen and when I give my opinion on their ideas it will always be with a lot of respect, from a technical point of view rather than from my personal taste. Less is always more and it’s better to go slowly but surely.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I believe in knowledge, receiving it and sharing it. Something new can always emerge and surprise you, push you.
I am a fan of studying, learning and researching, trying new things. And since I entered the world of tattooing, that has only grown.

Communication, language, media. Art is a tool of expression.

Sharing through the arts and especially abstract art helps us connect more with our inner world, in some way it invites us to change the way we observe or perceive the world, things.

I think it is part of the duty of an artist, to communicate, reflect, open debates, provoke, question.

And if I think about it geographically, I would love for the world to know that there are incredible tattoo artists in Chile and South America. I want people to want to visit them and take their art home, and I would also like my colleagues and friends from around the world to have the opportunity to tattoo in South America to share their talent and inspire others, both artists and clients.

Can’t wait to have my own studio in Chile and receiving all my friends from around the world to bring their amazing art and talent!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Well, the truth is that I’m not a very common case or a very popular opinion on this matter, because I have lived something like a rebellion against algorithms and social networks (it makes me laugh a little to say it like that, but I think it is the best way to define it).

I created my tattoo Instagram in 2017 just because my friends told me that it was easier for them to show my work by recommending it (before I shared it on my personal account and it got lost among paintings, drawings, photography). Although I tried to always be present and published posts and stories constantly, I did not go out of my way to do so.

I like to share things, but I’m very bad at wandering around social networks, I think I lived that stage many years before where I could spend hours on the computer between Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. On the other hand, I really like to keep a low profile on these networks, I’m not very interested in publishing my private lifeI was and am interested in my work standing out on its own and not because of my appearance or my daily life (it’s something that has sometimes been criticized, because “it’s not what’s trending” and “people want to know what the life of the artist behind the work is like”).

I always tried to be organized, I only posted in the mornings (same hour), a couple of times or more a week, but I never made daily posts, except with the stories, there it was easier to interact daily, but it wasn’t all week either.
I never paid for advertising to have more followers (I did it for the first time in 2022 to show my work when I left Chile and arrived in a country where nobody knew who I was or knew my tattoos).
I did like to interact with people, I like to talk and also to write, so I wrote and shared a lot in that way.
I used the question box a lot, that way I resolved the doubts of those who were thinking of getting a tattoo from me or of new people who came to my profile and I remember that I also began to explain what the process was like from the original idea from my customers, the visual references and how they became the final result and also we were talking about materials, color inks, technical details, skin reactions, etc. That made my work process much easier and made people also want to learn more about my planning and/or design system, it was dynamic and didactic.

I focused a lot on sharing things that made sense to me regarding the tattoo process, to keep people informed above all and to make all this communication flow naturally. I’m not good at posting things 24/7 and I wanted to stay true to that, which meant growing very slowly in terms of numbers, but the truth is that I never cared (and I still don’t). I remember that when I was a child, my mom always told me that the things that lasted the longest over time were because they maintained their quality and that was what I was focused on, improving my technique and having better results, working hard.

I also started to filter what I posted, when I started to define a graphic line, because if I posted absolutely all the styles I could do, I would never be able to dedicate myself to something more specific (and that according to me is not that specific either, but it is more limited than before). So, you use your feed as a portfolio so that people understand your strengths, the versatility that your work may or may not have, etc.

The times I tried to make more content it felt wrong, forced and also because I think I couldn’t keep up with an influencer’s pace, I’m not good at it, I just don’t have it that way and I think there are people with that ability and people who don’t. I’m also very obsessive and perfectionist when I do something, so the couple of times I’ve edited a video it takes me a whole day. I think if I dedicated myself more to producing posts and reels, I would neglect everything else or I would get stressed out trying to do everything perfectly.

Now I’m a little rusty and lost, because the algorithms don’t work the same or aren’t like they were when I built my profile and traveling a lot or living in other countries, it alters everything by time zone and geolocation, so it’s been hard for me to find a balance currently (I never thought that geolocation could be something so sensitive). And fighting with visibility today is increasingly difficult, because there’s too much of everything so I think Instagram doesn’t even manage to show everything there is nor do we manage to see everything it has to offer.
I try to upload everything I do, as much as I can, but sometimes I don’t allow myself to be spam or because I actually spend the whole week in the studio that at the end of the day I just want to have dinner, answer pending messages, rest, sleep and continue with the same routine the next day and there are years of work accumulate (I know, I’m the worst and I’m not proud of it), but whenever I can I share them through stories and leave them as highlights so they don’t get lost after 24 hours.

My advice for those who are starting to build their presence on social media would be: be patient, keep the focus on what’s most important and I’m not saying that social media is not important, on the contrary, they are a very good tool to share your work with the world, but if we neglect our results, what can we share and show?
Discipline, order, consistency. Go little by little, identify your weaknesses and strengths, build on that and be faithful to what comes naturally to you, trust that if you are giving your all to do your job well, little by little more people will come to your profile, people will recommend your work, because we cannot forget that “word of mouth” has existed for centuries, it has never failed and it will never fail. There is no better algorithm and review than that, it is my favorite.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blekanddots/

Image Credits

Personal portfolio