Tatuadoras at the Helm

Guatemala City is divided into zones, and Zone 10 is as glitzy as they come. Stretching to the southeast of Guatemala’s capital, the district is peppered with glass-fronted high rises, wide avenues, swanky hotels, and, surprisingly, a ton of tattoo studios.

In this Central American country, tattoos are still somewhat taboo, with gang associations at the worst or rebellious attitudes at best for the conservative population. As a result, many studios have remained “all motorcycles and skulls,” according to Forget Me Not Tattoo’s Maf Monroy.

Founded by Monroy and her best friend Zully Morales in 2022, Forget Me Not is anything but the spit and sawdust shops found across the city. Tucked away in the bright and airy Murano center, you might not even realize there was a tattoo parlor there if it weren’t for the fluorescent white sign with Forget Me Not’s logo, a pixelated design of the shop’s floral namesake, shining down from the second floor.

The studio is light, fresh, and wonderfully air-conditioned to stave off Guatemala City’s stifling heat. There are colorful prints splashed across every wall, plush furniture, a mini fridge with drinks and snacks for clients, and free feminine hygiene products in the bathroom. There is even a bed left free for other Latinas to guest at the increasingly popular spot. The entire shop is designed for comfort, and unlike many studios in the country, it’s specifically designed for women.

When Monroy started tattooing in 2015, she was one of “maybe three women in Guatemala,” she says. Although the industry today is flush with female talent, Forget Me Not is the country’s only exclusively female shop in terms of artists. Though the client base is embraced by all genders, Monroy and Morales are joined by four other young female artists, each with their own unique styles, and a female studio manager, Lashmi Cordova.

Although the shop doesn’t currently accept apprentices, the founders of Forget Me Not are dedicated to raising the next generation of Guatemala’s “tatuadoras,” or female tattoo artists, and have been instrumental in the careers of many of the current artists in residence.

Most of the artists are self-taught with under five years of experience, and for many, Forget Me Not is their first professional studio job. “Maf convinced me to tattoo skin for the first time,” says Ines Tilde, who has made a name for herself with fascinating textural designs, including glass vases, intricate ceramics, and molten metals. “Four days after I met her, I did a tattoo on myself,” she says, and then continued to practice on her family and friends before joining Forget Me Not full-time.

The shop has also helped to welcome more feminine styles to the city. At the beginning of Monroy’s career, she travelled to Europe to perfect her fine-line work, a style which had not yet gained traction in Central America. Adapting it to the clunkier coil machines that were still prevalent in Guatemala in the late 2010s, she essentially introduced fine-line tattooing to the country. Her and Morales’s prowess in the industry was a significant draw for the other young artists who have come to work at Forget Me Not. Marianne del Águila and Majo Huertas were both inspired by the founders’ trailblazing work and took guest spots at the shop before being invited to work in residence.

The other artists in residence had friendships or professional relationships with Monroy or Morales before joining the shop, but each filled a gap in Forget Me Not’s roster. From Estefania Arias’ micro-realistic botanicals to Huertas’ bold neo-traditional works, Tilde’s blackwork materials, and Morales’ traditional designs, there isn’t a tattoo you couldn’t get at Forget Me Not.

The shop equally fills a gap in the industry for the artists. Although none were seeking a female-only studio when they joined Forget Me Not, the unique dynamics of the space allowed their work to grow in new and unexpected ways. Huerta found herself surrounded by male artists with decades of experience practicing the more traditionally masculine style. Working at a female-only studio has allowed her to develop her own fresh take on the style for a multi-gendered clientele.

Arias, whose fine-line botanicals tend to attract a female audience, finds the feminine studio inviting and safe for her clientele. This sentiment extends to all of the artists, who each mentioned how much more comfortable it is to work in a female-only environment, compared to some other shops where inappropriate jokes or comments were made by male colleagues.

“The entire shop is designed for comfort, and unlike many studios in the country, it’s specifically designed for women.”

For young female artists in Guatemala, Forget Me Not stands as a vision of the future where they can become major players in the still male-dominated industry. For the artists in residence, that vision currently looks like Arias travelling to Europe for the first time next year to guest at a shop in Switzerland and Águila crafting her own distinct style.

“There are no ‘celebrity’ artists in Guatemala, like in the U.S. or Europe,” del Aguila says, but with pioneering studios like Forget Me Not ushering in a new era of Guatemala’s ancient tattooing tradition, it’s possible that the next big star in the industry could come straight from the bright lights of Zone 10.