Unique exhibit of tattoos is guaranteed to get under your skin

SKIN stories have been inked in Grimsby – as this year's tattoo exhibition kicks off.

Fifties designs, fantasy, horror and tribal are among the prints displayed on the walls of Grimsby Library's gallery as part of Skin Stories 2.

The annual show – which will run until August 28 – includes about 150 designs from people across North East Lincolnshire and several studios.

Organiser Derek O'Connell, manager of the reference library in Grimsby, said he had lost track of how many entries he received for the show as there were so many.

He said: "I received at least 800 from the public and studios, I think locally there is a huge interest in tattoos.

"You can judge that by the number of tattoo studios in the area.

"With it being a port town, Grimsby has always been heavily inked.

"There are all sorts of motivations for people getting tattoos, some of them are in memory of loved ones and others are purely for aesthetic reasons.

"All of the designs this year are fantastic, I simply ran out of wall space."

Dave Williams, owner of Tattoo Shack in Freeman Street, Grimsby, said he was "most impressed" by the exhibition.

He said: "Anything to promote tattooing as an art form is great.

"It needs taking out of the gutter, where some people still see it.

"A lot of people in this town have embraced it more, which is a good thing – however, others see tattoos as just badges.

"So many people get someone's name tattooed to them and then come in two weeks later to have it covered up or removed. It's not as simple as that and people should really think about designs before they have them."

Gary Bradley, 45, of Cleethorpes, has his yin-yang knot design tattoo with his children's names inked around on display at the exhibition.

He said: "I was a merchant seaman for six years and knots and rope work were a part of my life. That's why I fell in love with the design.

"It took over nine hours in total to complete and the letters were painful.

"The show is great and there's a lot of designs on women. I like tattoos on women.

"When I left school only prisoners and sailors had tattoos – now it is much more widely accepted and people are getting more intricate designs."

The Skin Stories 2 exhibition is open from Monday to Friday from 10am to 3pm and on Saturday from 10am to 2pm.