Paul Wren
By Amanda Frederick

Just on the outskirts of Downtown Melbourne, there’s a building so full of creativity that it spills out the doors and onto the surrounding sidewalk. The exterior walls are covered with artwork and the pavement is decorated with a fake (I hope) chalk outline. Each day, people visit TH-INKER Tattoo Studio and carry a piece of creativity out with them. Proprietor Paul Wren has been providing tattoo art to the Brevard community for the past 16 years, and both his studio and artwork reflect his creative approach to the tattoo world.

One of the first things you notice upon entering TH-INKER is its unique layout. Just behind a front display case, the center of the room is divided like a pie into four workstations. In an attempt to give his customers the experience of a tattoo convention, a path surrounding the four stations allows patrons to walk completely around the shop and witness each artist in action. Just as at a convention, the artists at TH-INKER are able to exhibit their tattoo skills and also have areas within their stations to display their artwork done off the skin.

Wren’s desire to carry on the convention theme in his shop is understandable. He’s had a great deal of success at conventions throughout his career thus far and his work has been honored in tattoo convention contests year after year. “Black work, back pieces, sleeves, tribal, large panels, oriental, realistic… If they have a category for it, I’ve probably got a trophy for it,” he said.

Of his many awards, Wren is most proud of the ones he’s earned for the full-Japanese body suit he spent nine years tattooing on a client. The award was significant for Wren not only for symbolizing the commitment made by himself and his client, but also because the contest was judged by one of Wren’s heroes, Paul Jeffries. “(The suit) allowed me to compete against and win under the judging eyes of some other tattoo artists I greatly admire.”

Along with Paul Jeffries, Wren also admires Henning Jorgenson and Paul Booth. Wren’s dream tattoo would be a macabre-themed Japanese body suit completed by Jorgenson and Jeffries. “In tattooing, I’m at the mercy of what clients want from me, but I favor Japanese-style work, realistic water scenes and anything really macabre.” His strengths are exhibited in his ability to design tattoos that compliment the natural shape of the body. Wren’s tattoos flow with the body so that they truly seem to belong where they’ve been placed. “A sleeve should flow into the chest and onto the back and around the ribs without seams or obvious breaking points,” he says. “I think I’ve got that pretty much down.”

Wren may have tattooing down, but he’s also mastered several other art forms. When he’s not tattooing, he uses watercolor and acrylics on canvas, clay, pencil, ink and Prismacolor markers. He also crafts impressive horror-themed art from anything he can get his hands on, including latex, cotton and molded plastics, and the results reflect the influence of make-up artist Tom Savini and painters H.R. Giger and Frank Frazetta. “Outside of tattooing, I’m heavy into horror: masks, special effects, corpses and mummies. I sporadically put on a Halloween Haunted House.”

You might imagine Wren to be an intimidating character with his interest in big tattoos and horror, but when you meet him, you discover quite the opposite is true; he’s a fun-loving, down-to-earth family man. Surprisingly enough, when he’s not watching horror movies, he enjoys a good ol’ “underdog” movie and confesses to shedding a tear or two at seeing the underdog win. As for his own success, Paul hopes to keep tattooing for many years to come. “My goal is to keep on going, keep learning and keep on being inspired by friends in the business who are just good people and great artists.”

Visit Paul Wren and all the TH-INKER folks at 2101 Henley Court, Melbourne. For information and shop hours call (321) 725-2088.