the short version
I’m Marte, born in 1984, grew up in Norway but currently live in Berlin
I love to create and I find tattooing to be an awesome craft that I’m very grateful I get to make a living from
I work with a lovely crew at Titanen Piercing & Tattoo
before I was tattooing I was a stage performer with Pain Solution for over a decade
in 2017 my brother and his wife offered to teach me to tattoo and I’ve been loving to create art together with all my lovely clients ever since!
The long version:
Many people think my name is Marit but Maritdatter is actually my last name. It´s not my family name, I chose it simply to celebrate my mother. My original family name is Tjelta, after the place where my father grew up.
I’m from Norway and grew up next to the forest a little bit outside of the capital city Oslo. Now I live in Berlin with my partner of ten years and our heart Lyanna. It’s taken some time to get used to living in a busy city but the longer I’m here the more I love it. Berlin is a great place to be, it’s green and relaxed for it’s size and I really feel like everybody can find something they enjoy here, whether you are visiting or staying.
My favourite things to do is to sew, to eat ice cream and to watch tv. I love to create, to write and draw and I also really really love to tattoo so I’m very grateful I get to do this as my job. With my tattoos I hope to create art that embodies beauty, joy, cuteness and emotion. What I love about tattooing is the craft itself, the designing and creative collaborations I get to do with you. I love how tattooing quiets my busy mind and I love meeting you all and hearing a little bit about you and your lives. Besides from making you a well crafted piece of art it´s important to me that you are as comfortable as you can be throughout the whole process of us working together. I do my best to provide all the information you might need or want before, during and after your session. I hope that you feel well informed, seen, heard and well taken care of and of course that you will leave with a tattoo you love.
Before I was a tattoo artist I was a stage performer with the world renowned performance group Pain Solution for over a decade. We did theatrical comedy freak shows, performing painful stunts for your viewing pleasure. Think nails hammered into the nose, needles piercing the skin and body suspension. I had a blast performing my alter ego; The Princess of Scars and sharing stages all over the world with my boss The Headmaster and my colleague The Maniac. I studied under my boss for 3 years and truly earned my bachelor in pain through blood, sweat and tears.
Performing with Pain Solution was an amazing avenue for me to not only play with story telling, stage presence and costume making but also a place for me to safely explore and push the boundaries of my body in a healthy way. That path of pain was essential for me to heal, to grow and to gain strength and confidence to simply be myself. I also did a lot of this exploration being part of the body suspension crew Wings Of Desire for 15+ years. As crew we often suspended ourselves but we also would facilitate and assist others in their experiences through the process of getting suspended.
In other words – if you’re curious about ways to meet and deal with the pain of getting tattooed I’m able to inform and try to help you with that. And if you’re curious about body suspension I’m more than happy to answer any questions about this practice.
In 2017 my brother Bård Tjelta and his wife Mariñe Perez who are both icredible talented artists offered to teach me to tattoo. You can view their work on Instagram, their handles are their names. Learning to tattoo was very exciting but also very intimidating to me, I guess because of the permanence of it and with that the permanence of any mistakes you might make. My brother and Marine taught and guided me in a thoughtful, kind and supportive way and for me this was essential to be able to become a tattoo artist at all. I also had a lot of guidance from friends in the field and their advice and kind support was also very important to me. I learned a lot from Tobben at Blekk Studio and from Bobby and Luis at the studio in Berlin where I am resident; Titanen Piercing & Tattoo.
Among all the things I had to learn, one of the most important things was to be able to judge myself and my performance fairly. I count this as so important because of the impact it had on my personal life. I spent most of my life being really very strict and unkind to myself. Harsh if I´m honest. Learning to tattoo I was quickly confronted with this and I felt I wouldn’t be able to learn this new trade while treating myself this way. So I set out to learn self compassion and kindness and to get out of my own way so I could actually grow as an artist. It was a slow and challenging practice but as my skills for tattooing grew and developed so did my ability to treat myself fairly and kindly. Maybe that is more personal than an about page should be but it’s important to me share how revolutionary I think kindness can be. It was all baby steps but it changed my life and without I don’t know that I would be able to offer tattoos for a living.
So here’s to kindness, to art and to excellent mentors!