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When Maureen van Mortis boarded her plane to London for our shoot, she was accosted by curious children. They wanted to know why she had pictures of red lipstick on her right arm, a raging punk on her left, and a vibrant heart bursting out from her chest. “They were about eight or nine years old, and were going, ‘Oh my God, look at that!’” she giggles. “But tattoos are normal to me. If they ask me about the stories behind them, I tell them what was going on in my life at the time and how I felt.”

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Twenty-two year old Maureen was once also an inquisitive child. She was born in Slovakia but moved to Vienna, Austria, with her mum after her parents divorced when she was 12. She had to learn a new language – and some hard lessons. “All the kids would tease me and ask, ‘Do you speak German?” she says. “They were pretty mean to me, so I had to learn it quickly.”

Maureen was determined to live life as she pleased, and “badly wanted” a piercing. When she was 13 her mum begrudgingly let her have a tongue piercing because it wasn’t visible. But she went on to have ten more in her nose, lips, cheeks and tongue. Maureen loved the way she looked – even if some other people didn’t: “I went to a party and a guy called me ‘can face’ because he said I had too much metal in it. I didn’t say anything. But it wasn’t a good feeling – every girl wants to be pretty.”

Maureen was defiant in other ways. She used to steal cigarettes from the kitchen after her mum had been smoking with the neighbours – and then came the late nights. “I started listening to grunge; then I learned about the Sex Pistols and got into punk and hardcore,” she says. “I found a club in Vienna called Arena. I went there with my bad German, got drunk and started to meet people.”

What a buzz

Even though she was just 14, Arena became Maureen’s second home. She listened to punk bands such as The Casualties, Agnostic Front and UK Subs, and got her first tattoo at age 17 from a friend-of-a-friend. “I got an Agnostic Front boot and skulls, because I was hanging out with skinheads and street punks at the time,” she explains. “It made me feel cool, I finally had a punk rock tattoo!”

But her mum wasn’t so happy. “I came home and she freaked!” Maureen laughs. “She said, ‘You’re not going back to the tattooist!’ and I said, ‘I have to, I can’t leave it like this – I’ve started it, I have to finish it’. So she said, ‘OK, you can finish it but that’s it – no more tattoos.’”

But Maureen couldn’t stop. She got into a long-distance relationship and had a hard time dealing with the extreme highs of being in love and the extreme lows of missing someone. At the same time she became interested in Renaissance art, so her next ink incorporated a heart, dagger, and crying eye with a pair of angel wings. “It represented the distance between me and my boyfriend,” she says.

Maureen was studying fashion at the time, but dropped out and began selling stuff so she could go and live with her distant partner. Sadly they broke up before she moved, and she found herself with nothing. “If you believe in something and it breaks down like a house of cards… it’s hard,” she says quietly. “And I remember it because it broke my world.”

At age 19, Maureen got her stunning chest piece – roses, birds and a banner reading ‘handle with care’ – a reminder of the fragility of her heart. “The break-up was difficult, but I got this tattoo to start anew,” she says. “I don’t like to remember that time, but it happened.”

The tattoo was also the turning point for her mum, who accepted that her little girl had grown up. “She started to cry again… and then she stopped and said, ‘You’re old enough now.’ Don’t wait for a ‘yes’ from your parents before you have a tattoo. It’s your body.”

First cut is the deepest

Soon, Maureen got a job as a security guard at Arena, and life got crazier. She hung out with rockabillies and got a pin-up girl and anchor tattoo to represent the world she’d immersed herself in. But she knew she didn’t want to work as a bouncer forever. “I was working, and after work I was drinking, doing crazy stuff and talking too much,” she remembers. “The next day I’d hold my head and think, ‘Oh my God, I did that?’ That’s the point where you say to yourself, do I need this?”

Maureen then decided to train as a hairdresser – but again dropped out. She also got this chapter of her life inked on her right arm when she was 21 – a portrait of her with a hair dryer, alongside a razor blade. “They didn’t teach me enough and I was sure I’d fail my exams, so I had to leave,” she explains. “I’m not a hairdresser but I’d done make-up artist and hair stylist courses, so I do my hair at shoots sometimes.”

And she’s been on plenty of shoots. Maureen began modelling in late 2007 after an Austrian photographer called Lemontied got in touch with her on MySpace. Her first shoot was in Viennese gay magazine GIB, but she’s since set pulses racing on the pages of fetish fashion magazine Marquis, and modelling for latex and leather designers Demask.

 Skin trade

As Maureen’s modelling career took off, she started to think about her next tattoo – a vampire montage on her leg. “I look like a nice, pretty, good-hearted girl, but everyone has a dark side to them – and I like vampires,” she grins. “They live for blood, come out at night and are so mystic. I’m not a big freak, but if I had to choose I’d watch just vampire movies. I love Queen Of The Damned and Blade!”

Look closely at Maureen’s leg and you’ll see another sign of her mischievousness – a tiny noughts and crosses grid etched into her skin. “I asked the tattoo artist, ‘Can I have a go with the tattoo machine?’” she laughs. “The first line was too thick, so I had to get softer. I thought I’d at least win the game on my leg, but nobody did! We thought about playing hangman, but it never came to that...”

This sense of fun helped on Maureen’s most recent project – a viral advert for the Pander Brothers’ new graphic novel Tasty Bullet, a futuristic tale about a girl called Tamar who promotes an energy drink. “It was great to walk with down the street in Santa Monica wearing a pink wig. People came and took pictures,” she laughs. “It was a similar feeling to walking down Hollywood Boulevard and seeing Batman or Jack Sparrow from Pirates Of The Caribbean. There was a guy who yelled from his car, ‘Britney!’ Just because she’s worn a similar wig.”

The clip is a step closer to another of Maureen’s big dreams – to live in LA and become a great actress. She’s already set to play a drummer (she can actually play) in a film, The Blue Of Noon, later this year.

Flash player

At our shoot, it’s clear the camera loves Maureen. She has a constant smile on her face and only frowns when it’s needed for a shot. When our snapper asks her to put her back against the wall, she lets out a giggle and exclaims, “Yes, sir!” and when she’s asked to dance naked in a pair of boots, she obliges while doubling up with laughter.

And she stands out all the more for her tattoos; outward signs of adventures she’ll bear for the rest of her life. “For me, tattoos have to tell a story; they have to be one with you,” she explains. “Because of my body art, I can read myself like a book. When I get to 50 or 70 I’ll remember my life because I’ll know exactly why I wanted my tattoos; why I wanted Agnostic Front boots or punks, or the hairdresser – and I’ll know it was a fun time.”