Simranh Kakkar
Tattoos as a medium for oral storytelling — one folktale at a time.
Handpoked by hand, drawn like a print. Woodcut and linocut marks blended with freehand brushstroke, pressed slowly into skin. Folklore you can carry — quiet, deliberate, made to last.
Selected plates
Handpoked pieces & printmaker studies
A printmaker who tattoos by hand
Simranh Kakkar — known as @ratattooille_ — is a Bangalore-based handpoke tattoo artist, printmaker and animator. Her line is born on paper: woodcut and linocut carving, then loosened with a freehand brushstroke.
She works the same marks into skin one dot at a time. No machine — handpoke, slow and deliberate, so the texture of a carved block survives the translation. Every piece is drawn for one person; nothing is flash, nothing repeats.
That printmaking practice fed a folktale project: tattoos as a way to keep oral storytelling alive, carrying a tale on the body the way it was once carried in a voice. It is the thread that runs through the work — folkloric, narrative, made to be told.
From block to body
How a story becomes a tattoo
Bring a story
We start with a folktale, a memory, a fragment of myth — whatever you want to carry. The idea comes first; the image is drawn to fit it.
Carved & brushed
It's drawn the printmaker's way — woodcut and linocut linework loosened with a freehand brushstroke, then composed for your body and shared with you before the session.
Handpoked in
No machine. Each mark is poked by hand, slowly, so the grain of the carved line stays in the skin — a print pressed one dot at a time.
Carry a folktale on your skin
- Small handpoke piece from ~₹8K
- Mid-size narrative work ~₹15K–22K
- Large / multi-session storytelling ₹32K+