Allie Oxenblood

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Shop Info:

Oxenblood Studio

Montrose, WV

AllieNickel@gmail.com

 Allie Oxenblood began pursuing a career in tattooing first through her love of music. She was first introduced to the tattooing world through her bassist who was piercing at a walk-in shop at the time, where she would often spend her free time and quickly started getting tattooed. Although she was a shy 17 year old at the time, a deep curiosity of the experience and culture of tattooing began to develop.

“I would occasionally muster the courage to enter a street shop to ask for a job and would quickly be turned down by some old, tired, gruff looking man. I always felt like a misfit. Slowly, I began to develop the discipline and tenacity to fight for my place. Only then did I feel like the tattooing community opened its arms to me. I eventually got hired at a small shop run by a few dudes in a death metal band that I knew through the local music scene.”

Oxenblood worked at several traditional street shops over the next three years, where mentors emphasized strong, clean line-work and honored the roots and tradition of tattooing. It wasn’t until Sarah Miller hired Oxenblood that she began learning about fine art. From there, Oxenblood began painting and approaching her art from the lens of real life. “It was around this time that I remember people remarking on my ‘painterly’ style. Although it wasn’t intentional at first, I started to embrace what came naturally and refine it.” From there, Oxenblood had the honor of working with Don McDonald and Steve Morris of Moose’s original Bodyworks tattoo as the first female tattooer to be hired there since the shop was opened in 1973. Having tightly refined their careers with a combined 40 + years of experience, their masterful applications of fit and flow in large and intricate tattoos that flawlessly age on the body had a huge influence on Oxenblood.

Combining skill sets and forging onward, Oxenblood began developing an award-winning style that is described as organic and illustrative, with movement and flow at the core of each design. At about 7 years into her professional career, she decided to open up a tattoo shop and artist cooperative in Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh. Ravenwood Collective opened in September of 2016. Oxenblood enjoys large-scale custom work, pieces that are mythology and folklore based, pagan or nature inspired, fantasy realism and photorealism.