About
My name is Daniel
Following a life of the mind as a Ph.D. and academic in plant ecology, I focus now on engaging the natural world for its beauty rather than via data. I specialize in vintage botanical illustration tattoos, landscape tattoos, nature tattoos broadly, and traditional floral and fruit still life tattoos and paintings using a full-color painterly approach. My work may feature a single plant of personal importance, beautifully rendered and scientifically accurate in its form and details. Or, it may entail a collection of plants and animals that symbolize people or places and that vary in size, color, and shape but that have been balanced thoughtfully. I am an Indianapolis tattoo artist with a private studio just outside the city.
I help sentimental and nature-connected people make a tangible expression of the themes, people, and places they care about by creating art grounded in the timeless beauty and symbolism of the natural world.
Owing to my study of scientific botanical illustrations and traditional still life oil paintings (apart from my study of organisms themselves), my art is founded in close observation: of elements of the living world, how light, color, and shape interplay to reveal their forms, and the harmony among various subjects together in space. This quite literally is ecology, describing the interaction between individuals with their environment.
For examples of my paintings, click here to check out my “Lemon in a…” collection. Or, enter the Store for available works.
Scientific attention with artistic intuition
“Beyond the emotional attachment to my tattoo, what you created is a beautiful piece of art.”
"Your attention to comfort is second-to-none, you have amazing attention to detail, and you took the time for the design to be customized to fit me in person."
"I love how you make the tattoos look like paintings."
"I noticed your attention to detail during the consultation and I could tell that you really have an artist's eye and talent."
"If I could talk to a potential client on your behalf, I would tell them about how carefully you worked on the design with me, the painterly way you completed the tattoo (e.g. layers of color, adding color like brushstrokes, etc.), and how much I enjoyed our conversation during sessions. I would probably also tell them about your tattoo artist origin story and your educational/academic background, because I think it demonstrates the depth with which you consider your subjects (i.e. botanical anatomy)."
"You are painting a tattoo onto my skin."
“Daniel is an amazing artist and the detail that he put into everything was phenomenal.”
"It was important to me to find a tattooer who also paints."