We can’t lie – the first thing that will strike you about Jo is definitely her eye poppingly brilliant style. At the Barcelona convention she’s working it with secretary-black rimmed glasses, a bright red avant-garde punk-pixie crop and sparkling silver capped teeth. When she smiles, the surface piercings in her dimples glint, and we can’t help it, we’re entranced…!
Self taught tattooer, Jo Harrison has been steadily making a name for herself as a leading female artist.
This is never something you’d hear in her own words, though – when we decide to tell her about her new status-tag, the response is wide eyes, a whole lot of giggling and ‘oh really? Well, that’s quite nice, thankyou!’
Jo has her base in Birmingham’s Modern Body Art Studio. Eleven years into her career, she is currently on a world tour - taking in some of the world’s far-flung conventions, seeing the sights and spreading the word. She enthuses about convention hopping, seeing it as a whole bunch of opportunities to find beautiful new places, connect with friends old and new and make her living doing what she loves. She can’t even begin to think about naming a favourite convention in particular, stating firmly that every convention big or small has plus sides; some might be ‘all about the love’ and others are sheer brilliance for congregating an intense amount of talent all under one roof in one big city – the London convention, for example.
Her favourite ink creations range from the colourful and the feminine to the horror and the black and grey; she won’t stick herself in a box! Her influences flow from the great outdoors and nature through to magazine photography, a scattering of painters and fellow tattoo artists. Her work is in a word stunning; she does photo realistic pin ups to perfection, all shiny pouting lips and vampy eyes, flowers, intense shots of colour and innovative takes on the traditional Japanese style.