THE STORY BEGINS IN BRAZIL...
Before I start telling my story, I must explain a little bit my dad’s, who was the one who brought me into tattooing.
Reinaldo Moraes was born and raised in Sao Paulo, where his name Sarue was given from capoeira, with his first master Miguel Machado in the group Cativeiro. This discipline shaped him inside out and provided him with a safe place to grow. It was thanks to capoeira that he would meet Caio Freire. Training with Caio, he got to see the tattoo work he got from Mister Lucky from Santos in Sao Paulo, one of Brazilian’s pioneers in tattooing.
Caio would soon become Sarue’s second capoeira master, as my dad decided to follow him to Rio de Janeiro and helped around Caio and Tyes’ tattoo shop for a couple of years.
It was the early 80s, and back then, Rio was a place that attracted tattoo artists from all over. Here my dad would meet Jonathan Shaw, Marco Leone, Frede, Morbela, Luisi and Toni, amongst many others. It was in Jonathan Shaw’s bodywork that my dad saw Japanese tattoos for the first time, feeling blown away by the work of Greg Irons and Ed Hard. Fast forward to 1984. My dad moved to Olinda, in Recife. This was a time of big changes in his life: not only he opened his first tattoo shop here, despite the hurdles of getting material (they would come all the way from America, from the National Tattoo Association), but he also met my mum and had my brother and me. You might have guessed it yet, but I’m fortunate enough to be named after his master Caio Freire. Going to my dad's shop as a kid always felt like entering the most mysterious cave, with the shark jaw and the snake's skin blending naturally with the Japanese myths spread across the designs on the walls. It would be good to mention that my dad was never a stranger to Japanese culture; he grew up in Sao Paulo close to a big Japanese quarter, and therefore close to the shops, the food and the markets. While he already knew about Seicho-no-ie here, it was actually in Recife, well after coming in contact with Japanese tattooing, where he got more interested in Seicho-no-ie and its philosophy. Thankfully, he passed on all of this to me and my brother. Growing up with my brother Rodrigo in Olinda, we were never not getting in trouble. Legend says my mum would break a wood spoon every week on our bums. She will strongly deny the accusations, of course.
CONTINUES IN PORTUGAL...
As much as my parents loved Brazil, they wanted better opportunities for my brother and I. And so they gathered all their courage and made the jump to Portugal, landing in Costa da Caparica. Here we met our second Brazilian family, a chosen one, and I got an aunt, an uncle and new cousins who would put us on a journey to the UK with them only a few years later.
My interest in Japanese tattoo started at my dad’s shop in Costa, flipping the books of Horioshi III and Filip Leu when I was 11. Marinho Pigato and Marcio Lemes, who worked at Theo’s Pedrada Tattoo shop right above my dad’s, showed me a lot of patience and always made me feel welcome. I remember seeing Marcio’s Japanese-inspired paintings and starting to get very passionate about it. When I saw the waves in them, I saw the waves from Costa where I was always surfing.
It was around this time as well that I started to make the link between the stories behind Japanese’s tattoos, all those mythological creatures and their myths themselves, and my own personal connection to Japanese philosophy through Seicho-no-ie. Fun fact: growing up, I didn’t always like American traditional tattoos because of their simplicity. However, as I got more into Japanese, I got to learn more about the beauty of simplicity and got a new found appreciation for American traditional as well. This is something that I’m still learning and it continues to challenge my work: making the simple dynamic. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and as we neared 8 years in Portugal, the time came for my dad to brace the winds of change again and take another jump, this time to England. For about a year or so I took care of his shop and got my first hands-on experience at tattooing and body piercing. That was the end of my teens.
...AND IT TAKES US TO ENGLAND
Coming to England was both very hard and very easy. I struggled with the cold, and the lack of sun, but I also somehow got used to it very quickly. Our second family from Portugal was here to greet us and we got so much help from so many wonderful people. As if by fate, we never stopped meeting other Brazilians that had planted roots here, which helped keeping ours stronger, and for many years I worked in hospitality while going to uni in Oldham, where I studied graphic design.
But the call to get back to tattooing was strong. I had kept working on the side since Portugal, but what I really wanted was an opportunity to grow in a shop in Manchester. While getting there, I started looking for new ways to grow and learn, so I got myself a ticket for the London Tattoo Convention, an experience that would mark a before and after in my life. Not only I got to meet the great Filip Leu, who both my dad, my brother and I have always held in the highest regard, but I also went to Tutti Serra’s Black Garden Tattoo shop. With this trip, I finally got a glimpse into the big leagues, and it made me realise how big the tattooing industry really is and how much more there is to it than what I’d seen yet.
Back to Manchester, portfolio in hand, I got a permanent spot at Sacred Art in Chorlton and eventually guested a couple of times at Red Wood City. I learnt a lot those years, from American traditional tattoo to Japanese, but it all came to a halt with the pandemic. Once the pandemic subsided a little bit, a new wonderful opportunity came along to work with the lads at Swan Street. This is where I got to proper develop my line of work and became more solid in Japanese. Participating in the Brighton Tattoo Convention 2023 with the shop was definitely one of the highlights. By the end of 2023, I was ready to fly solo and follow in the steps of my dad, who had been working privately from Salford ever since arriving at Manchester. That’s how I found myself here, trying to build now my own space from which I can hopefully keep on growing and evolving as an artist.
