A Passion for Personalized Art 3
Born in Russia, Valentina lived and worked in St. Petersburg, Paris, Essen, and New York, absorbing the artistic traditions of each city and evolving her own visual language. She is currently based in Austin, Texas, where she founded her own studio/art academy, Sharp Objects tattoo (March 2025) — a thriving growing creative environment known for its artistic standards, strong professional culture, and collaborations with international artists.
A Passion for Personalized Art
Her innovation, mastery of color and form, and her approach to tattooing as fine art earned her the U.S. Extraordinary Ability Visa (O-1) and later her green card. She has received recognition and awards at multiple international tattoo conventions, and within her first year in the field was already invited as a participant, guest artist, and later jury member at major global tattoo events. With over 12 years of professional experience, Valentina teaches tattoo artists worldwide, strengthening their classical art foundation, visual literacy, and technical execution across all styles. Her teaching is rooted in academic drawing, composition, anatomical understanding, optics and physics, and the development of a personal artistic identity.
A Passion for Personalized Art
Valentina Ryabova is a tattoo artist with a classical fine art foundation, known worldwide as the only tattoo artist who creates full-color portrait tattoos from live models, working directly from life rather than photographs. She is also the first and only tattoo artist to complete a self-portrait tattoo using a mirror, without using any photographic reference. Valentina is a creator of a distinctive artistic approach that combines high-level portrait realism with primitive, brutal bold blackwork structures. This contrast of precision and raw expressive force forms a signature visual language that makes her work instantly recognizable. She specializes in large-scale projects, where her deep knowledge of composition, spatial rhythm, and visual balance allows her to create tattoos that function as complete, cohesive artworks across the body.