In Conversation with Graham Beech & Adam Barun at All My Heart Tattoo

We recently made the trip out to Charlotte’s South End to sit down with Graham Beech and Adam Barun at All My Heart Tattoo - a shop that’s just as much about showcasing original artwork as it is about producing world-class tattoos. We looked through Graham’s art collection and talked about machine building, the creative process, imposter syndrome, toilet seat iconography, and cultivating an artistic working environment. 

Graham Beech: The Foundation That Built All My Heart Tattoo

Graham Beech opened All My Heart Tattoo in Charlotte’s South End in 2021. He’s since cultivated a shop of eclectic & talented artists as well as an impressive collection of original artwork. As soon as you enter the studio, it’s hard to ignore the most recent addition to the shop walls - a nearly 10ft Chris Garver original Graham recently brought back from New York.

Graham apprenticed at Port City Tattoo in Wilmington, NC before moving to NYC to work at various shops over the next seven years. He credits a big turning point in his career being when he began working at True Blue Tattoo - a busy, neighborhood street shop in Middle Village around the same time he also got hired at Thicker Than Water in Manhattan. 

Graham Beech: “I started working at Thicker Than Water in the city, but that was mostly an appointment only shop. It was not very busy for young artists like me, but I was able to be around more established artists that would be painting and working on designs. I would spend most of those days learning from them and then I still had True Blue as my money shop where I could put some of those things to practice. I basically used that method the entire time I was in New York, having sort of an education shop and a shop where I could actually pay my bills. I thought that was a huge opportunity to be able to work at two different shops and see essentially twice as many people, they were in different neighborhoods, there were different clientele… I don’t think there’s really anywhere else in the country where you can not really have a conflict of interest with the shops to work in the same general area. I thought that was incredible to be able to work with so many different people, see the way different shops run, it taught me a lot pretty quickly.” 

Throughout his time in NYC, Graham worked at DaVinci Tattoo Studio and Invisible Tattoo, working alongside artists like Beau Brady, Regino Gonzales, Damien Rodriguez, Chris Garver, & Kiku. His family moved to Charlotte in 2021 and soon after, All My Heart was born.

Graham is extremely welcoming and excited to talk about the artwork at his shop - whether it be showcasing work by the shop’s resident artists or his own personal collection of original works that he’s been collecting throughout his career. He tells me the story of the Ed Hardy drawing hanging up that he couldn’t really afford to buy at the time when he was living in New York, but ultimately couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to purchase one for his collection. 

In addition to the artwork hanging on the studio walls, there are tubes full of other paintings and drawings still left to frame. Graham takes them out and shows me pieces by Tim Lehi and Timothy Hoyer he’s excited to get on the walls. He has an archive of tracing paper drawings from multiple artists, including several pieces from when Garver did his back piece 6 or 7 years prior. A clear theme of tigers and dragons seems to emerge.

All My Heart has been putting on yearly art shows since 2022. The studio transforms into a gallery and all the artists at the shop showcase mixed media works for sale. This year, we had the opportunity to purchase a couple of pieces for our own collection of original artwork.

By Graham Beech

By Graham Beech

Ballpoint pen on vintage handkerchief by Jason Hanna

By Adam Barun

For the past few years, we’ve been buying original art directly from tattooers across the Southeast and showcasing them in our Raleigh, NC warehouse. We’ve always felt this was a more direct way to support artists instead of a standard sponsorship program, and as a result we’ve developed a gallery highlighting some of the current art coming out of our tattoo community. You can visit our warehouse to see some of the pieces from this collection in person! 

Also hanging in our Raleigh, NC warehouse is a tattooed toilet seat by Adam Barun.

Adam Barun: Machine Building & Toilet Seat Icons

Adam Barun has been at All My Heart since the beginning. In addition to being a tattooer, he is also a machine builder, 

Adam Barun: “It’s kind of the way my brain works, I need to understand how things work in order to use them. The minute I picked up a machine, it wasn’t doing what I thought it should, so I started pulling it apart to try to understand it better and just kind of had a knack for it. A couple of the guys I was working with asked me to do that for them - it’s amazing how few tattooers understand tattoo machines or tattoo equipment - and that part of tattooing came easier to me than the actual application. I struggled really badly with learning how to tattoo. I started a little later in my life and I had a bit of an imposter syndrome not coming up from a young age in tattooing. I struggled with my confidence for a while until I kind of got a hang of the machines and started to get a little bit of validation from my peers for machines. When that happened, it kind of came together.”

Vulcan: “I’ve got to ask about the toilet seat, it’s on display at the Raleigh warehouse and everyone is really loving it. I was wondering what the idea was behind doing that exactly.”

AB: “I have a bit of an obsession with religion… Part of it was I was trying to find a way to make art that represented my tattooing. Watercolors or whatever, it doesn’t look like my tattooing so I don’t think there’s much cross-promotion there. I started tattooing these Kewpie dolls a few years ago and started looking for different kinds of objects I could tattoo. I don’t know where I got the idea for a toilet seat.” 

GB: “It’s kind of the perfect material for tattooing - it took so well.” 

V: “It’s plastic, right?”

AB: “Plastic, yeah.” 

V: “I wouldn’t have thought that would be that easy to tattoo.”

AB: “The first one I bought was a wood composite and I just kept breaking needles, so I found a plastic one. I wish I could say there was a lot more thought put into it, but…” 

V: “Well that’s cool. You could either not read into the piece at all and it’s just a fun, tattooed object or if you were going to read into it more… You know, I love Andy Warhol because he’s so obsessed with iconography, and that’s so much of what tattooing is about as well. The toilet seat kind of reminded me of something Warhol would do - almost poking fun at the image. It’s a little sacreligious…” 

GB: “It's a little tongue-in-cheek.” 

AB: “Yeah, absolutely. I love iconography and I have a very conservative, religious family. I think it’s really beautiful, I love religious art, but I also kind of think it belongs in the toilet, you know? I would like to do a series of toilets with different iconography on them.”

V: “Well if you keep doing it, I’d be interested to see where that thought takes you because I think there’s a lot there.” 

AB: “It’d be fun to do a toilet seat art show or something like that. Whether it’s just me doing it or having other tattooers do toilet seats.” 

V: “Also, tattooing is often looked at as low brow art so to put this image that’s from religion & tattoo it on a toliet seat, it’s also kind of a ‘fuck you’ to the art world and a cool comment on tattooing too so, I liked it a lot.”

AB: “Thanks, I appreciate it. It was a fun one to do.”

Perfectionism, Abstract Art, & The Creative Process

V: “Graham, I think when I was here for the first art show in 2022, we talked briefly about the direction you were trying to go with your art, and how your tattoos are very perfect - you’re very technical and proficient in your craft . You were speaking about how your art was a lot more expressive and you were trying to get a lot looser with that so there’s a bit of a contrast going on.” 

GB: “I think naturally I’m a little more a-type, a little more rigid, and I think tattooing requires a certain amount of technical proficiency for it to work well in the skin. But with fine art - I think of myself more as outsider art but in the direction of fine art - you don’t have any of those parameters. You can paint whatever you want and there’s no obligation to another person. So much of my main professional life is tattooing and this collaborative process with another person, I want it to be the exact opposite and flex a different muscle with it being more abstract, expressive, working with textures, because I don’t get to express that in my tattoo.” 

V: “Are you doing mixed media mostly? Or just paint?” 

GB: “Mixed media, yeah. With a lot of the larger stuff, I like to start with an oil stick. A lot of times I’m drawn to like the largest, crudest implement to get the silhouette and then I start to refine it from there.” 

V: “I guess not unlike tattooing in that way.” 

GB: “Yeah, but the thing about tattooing is that it’s so hyperfocused. You’re right there doing it. When I’m doing larger stuff, I’m walking back and forth across the room to get a better view of it. I'm painting with my whole body, from the shoulder rather than really tight with just my wrist. I kind of purposefully use it as an exercise to loosen up and have some more freedom because my natural instinct in tattooing is to refine and refine and refine. I think ultimately that takes a lot of the energy and a lot of the soul out of the design. If I can do something that’s a little more spontaneous…” 

V: “Well, I wouldn’t say that, I think your tattoo work has a lot of soul. But it is very technically proficient.” 

GB: “Well thank you, it’s getting there. The people that I look up to in tattooing, there’s really not a lot of drafts, it kind of flows out of them organically. I’m sure it doesn’t feel like that to them, but for me as a fan viewing it, it looks so intuitive.” 

V: “I was going to ask you about some of your influences in both tattooing and in art, do you admire that looser approach and that’s why you’re pushing yourself into that space?” 

GB: “Well I’m so in my head all the time. I don’t have the nicest internal dialogue, so whenever I’m agonizing over a tattoo design, I found that the last thing I wanted to do after a full day of tattooing was to go home and internally talk shit to myself while I do an 11” x 14” watercolor painting. It’s just not really fun. I shifted to trying to do things where the goal is to be loose, the goal is just to fuck around and find something versus perfection or impressing my peers being the goal. Just making the work and letting something come out and not being super judgmental.”

V: “Are you looking at other artists or just kind of doing your own thing?” 

GB: “Yeah, I purposefully look at people who are completely outside of my wheelhouse. Like Willem de Kooning or something more abstract. But that’s why I love Ed Hardy, because he has such an incredible knowledge of fine art, but a love and connection to tattooing. Everything is going to be through the lens of tattooing for me because it’s so much a part of who I am. But, I want to make art that I would want to have in my home or see in a space that’s not necessarily a tattoo space. I want it to be a little bit larger, a little bit more chaotic. It’s very much like tattooing in that it’s stripping down to the essential characteristics or energy that’s in those particular characters or whatever the design is. I want it to be really simple, like a tattoo should be and have a strong impact. But at the same time, it would never work as a tattoo.”

V: “Well I really like what you guys are doing. Your shop has such a focus on art and you’re collecting and displaying original work that’s really cool to see. These art shows must be really great to have because I’m sure you’re all motivating each other to make things.” 

GB: “We have to have deadlines. We all have busy lives, families, things going on. We’ll set a deadline and we know the rest of the crew is going to show up and have something. I might feel a little self conscious about putting my work up next to somebody else’s so I want to come up with an idea that’s outside the box so you’re not comparing apples to apples. It’s fun problem solving in that way as well. Seeing the different approaches in the shop is really cool.”

AB: “I mean, I’m really, really critical of myself. I beat the shit out of myself. My approach is kind of, I’m not going to make a better painting than 1) the people that I work with and 2) the people that I look up to in tattooing and painting. I’m just not going to do it. I will never meet the standards that I set for myself, so I’m trying to find some alternative way to put myself out there.” 

GB: “All of us struggle with the imposter syndrome stuff and the negative internal dialogue. It’s a good thing that helps motivate us but it can also hinder us. I feel like being able to recognize that in yourself and come up with some strategies to overcome it helps, particularly when you have a healthy group of folks around who are all collectively working to overcome some of those similar demons. You know with tattooing, your mental health isn’t always a thing that everybody is aware of or sensitive towards. I want to be able to create an environment where we can all work together to motivate one another but also be patient with one another. What we do for a living is insane!” 

But at All My Heart, it’s also deeply human. Through Graham’s creative process to work through his own artistic struggles, he’s created a space where everyone can do the same. As a result, we have so enjoyed seeing all of the original artwork coming out of the space, and we are stoked on the newest additions to our own collection. 

Thank you to Graham, Adam, and all the folks at All My Heart for taking the time to talk and inviting me into their space. If you’re ever in Charlotte, NC, stop by All My Heart Tattoo - and look out for their next gallery show! In Raleigh, NC, stop by our warehouse to check out some of the original works from All My Heart’s resident artists, alongside other artworks from tattooers across the Southeast.