Best Tattoo Studio

Art isn’t just skin deep at Castleberry Hill’s City of Ink. The six-year-old tattoo and art gallery remains a hub for the city’s urban arts, culture, and indie hip-hop scenes. With a staff that consists of such well-known influencers as Greedmont Park co-founder and one-half of local rap duo Mach 5, Corey Davis; locally celebrated acrylic painter Paper Frank; and 2013 “Best Ink” reality-show alum Melvin Todd; the shop is one of Atlanta’s most high profile. The artists on staff take their custom-designed work seriously and have nurtured a cultured customer base as a result. People travel from across the country, and sometimes internationally, to get tatted up. It’s all part of the vision put into play by co-founder Miya Bailey, who last year independently released his film Color Outside the Lines, about the 20-year legacy of black tattoo artists. Judging from the look of things, the next two decades should have City of Ink’s imprint all over them. less...

A shitty haircut will eventually grow out, and an embarrassing sweater will, with the help of a good friend, find its way to the nearest Goodwill. But tattoos are (pretty much) forever. And if you have some poorly executed scribble-scrabble permanently marring your flesh, forever is going to feel like FOR-EV-ER. No threat of that at Grant Park’s ONLY YOU TATTOO. Founded by Matt Greenhalgh and Danielle Distefano in early 2009, Only You’s artists are adept at everything from American traditional to Japanese-style to lifelike portraits. You can even vet the artists’ portfolios on the shop’s website. Greenhalgh’s full sleeve designs are gorgeous, and Distefano’s adorable owls have us itching to roll up our pant leg and place ourselves under the gun. 415 Memorial Drive. 404-659-4900.www.onlyyoutattoo.com. less...

When Dirk Hays opened EAST ATLANTA TATTOO in 2001, his was the only tattoo parlor on the stretch of Glenwood Avenue that led hipsters into the East Atlanta Village. And if imitation is the highest form of flattery, so is encroachment: At least two new tattoo shops have moved within inking distance from EAT within the past year or so. Hays’ tattoos embody his fondness for lowbrow culture, one of the reasons he opened up the Gallery at East Atlanta Tattoo next door last fall, making him a strong supporter of the local lowbrow scene with continually growing art shows. He’s turning the power of his ink back onto canvas, and his paintings are a reflection of his tattoos. Here’s to Hays not entirely giving up one art form for the other. less...