Grace Mary Howarth (Grey Sea) is a tattoo artist, multidisciplinary artist, and artist at The Candle Orchard, based in Bexhill-on-Sea. Their practice sits at the intersection of tattooing, drawing, ritual mark-making, and research-led art, with a strong focus on symbolism, process, and the body as a site of meaning. They adore making bespoke tattoos, large or small: all have importance.
Grace’s tattoo work is rooted in illustrative blackwork, fine line, and symbolic imagery, often drawing on themes of liminality, cycles, protection, and transformation. They approach tattooing as a collaborative and attentive process, working closely with clients to create designs that feel intentional, personal, and thoughtfully placed on the body. Flow, balance, and longevity are central to their approach.
Alongside their tattoo practice, Grace maintains an expanded, multidisciplinary art practice that includes drawing, creating handmade paper, collage, and site-responsive work. They hold an MA in Magic and Occult Science with their dissertation named ‘Deeper than Dermis: Tattooing as a Magical Ritual’. Their research-informed practice explores tattooing as ritual, embodied knowledge, and contemporary sigil-making. This academic and conceptual grounding quietly informs all aspects of their work, without ever overshadowing care, craft, or accessibility.
Grace is a queer practitioner, and queerness runs through their work as both an ethic and a lens. Their practice is deeply informed by ideas of bodily autonomy, chosen identity, and self-authorship, with a particular care for creating affirming, consent-led experiences for queer and trans clients. Tattooing, for Grace, is not just decorative but a means of claiming, celebrating, and reimagining the body on one’s own terms.
Care is central to Grace’s practice. They prioritise creating an environment where clients feel safe, listened to, and comfortable, recognising that tattooing can be a significant and vulnerable experience. Their work is consent-led, detail-focused, and grounded in the belief that meaningful marks are made through trust, collaboration, and respect.
Through tattooing, teaching, and community-building, Grace’s work continues to explore how marks can hold memory, intention, and connection, and how creative spaces can function as places of care as much as production.