Hölle the tattoo artist

SAN ANTONIO – Cigarette smoke fills the room, backstage. The surroundings are dark and opaque. Women in corsets decorate the dance floor in anticipation for an international metal band, Rammstein. Off to the side, sky-blue eyes pierce the smoke. Her jet-black hair contrasts the colorful designs on her arms.

“My name is Hölle, it means hell in German,” she answers. “I was born in Frankfurt, Germany.”

 Hölle is a tattoo artist. She has been interested in tattooing since an early age.

“In Germany, when a child gets sick it is a tradition to give the child a gift because medicine was too expensive. If the child was sick, and medicine could not be afforded, the parents would want for the child to at least be happy,” she explained.

Hölle Hellfire has known she wanted to be a tattoo artist since she was six years old. She felt that knowing what she wanted to do with her life at such an early age might have deprived her of a normal childhood.

“When I was six years old, I got sick and my father gave me a gift. It was a tattoo magazine. I knew I wanted to be a tattoo artist since then.”

She got her first tattoo at the age of 11. “It was shooting stars; I did it myself. I had to hide it from my parents,” she explained.

Hölle only gets tattoos on herself if that piece of art holds a deep meaning for her. Most of her visible tattoos are on her right arm. From top to bottom her tattoos on her right arm are: A Portrait of Marilyn Manson, a herse, her cat Kiki, the bride of Frankenstein, an interpretation of her soul, and “Momo.” 

A Marilyn Manson tattoo on her upper right arm. His aesthetics and music have greatly influenced Hölle's life and helped her through a rough childhood.

“I got the Marilyn Manson tattoo actually on a whim. I was hanging out with my best friend and made the comment that I would love to get a color portrait of Marilyn Manson tattooed somewhere on me because his music had such a big influence on me artistically. When I was young, the intelligent lyrics to his songs changed the way I saw things. I know his music isn't for everyone because he's seen as a ‘weirdo’, but due to having such an open, artistic, and mature mind for the age that I was, the music really stood out to me. It was beyond Aesthetics; beyond my fascination with the image he became famous for. I had a pretty rough childhood and the music helped me escape it all.”

She actually met Marilyn Manson once. At the age of sixteen, Hölle added Marilyn Manson on myspace and he noticed a piece of art in her photos. He became interested in that artwork and offered her $1,300 for it. He said he would put it in his museum. Hölle gave Marilyn Manson the artwork for free; her condition was that he could not use her artwork on his museum because then the museum would not be his anymore.

A tattoo of Kiki, Hölle's cat. Kiki currently suffers from melanoma on his eye and might need radiation or removal.

Below the Marilyn Manson tattoo, Hölle has a tattoo of a black Hearse on her antecubital. She owns two Hearses and explains that the Hearse is the best car anyone could own because “you could drive to the beach and sleep in it [the Hearse].” She also explains that when she moved, all her belongings fit in her Hearse. She only had to make one trip.

Under the Hearse she has a tattoo of the face of a cat.

“The cat tattooed on my arm is actually a cartoon version of my cat, Kiki. I've had Kiki since he was two weeks old and the cat has been through my toughest times in life without ever leaving my side. When I first got him, a little girl broke his back. I put him through kitty rehab rather than letting the Vet decide that he would never be able to walk. I was told that being so young, the best thing I could do for him was to put him down. He will be seven this year and he now walks and is able to climb. He's still trying to learn how to jump, which he's getting better at, but he still needs a step stool for most higher places. I recently found out that he has melanoma and will need to have his left eye removed. He may possibly have to undergo radiation treatment. I'm confident that he will pull through this due to how strong he has already been. So the tattoo represents him and his will to make it through anything that is put in his path... and also because I love him like a child.”

A tattoo Hölle dedicated to her father. It was the creation of a famous tattoo artist, Tony Ciavarro.

Next to Kiki, Hölle has a green tattoo of the bride of Frankenstein. This particular tattoo was dedicated to her father.

“When I was very young, I didn't see my father very much at all because he was always working. He worked at a factory called Lancer, which closed years ago. The very few times I would see my dad, he would always watch classic horror movies. As a child, I was not allowed to watch horror movies. ‘It'll give you nightmares,’ [her father would say]. My father would let me watch Bride of Frankenstein with him and it became one of my favorites. I think I loved the movie more because I was being granted this special, extra time with my dad and well, I was always a daddy's girl. The tattoo was actually designed by a tattoo artist by the name of Tony Ciavarro, who is famous for cartoon style tattoos.”

An interpretation of Hölle's soul. The meaning of this tattoo to her is "beyond what words can say."

To the right of the bride of Frankenstein there is the blue figure of a woman. There are red arrows coming from the blue figure’s heart. Hölle says that this tattoo is the representation of her soul.

“The meaning to me is beyond what words can say,” she explains. “This is the way I see my spirit.”

A tattoo dedicated to her late great grandmother. Hölle found that her great grandmother had passed away and felt closure after getting this tattoo.

Under Kiki’s face, there is a coffin on top of a rose. There is a skull inside the coffin and the word “Momo” decorates the lower half of the tattoo. Momo is slang for the word “Oma” which is German for “Grandma.”

“My great grandmother was one of my best friends until she passed away when I was fifteen. When I was fifteen, I walked to her house to invite her to dinner. Her front door was unlocked and the dogs were still outside, which was odd for the time of day. Ask any German. We are all organized, on schedule, on time. ALWAYS! I ended up walking to her bedroom to find her and then her bathroom; where I found her lying dead on the floor. It's an image that I cannot get out of my head, even today. Ever since getting the tattoo, the nightmares from the event have subsided; which I guess means that the tattoo gave me closure.”

Hölle's late pet tarantula, Rosa. Her friend helped Hölle taxidermy Rosa by spraying formaldehyde on the tarantula.

Besides tattooing, Hölle also likes to collect animals and put them in jars of formaldehyde. She gained interest in doing this since middle school. She had a science teacher that had hundreds of preserved specimens and that is how she became interested in collecting them. She bought them off amazon.com at first but that eventually became too expensive so she bought five gallons of formaldehyde and went looking for road kill. Among her notable specimens she has her pet gerbil, Ivory, and her pet tarantula, Rosa, preserved.

“Rosa was a pet of mine. I got her from a pet store that treated her really badly. She eventually took to me and I was able to handle her without her getting defensive. Due to a stressful life at a young age, unfortunately she didn't make it long. I was pretty devastated when I saw her die. So much so that I didn't have it in me to taxidermy her myself. I had a friend of mine, Ratchet help me out with preserving her.”

Ivory, Hölle's pet gerbil. Her cause of death was unknown to Hölle at first but she later found out that the gerbil was missing a paw. Ivory must have hurt herself and then chewed off the paw.

"Cadaver rose" tattooed on the belly of a pig. It is preserved in a jar of formaldehyde.

A photograph of her portfolio. This is one of her realism pieces.

A tattoo she made on a client. The client is a musician so he wanted speakers on the forehead and mouth of the art.

 Hölle Hellfire currently resides in San Antonio, Texas where she pierces and tattoos her clients for a living. She is also an alternative model and photographer.