Daily Inspiration: Meet Giacomo Russo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Giacomo Russo.

Hi Giacomo, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started at 16 yo, when I went to school in the afternoon I tattooed my friends and people I knew. I left the school after a while because I started to think about my future, I had a very clear idea about myself and about what I wanted. Grow in my city (Naples) means that you have to be stronger than the other, it was a very hard time when I was young because I had bad friendships and absolutely bad attitude.

When I was 18 yo, I opened my first tattoo shop, I was inexpert but I always believed in myself, I came back home really tired but I had to do for saving me. At the age of 20, I suffered a theft in my shop, that was the reason why I left Naples. I moved to Holland where I knew Emillion, big friend and life teacher, I learned a lot from him. I remember that I finished tattooing and I gave him help for his business, just for the pleasure to be with him and to learn more and more from him.

After one year I came back in Naples, with another ‘Mentality’, I thought that my experience was good if I shared it with other tattoo artists, and that’s why I hired four tattoo artists in my new shop. After a while I was not satisfied about what I was doing, I had much bigger potential to invest, that’s why I opened a bigger tattoo shop, then the tattoo artists were sixteen, I formed a very nice group, we go out together, we like the same things, we do convention and those vibes permit to grown up a lot, because we have a nice competition with ourselves, we listen advices and we learn a lot from ourselves.

Our next step will be to open a ‘Mentality Tattoo Shop’ in New York.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As I said before, it was not an easy road and not an easy life, maybe this is the reason why I’m so hungry to win. I spent so many nights awake and still today sometimes is difficult to sleep because the brain think, think and think again.

The worst thing that happened during the way was when I come back in Naples to open again my shop, with an uncertain future, so I learned a lesson: be brave because sometimes fear get you paralyzed in life. My thought is ‘if you have 80% fear you must have 81% courage, if you are afraid of something, it’s the right moment to react.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a tattoo artist, I spend the day studying the lights, the contrast, the real tone of everything my eyes can see. I’m specialized in black and grey, realism and my favorite surrealism.

I’m known for surrealism, I like to mix concepts in one project. I like to represent my thoughts in the project I do, sometimes clients give me the freedom to project whatever I want, I like it because in that time I give all of myself in the project and of course in tattooing.

I’m proud of myself because with my team we have grown up every day and the awards in the international tattoo conventions are the proof. We won 33 awards all over Europe in just one year. I’m really proud of us.

I think the difference from others is the love we have with ourselves in the shop, we are like a family, friends, brothers and sisters and at the end, we are colleagues.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Time management I understand the importance of the time every day, tattooing at a high level means thinking 100% of your day at it. It’s always a fight with yourself because you feel the necessity of growing up, sometimes it is hard to make the step forward and that leads you to a perpetual sense of dissatisfaction. The secret is the time you don’t lend to tattooing, I like to use the music as an example. The music is made by the sound and the silence, sound without silence is annoying, and sounds within it is rhythm. That’s why time is so important for me. I have to unplug to grow and that’s the hardest thing to understand

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mentalitytattoo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/giacomorusso_tattoo/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GiacomoRussoTattoo94/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mentalitytattoo2131