Aimée Cornwell lives and works in Llandeilo, Wales. She is a Tattoo artist and Fine Artist. 

Born in Enfield North London, Aimée is a second-generation tattoo artist who has rapidly attracted a dedicated international following for her distinctive style of tattoos. She is now attracting equal renown for her artistic works in various painterly mediums.

Aimée commenced her tattooing career at Abingdon Ink in Oxfordshire. She moved to Wales and worked at Swansea Tattoo Company in 2012. Then came a move to Nemesis Tattoo Studio in Seaham, County Durham, before Aimée established her own studio in Oxford in 2015. 

In May 2013, Things & Ink, the quarterly female tattoo culture magazine, ran eight pages exploring the relationship between Aimée and her tattooist father Mark Cornwell. 

At the London Tattoo convention in 2013, Aimée featured both in the Guardian newspaper, and the Observer  "Tattoos are booming and this year its naval retro"  Mark was also featured. Things & Ink again chose Aimée for a feature reporting her evolving style and influences. The article was illustrated with examples from three tattoos completed while in Swansea, to three recent pieces completed at Nemesis. This highlighted that her work prior to 2013 displayed a more traditional tattooing style. Aimée credits John Anderton at Nemesis for teaching her new techniques while encouraging her to find her own artistic expression through tattooing. 

Since childhood Aimée exhibited an almost obsessive passion to produce highly skilled pieces of art in any medium. Although evolutions in Aimée's style can seem mercurial, her distinctive 'signature' is unmistakable. She either draws or tattoos daily. While this may represent an abundance of material, Aimée can be exasperating when sourcing art. Like many talented artists, she is highly critical of her own work. While her sketch books are full of lively and arresting images, she will not allow these to be reproduced. To her, they represent styles that she has moved away from - in pursuit of her new ideas.

She produced her first signed limited edition prints of two pieces from a sketch book in the Spring of 2014, 'Proud Waxwing' and 'Delicate Girl'. These prints represent an important historical marker of her evolving style.  

In October 2015, Aimée had work included in the frequent Mammoth book of New Tattoo Art series, edited by Lal Hardy. These books feature the most influential international tattoo artists at time of publication. In 2016, Lal Hardy included her tattoo artwork in his worldwide Tattoo Masters publication.

In February 2016 two more prints were released. Into Light and Into Dark represented another direction that she was pursuing in her tattoo practice. More prints followed as Aimee dedicated more time to her art practice with oil paints, acrylics, pens and watercolours, producing wonderful images. 

In this same year, Aimée was approached by a curator at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, in Glasgow Scotland. She desired Aimée to feature in a short film for inclusion into an exhibition about the works of Alphonse Mucha ‘In Quest of Beauty’. The film explored and commented on the ongoing influence of Mucha on contemporary life. Aimée was interviewed in her home and in her studio, tattooing a customer.  Over 30,000 visitors attended the exhibition, which went to Norwich and Bristol in the UK. ‘In Quest of Beauty’ was organised in close collaboration with the granddaughter of Alphonse Mucha.

In mid 2016, Aimée was selected for an invitation to Contestarte, an art competion held in Italy by Andrea Pallocchini. All artistic media was supplied for participants. At the end of the weekend, Aimee had achieved first place in one of the artistic categories for an oil painting.

Later in 2016, Aimée was commissioned by the curators of the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall to tattoo two hyper realistic body sculpture arms. The influential Art Fund featured this commission in an article as one of the best 5 things in this exhibition of a history of British Tattooing https://www.artfund.org/news/2017/03/27/five-must-see-works-national-maritime-museum-cornwall-british-tattoo-art. Other mentions followed in the BBC. 

To date Aimee continues to produce oil and watercolour paintings that she sells in print form on her website Aimee Cornwell Atelier

Aimée can be reached for Tattooing work at aimeetattoos@gmail.com

Publications

2013 Things & Ink (Iss 3) pp 86-93

2014. Things & Ink (Iss 7) pp 78-79

Hardy, L (2014) Mammoth book of New Tattoo Art, Constable and Robinson, London pp 97-102

2015 - January. Total Tattoo Magazine (Iss.123) pp 86-92

2015 - Summer. Rise Tattoo Magazine (Iss 37) pp 36-43

Hardy, L (2016) Tattoo Masters, Michael O'Mara Books, London pp 71

Events

Conteste Art 23-26th May 2016 Il Faro Hotel, San Felice Circeo.

Exhibitions

Oct 8 2016 - Feb 19 2017  'In Quest of Beauty’ Alphonse Mucha, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Glasgow, Scotland  

Mar 17 2017 - Jan 7 2018  'Tattoo: British Tattoo Art Revealed' - The National Maritime Museum, Falmouth Cornwall England.

May 2018 - The tour moves on to Toree Abby, Torquay, for three months. It’s a smaller space so they have a paired down version of the exhibition that doesn’t include the ‘Tattooist in other media’ section.

June 2018 - National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth

January 2019 - South Ayrshire Museum

March 2019 - Bristol M-shed

August 2019 - Time and Tide in Great Yarmouth

January 2020 - Chatham Historic Dockyards

March 2020 - Tullie House Gallery in Hull

August 2020 - National Maritime Museum