When you're tattooing someone, it's pretty nerve-wracking. You can't fuck it up.

Angelique Houtkamp is a delicious bundle of contradictions. While she cheerfully welcomes Bizarre into her apartment with a charismatic smile that never slips during our eight hours together, the Dutch artist surrounds herself with dusty and macabre trinkets that make her home feel like a Victorian museum of the grotesque.

Despite the fact her slick, tattoo-inspired artwork is dominated by cocksure women and retina-sizzling colours, it’s underpinned by an intangible layer of darkness, whether it’s delicate skull-lines etched on a flapper girl’s face or blood dripping from the sword of a sexy pirate girl.

And while her paintings were born from a macho world dominated by sailors, soldiers and miscreants, her delicate work brings a feminine edge to traditional old school designs, inspiring dozens of women to travel to Amsterdam each year to have Angelique’s work permanently etched on their flesh.

IN THE BEGINNING

Angelique Houtkamp was born in the Dutch city of Uithoorn in 1968, and moved to Amsterdam when she turned 18. But while she was a creative child, a youthful lack of direction put her on an unconventional path to tattoo fame.

“I found it hard to focus as a kid,” she sighs. “My art teachers went crazy for my stuff, but when I had to study art history I just switched off. Most artists I know have been passionate about what they want to do from a young age, but when I was younger I’d draw like mad for six weeks, then not pick up a pen for a year.”

After moving to Amsterdam, Angelique embarked on four years of partying and playing in death metal bands, and gravitated towards the seedy world of ink. “I hung out in this tattoo shop, and thought it’d be a cool place to work,” she says. “I started designing tattoos on paper, and dropped into the shop every week to show them what I was doing. This was during the early 1980s, when the atmosphere was different, and tattoo shops were rowdy and dangerous. Some days they’d look at my drawings, other times they’d yell at me to get the fuck out!”

Amsterdam was the perfect place to learn her craft: “Because Amsterdam is a port – and in the 1950s soldiers stationed in Germany came here during their leave – navy and military designs are popular. A lot of the flash you see on the walls of tattoo shops is old school.”

“Amsterdam is also a magnet for tattoo artists,” she continues. “Hanging around tattoo shops I got to know artists from all over the world. It was a great way to find out about tattoo history, and I learned lots about being an apprentice without touching a needle.”

THE HOLE STORY

Despite making the right connections, Angelique struggled to find her feet in Amsterdam, and had to take odd jobs to make ends meet. But a chance meeting set her on a path that’d lead her back to the world of tattoos.

“I got to know this American girl who opened a piercing studio in Amsterdam, and she offered me a job,” Angelique says. “Like tattoos, piercing was underground in the 1980s, and we’d get abuse on the street for having navel piercings. But the shop took off, and suddenly we had lines of girls along the street wanting to get their navel pierced!”

After two years skewering flesh, Angelique took a sidestep into crafting jewellery. But despite being able to indulge her creativity, making golden trinkets didn’t offer the rewards she wanted. Luckily, though, her big break was just around the corner. “I had a tattooist friend who owed me money,” she says. “I told him if he could persuade his boss to give me an apprenticeship, he’d never have to pay me back. And he did!”

Skipping the slog of scrubbing equipment, tedious tribals and verbal abuse that many apprentices endure, Angelique’s plan saw her going straight to work; getting the hang of using tattoo machines by colouring inside lines inked by experienced staff, and doing simple designs from scratch. “I had a friend who wanted me to tattoo him, so I was able to prove myself more quickly than most,” she says. “My first attempts didn’t turn out too badly, and when I see him today they still look pretty good.”

As her confidence grew, Angelique put more of her flash on the studio wall, and soon customers were specifically asking for her (“They got half-price deals because I was a beginner, which helped,” she says). But while her tattooing career seemed unstoppable, it was Angelique’s work on canvas that caused the biggest stir.

WATERCOLOUR WORLD

After a year Angelique moved to Tattoo Peter, one of the oldest studios in Europe, and began working alongside artists from the USA, Italy and France. She’d been painting with acrylics, but advice from her colleagues on watercolours was a key step in developing her retro style.

“Most tattooists in the 1900s used watercolours to create flash,” she says. “They’re not normally thought of as part of tattoo history, but watercolours are a vital part of the old school style. I always hated them, but at the studio my colleagues taught me about using black lines and shading with watercolours, and I began to develop my own work.”

In her spare time, Angelique made prints that she sold at tattoo conventions. When she heard that a local gallery was staging an exhibition of pin-up art, Angelique’s life changed forever. “It was 2000, and I heard about this pin-up show the night before it opened,” she says. “I’d just finished a painting, and I swung past the gallery while they were hanging canvases. I showed them my picture and they loved it, and said I could be part of the show – if I could get it framed by the next morning! It was my first exhibition, and the painting sold within five minutes.”

FULL-TIME ARTIST

Over the next few years Angelique evolved her artwork in her spare time, but kept her full-time studio job. Today, she only tattoos for two days a week at Rob Admiraal Tattoo Studio and devotes most of her time to her artwork. But what was it that attracted her to working on paper rather than flesh? “It’s not as nerve-wracking,” she grins. “When you do a tattoo you’re putting a permanent mark on someone, so you can’t fuck it up. But if a painting doesn’t work, you can just start again. Canvas and paper are predictable surfaces and more relaxing to work with. I always know what the end product will look like. With a tattoo there are lots of factors to consider, like skin tone, and the fact designs won’t heal well if someone is feeling sick.”

Devoting most of her week to her art has also given Angelique time to research the roots of old school tattoos. “Tattoo artists in the 1940s and 50s took inspiration from contemporary images such as magazine illustrations, photos of Hollywood stars and so on,” she says. “So I started searching for images that provided ideas for artists over 70 years ago. Now I spend a lot of time in markets and antique shops looking for stuff.”

But whether she’s painting a two-headed lady swashbuckler or a Louise Brooks-style beauty popping out of a teapot, Angelique’s work brings a finer, less aggressive edge to old school designs; and while she never shies away from the skulls and mythical beasts that wouldn’t look out of place on the arm of a salty seadog, her genteel take on familiar imagery could explain why more than 70 per cent of her clients are female.

“When I first got into tattooing in the 1980s, I found the machismo of the scene overwhelming,” she says. “People would be shocked if they saw me behind the front desk at a studio, especially when I ended up tattooing them a few minutes later. It was a male-dominated world, and I was cold towards the snarling devil designs most guys wanted. Now there are loads of cool artists – it’s a completely different scene.”

Angelique’s artwork sells well to both male and female clients because of the nostalgic mood it evokes. Does Angelique yearn for simpler times? “I love the romantic side of the 1920s or 30s,” she says. “There was so much to discover; people were amazed by stories of foreign lands. Now everyone knows everything, and if they don’t they just go on Google. The mystery of life is gone. People might’ve looked at my painting of a women with octopus legs in the 1800s and wondered if it was real – they’d never believe it now. The world is smaller now, so I’d love to live in a time when it felt bigger. But then again, I couldn’t live without my computer!”

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A book on Angelique's work, Tattoo Darling, is out now, and a second one will be published by Outre Gallery in Australia in October. Find out more at www.salonserpent.com