“I wanted to do the festival for years, but I’ve never had time, and we’ve always been flat out in the (Tattoo Nation) shop, but this year I decided to make a special effort and make sure that I had time, and then did a painting that fit the criteria,” she said.
“I’ve been doing painting my whole life, and I’ve been a tattooist coming up to 17 years now.”
Ms Rankin says switching from a tattooing medium to a painting one was not hard, and involved a similar technique.
“It’s not really that hard to change between tattooing and painting, given that they’re two very different things — it’s like riding a motorbike versus riding a push bike, they’re very different, even though they have similarities,” she said.
“It’s a nice change to be painting: I paint for me, the clients don’t dictate what I get to paint on a canvas, where they do on their skin, I get to paint whatever I like.”
The 2022 Rochester Mural Festival will be the first one that Ms Rankin has entered, inspired in part by her niece.
“The entry was kind of a team effort between me and my five-year-old niece: we were sitting in the yard, and there were some birds singing, and she said, ‘wow that bird’s got talent’. It just grew from there.”
Ms Rankin will be bringing the realistic style of artwork that she uses in both her painting and her tattoo work to the festival.
“I head towards more realistic styles, but I find all art styles interesting: if I see something and I like it, it goes that far for me,” she said.
“I’m excited for the whole festival, and to meet the other artists, it will be great.”
Prior to the festival, examples of Christina Rankin’s work with canvas and tattoo ink are available to view on her Instagram page at www.instagram.com/reggie.rankin
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