About the artist

Tattooing origin story

I get asked this all the time and thought I’d type it out fully. People always assume I always wanted to be a tattoo artist, but it never crossed my mind! I fell into this job, and fell head over heels in love with it at the same time, so here is the story…

So I met a girl at a party and we absolutely hit it off, new bestie energy chatting in the corner all night. I brought her along to the weekly life drawing class I attended, she comes and wins the weekly wine raffle that I have still never won in my eight years of attending, but EVERY time (we are up to 7/7 now) I bring someone along they win the bottle of wine… anyway we end up again giggling in the corner with this bottle of wine. At somepoint in this conversation she says, “I really want to start tattooing, would you want to do it with me?” I remember 19yo me internally being so harsh thinking that homejob no/idea tattoos were super cringe even though that was my first ever tattoo (shoutout Jess you did great), but was caught up in the new friend hype and said, “ohmygosh yes of course!” A few days later she texts me saying, “Hey I bought all of the tattoo stuff you owe me $150”, and I was thought, trueeeee I did agree to that hahah.

So ~1month later we both post on our instagrams saying we’re learning how to tattoo, and come through to this addy for free tattoos. We had a crazy amount of people come through, shout out to Finlay who endured my first ever tattoo and talked me through the whole thing <3. Everyone said they would have paid for them and we were like, interesting….. so we made an Instagram account and posted all the tattoos.

So that was Dec 2019 - fast forward to Feb 2020 I move to Geneva Switzerland for my exchange (where I am only there for a month ofc and my Model UN which was AT the UN was over zoom for 5 months instead) - I tattooed a few friends there but nothing crazy. Covid does its thing, and ~September 2020 COVID in Sydney a tattoo artist who is considered the og king of hand poke in Sydney (shoutout @nah.mate.pokes), reached out to my friend and I, asking if we wanted to do a tattoo trade! We were so ex cited and honoured. He taught us so much stuff that we needed to know (fully didn’t know what grip tape was before this point hah), and also explained tattoo licensing to us. Turns out if you charge for tattoos without a license in NSW you can get fined $11,000, which obviously we were very uninterested in. Tim explained that you get a tattoo license through being an apprentice, which is working full time (typically unpaid) at a tattoo studio for 1-3 years. As I was living out of home, and studying my double degree full time, I was very uninterested in this path particularly as I did loveeee tattooing at this point - I was very curious and excited about it but not willing to compromise my other ambitions. What’s more, I hadn’t heard one good apprentice experience yet (and to this day have only heard two).

So my friend and I go home, do some research, and look at the license we want. We want our own studio - a $5,000 license - damn. But guess, what, for some reason and bless their hearts for it, the NSW Fair Trading my tattoo licenses free during covid. So we apply, and it takes an entire year to go through. During this time I keep drawing, have a 2nd lockdown, keep studying, living my best life. And the end of 2021 covid comes, I have my dream studio two blocks from my house with French doors and a skylight, and am a fully licensed tattoo artist.

By this point, and ever since I’ve grown in realising that tattooing is truly a dream job for me. I love people, making art, connecting, creating experiences, making my own schedule, and tattooing is all of these things tied up in sweet little bow. I am so grateful that I truly

Rachael [she/they] is the 26 year old artist behind unsoftserve. She has been a creator her whole life, working in painting and life drawing before expanding her practice to yoga and tattooing in 2019.

After living in Barcelona in 2018, she completed a double Bachelor Degree in 2022 at UTS titled Creative Intelligence and Innovation, and Social and Political Sciences majoring in Digital and Social Media. They are commencing a Masters in Environmental Management in UNSW this year, which they will complete by 2028.

Rachael ran her own private tattoo studio based in Sydney from 2021-2024, and has tattooed throughout Australia, and several countries in South America and Europe. She will be doing a Europe tour in 2027.

Rachael has 750 hours as a certified yoga teacher, having studied in 'Australia’ and Peru. She will be doing a 300 hour course in India this year, and is currently completing a 50 training titled ‘Interrogating Yoga’ which is a study of Brahmanism and the history of yoga.

They trained as a somatic therapist in 2025, and currently offer somatic therapy sessions as well as ‘Integrative Tattoo’ sessions with involve a somatic therapy session pre and post tattoo.

Rachael will be exhibiting her first solo show of oil and mixed-media artworks this year (date TBC) which she is incredibly excited about. Their last shows were group projects titled ‘Beyond the Skin’ which featured an international selection of non-tattoo art by tattoo artists in Melbourne (2022) and Sydney (2023). 

Rachael is incredibly interested in all forms of art, creating, connection and sustainable practices. She is excited for unsoftserve to be a continual evolution grounded in these themes.

Rachael is based in Sydney so-called Australia.