Plate & Needle
Rows of detailed ink drawings and portraits laid out across a dark wooden wall.

A tattoo studio with a gallery in the front room. Every design on the wall is tattooed once, then marked as gone.

See this month's wall

A gallery you can wear

Plate & Needle hangs a new artist's flash every month. You choose a sheet, we tattoo it, and nobody else will ever have the same one.

On the wall until 31 October

A hand-drawn rose in black ink on a purple card, lying on a white table. View the October wall

Roses & Rot

Thirty-two sheets of roses, skulls and wilting things by guest artist Ines Okafor. Bold outlines, three colours at most, nothing bigger than a palm.

A forearm tattoo of a skeleton hand holding an orange marigold, with petals falling.

Marigold hand

From September's wall · gone

A man with both arms covered in colourful traditional tattoos, against a black background.

Two full sleeves

Built from eleven sheets over three years

A woman in a field seen from behind, with a large floral tattoo across her back and shoulder.

Peony back piece

Our biggest single sheet so far

This month's sheets

Red label means someone has already claimed it.

Pencil studies of a skull, a hand and a spine on grey paper.

Skull studies

A black and white photo of a woman drawing flowers on a large sheet of paper.

Wild garden

A hand inking a small cartoon figure on paper taped to a light box.

Little devils

A tattooed man leaning over a desk, looking closely at a drawing.

Daggers & hearts

A tattoo artist in black gloves tattooing a stencilled design on a client's upper arm.

Swallow pair

A gloved hand holding a tattoo machine wrapped in blue film over a client's arm.

Moth & moon

From the people who wear them

  • Dan FeeneySwallow pair, 2024

    "I walked in for a coffee and walked out with a booking. I had never seen the sheet before that morning and I still love it."

  • Rhiannon PricePeony back piece, 2025

    "Knowing nobody else has it matters more than I thought it would. They tore the original in half and gave me one side."

  • Sol MendesThree small sheets, 2023–25

    "Every October I come back to see who is hanging. It feels like going to a gallery, except you leave with one."

A tattoo artist in black gloves at work on a client's arm, seen over his shoulder.

Before you claim a sheet

  1. Come and look in person. Sheets are claimed at the desk, never by message, so the wall stays fair.
  2. A £50 deposit holds it for 30 days. It comes off the price; if you change your mind, the sheet goes back on the wall.
  3. Size is part of the design. We can go ten percent up or down. Bigger than that and it becomes a different piece.
  4. Once it is done, it is gone. The artist signs the original and you take it home.
Back to the wall