The Tattoo Museum Basel is represented throughout the world with Ambassadors representing their country and tattooing culture. Our ambassadors are involved in the presentation of artifacts, donating to our collections, designing artwork and flash, passing on historical notes, and sharing tattoo history with the TMB. These tattoo industry professionals are dedicated to the Art of Tattooing and have chosen to support the TMB, we ask that you support them too!
Biographical Info
Mehai Bakaty is a second-generation tattoo artist, who has been tattooing for over 25 years. Born and raised in New York’s Lower East Side, he worked with his father Mike Bakaty during the city’s tattoo prohibition. When the ban was lifted in 1997, the Bakatys opened Fineline Tattoo in the Lower East Side. Mehai specializes in contemporary American tattooing with a Japanese influence. His work has been shown in various gallery and museum shows, and on The Learning Channel and other U.S. and foreign television programs.
Mehai Bakaty has donated to the TMB his fathers collection and memorabilia from a tattooing career that spanned over 40 years.
Biographical Info
For over a decade now, the name “NORM” has evolved throughout the art world. His passions have become his life, constantly moving forward, and thinking bigger.
Norm’s main influences lay in the very foundation of his art; the streets. His choice of imagery, tone, and wonder, are all the pieces to this familiar life. With the support of the AWR/MSK family, Norm rose through the ranks of the graffiti world, using the tools given to him to excel in his goals. He turned his love of urban culture into fine art. Ranging from his paintings of beautiful women altered by hand, miniature constructs of ghetto city scenes, and his drive to never stop tattooing, failure is definitely not an option. His patience and drive keep him moving, learning, and progressing as an artist. And now, tattooing has taken him into the future. He produces his own unique style; a body of work that ranges in all forms, but keeps its own identity.
A true precisionist, Norm has also ventured into tattoo machine building, creating uncanny tools of the trade used the world over by renowned artists. Now located in Honolulu, Hawaii; Norm has recently opened his very own private studio available by appointment only. Although he is traveling most of the year, he manages the majority of his time between Hawaii and Los Angeles.
