Paul Sayce

Paul Sayce

Paul Sayce will be writing articles for this site here are a few facts about him. Since walking into Rob Robinson’s tattoo surgery in New Malden, Surrey, England in the mid 1970’s Paul Sayce has never looked back.

Where with just a simple tattoo of a swallow a light blue flower and two scrolls with the words Mum and Dad in one and his own name in the other on his lower right forearm started a craze that for Paul soon turned into an obsession.An obsession which has over the years seen him visit tattoo studio’s the world over and to meet some of the biggest names in tattooing history.

From an early age Paul has had tattooing and tattoos in his blood. For when his school friends were collecting football cards and programmes Paul was collecting anything and everything about tattooing he could get his hands on, although in the 70’s there wasn’t that much to collect about the art back then. Always one for doing the best he could in promoting tattooing in a favourable light, Paul became staff writer for ‘Tattoo International’ magazine in 1985 and later the vice-president of the tattoo club of Great Britain as well as the curator of the ‘British Tattoo History Museum’ in Oxford, England in 1995.

And over the years he has written well over 100 articles on the art of tattooing in magazines worldwide. Including ‘Easyrider Tattoo’ ‘Tattoo Savage’ ‘Skin and Ink’ of the USA, ‘Flesh Canvas’ ‘Total Tattoo’ UK ‘Australian Tattoo’ and ‘Tattoo Planet’ Italy as well as having articles appearing in – the in-house club magazines ‘Tatchat’ Australia, ‘The Heavily Tattoo club’ New Zealand, ‘Piercing World’ and the ‘Tattoo Club Of Holland’ magazine.

Television appearances include ‘The Frank Skinner Show’ ‘Central Live TV’ (twice) ‘Collectors Lot’ ‘The BBC 6 0’clock news’ ‘German RTL TV’ BBC Northern Ireland News’ ‘The Big Breakfast’ ‘A Current Affair’ Australia. Reality TV show ‘The Salon’ and two appearances on American television.

Paul has also taken part in a number of radio broadcasts including four guest spots on ‘Talk Radio’ and shows in Poland, Holland, Spain and even on the armed force’s radio service. Numerous BBC and overseas programmes where in New Zealand Paul appeared twice on Wellington’s ‘Pirate Radio’ with one of these being a sort of ‘Desert Island Disc’ type show.

To date Paul has been included in ten books, including the autobiographies of Frank Skinner and Ron Ackers as well as writing the foreword for ‘The Art Of The Tattoo’ He has also been a guest judge at the International tattooing conventions and shows of Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Austria, Samoa, the Philippines, Northern Ireland, Sweden and the USA – very nearly all of Britain’s Dunstable tattoo expos and many other regional shows throughout Great Britain and Europe and was named ‘Mr Tattoo’ in 1992.

Other highlights include travelling to Gisborne in New Zealand in 1999 to become the first westerner to be tattooed in the year 2000. Visiting Japan’s Tokyo University, to view the tattooed skin collection, as well as taking in many of the world’s top museums in his guest to gain more of an insight into the art of tattooing.

Another plus for Paul was having (on two different occasions) his portrait photograph taken by top celebrity photographer ‘Rankin’ and appearing with supermodel Toa Fock in the book ‘Rankinworks’ in the year 2000. Since 2000 Paul has again featured on Radio and in many newspaper articles as well as having scores of his photographs of tattoos published in magazines the world over.

He has also been back in front of the TV cameras appearing in television commercials, playing a biker in a ‘Resolve’ headache tablet ad – an Australian cricketer in ads for the ‘Nat West Bank’ – a football supporter in the ‘Sony’ TV commercial to celebrate the electrical company’s fiftieth year and the Dad in the ‘Saturday Times’ TV adverts. He also held court at the tattooing history exhibition of the (October) 2005 London Tattoo convention where he was on hand to answer a multitude of questions on the subject of tattooing from the attending public.

The early months of 2006 has seen Paul appearing on two BBC radio shows promoting the art of tattooing as well as featuring on sky TVs London television channel discussing tattooing in England’s capital and featured in the newspapers ‘The Post’ ‘The South London Press’ ‘The Daily Star’ and in the ‘FHM’ ‘Loaded’ and ‘Teen Now’ magazines. Paul also appeared in a series of adverts promoting the Channel Four television show ‘HollyOaks’ in February, March and April of 2006 playing a guy called Russ – and in a ‘Nike’ TV advert singing ‘I’m so pretty’ to the former Wimbledon women’s singles championship winning tennis player Maria Sharapova and shown on America TV during the American tennis Open of 2006 – A tournament she went on to win.

Also in the October (6th 7th 8th) of 2006 he was once more on hand to answer questions at the ‘London Tattoo Show’ about the history of tattooing as well as appearing on Asian TV show ‘GEO’ (November 06) in which he also discussed the arts glorious past. November 2006 also saw Paul acting on the ‘Vodafone’ TV advert playing a gypsy watching a juggler at a fair ground. 2007 has seen more of Paul’s tattooing articles and photographs making the pages of ‘Tattoo’ ‘Tattoo Savage’ ‘Tattoo Club Of Holland’ and ‘Total Tattoo’ magazines – as well as appearing at the 21st Tattooing convention held by the PTAA at Tweed Heads in Australia on the 18th 19th and 20th of May – And playing a cinema goer – acting in a television commercial advert for the telephone company 118 118.

August the 1st 2007 Paul made an indent (advert) for the American tattoo show Miami Ink – which aired on the 16th and 17th of September – The ads were made for the ‘Discovery Channel’ on Sky TV and they were shown during a whole weekend deadicated to the American show. Paul also appeared in a photo shot (in early August) for photographer Gary Salter as a flower arranging leather clad (motorcycle) biker, and played a stallholder in London’s Portobello Road in the television advert for Morrison’s supermarkets. 2007 also saw Paul become a 21-year member of the National Tattoo Club of America.

He also appeared on GMTV on the 6th of October 2007 talking about the tattooing on his own body. On the 8th 9th and 10th of February 2008 – Paul was a guest judge at the ‘SINZ’ tattooing expo in Christchurch, NZ. And more of Paul’s photographs and articles have appeared in ‘Tattoo Savage’ ‘Tattoo’ ‘Prick’ and ‘Bizarre’ magazines of 2008. In the May 08 Paul was once again a guest judge at the New York Tattoo convention and in July of 08 also saw Paul play a railway commuter in a tobacco advert for Japanese television – And on the 26th of August (08) Paul acted with John (Johnny Rotten) Lydon of the Sex Pistol’s fame playing a photographer taking pictures of the Queen for a ‘Country Life Butter’ TV commercial – The 26th 27th and 28th of September saw Paul run the history exhibition at the London Tattoo Convention – and on the 20th of October Paul played a guy getting his book autographed by Mike Skinner in the music video for ‘The Streets’ and then singing along to Mike’s new song as a fan at his concert filmed in the ‘Mermaid’ theatre London.

On the 26th 27th and 28th of September – Paul ran the tattoo history exhibition at the London Tattoo Convention – He also appeared in the German tattooing magazine ‘Tattoowier’ of the October 08 and in Poland’s premier tattooing magazine ‘Tattoo Fest’ in the December of 2008 – And at the end of 08 some of Paul’s tattooing photographs appeared in the book ‘Body Art 2’ from the makers of the popular magazine ‘Bizarre’. On a personal note – Paul was born on the 22nd of April 1960, in Wimbledon, Surrey, England and has been married and divorced twice – has three children and lives in London, England.

March 31, 2009