Atelier Eva, 29 Havemeyer St.; 59 Grand St., Williamsburg; ateliereva.com
Ross Chestnut knew exactly what tattoo he wanted: a highly detailed reproduction of the Maxfield Parrish painting Stars. When he showed up at Bang Bang, a downtown shop run by celebrity tattooer Keith “Bang Bang” McCurdy, with this concept in hand, “the dude at the front desk was like, ‘You don’t want to do that with the person you have an appointment with. You want Eva.’” Eva turned out to be Eva Karabudak, a multidisciplinary artist from Turkey with a background in oil painting and figure drawing. Chestnut switched his appointment, and Karabudak reproduced Parrish’s stargazing woman on his arm “like a perfect HD image,” he says. “Since then, I’ve been tattooed by her in five different places, all fine-art re-creations,” including another of Parrish’s paintings and Paul de Longpré’s Study of Roses. (From $700.) “I don’t trust anyone else to do that kind of work and actually make it perfect, so I followed her from shop to shop until she finally opened her own studio.” Each of the 26 artists who work at Atelier Eva, which debuted in Williamsburg in 2020, have their own specialty, including Dani, who does florals with the finest lines; and Hailey Kim, who is capable of rendering flowers and food as small as half an inch across in exact detail.
Lauren Aigner-Westervelt, artist at Atelier Eva in Williamsburg
Illustration: Pete Gamlen
Before someone gets a tattoo, how should they prepare?
Before booking, check out artists on Instagram. Find a style you like. Think about sizing and placement. And then before your appointment, eat, drink water, make sure your skin is moisturized. If your skin is dry, it won’t hold ink or heal as well — it’s going to get irritated faster.
Do any tattoo requests make you cringe?
Matching names, or the name of a partner. Especially if they’re really young, I tell them to hold off.
Have you ever covered up a regretted tattoo?
I covered up a grammar error once — it was lines of text, and the first line ended in the, and the next line started with the, so it said “the the.” You really have to make sure your artist is double-checking everything. Typos do happen.
Are any areas of the body especially challenging to work on?
A lot of finger tattoos don’t work out. Tattoos on the top of the finger can last, but the inner parts of the fingers and hands don’t always heal as we expect. The skin is so thin that it’s kind of just luck if you can get ink to stay and not fade. Feet have a similar issue. Ribs can be tricky because breathing makes people move. Also, people are ticklish there and don’t realize that until they get tattooed and then they’re moving.
What’s the most painful spot to get tattooed?
The ribs. Back of the knees. Feet are also very painful. Anywhere where the bone is close under the skin. And the stomach because it’s so sensitive. A couple friends recently got stomach tattoos, and they said it was the worst, like being cut open.
— Katie Arnold-Ratliff
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