Rihanna and Cara Delevingne’s go-to tattoo artist, Keith “Bang Bang” McCurdy, has long been the top dog in the celebrity tattoo biz, but the New York-based artist may find himself a West-coast rival in Brian Woo, top tattoo artist for the Shamrock Social Club shop in West Hollywood. Brian Woo, known by friends and clients as “Dr. Woo,” is a 33-year-old tattoo artist with a huge social media following and a string of celebrity clients, and he’s not in bad company. Fellow tattoo artist at Shamrock Social Club, Freddy Negrete, is frequented by One Direction singer Harry Styles, and SSC owner Mark Mahoney, who gave Dr. Woo his first legal tattoo at age 18, has inked the likes of Rihanna, Kelly Osbourne and Lana Del Rey.
How Dr. Woo Got His Start in Tattoos
Like Bang Bang, Dr. Woo’s fascination with tattoos began at an early age, and the future tattoo artist started experimenting with ink and needles after school when he was just barely a teenager. “I just wanted a lot of tattoos,” Woo has said about his obsession with ink. “I wanted to be covered in tattoos.” By the time he finished high school, Woo was toying with the idea of launching a skateboarding-inspired clothing line when Mark Mahoney offered him an apprenticeship at his West Hollywood tattoo shop. “I knew he could draw, I knew he was good people, and I just liked the kid,” Mahoney said about his decision to bring Dr. Woo on board. “I knew he had a style.”
Dr. Woo’s A-List Clientele
That “style” Mahoney saw way back when has earned Dr. Woo some serious street cred in the tattoo business, most notably among inked-up celebrities like Drake, Ellie Goulding, Kelly Osbourne and Modern Family star Sarah Hyland. One of Dr. Woo’s latest tattoos was commissioned by actor Ryan Phillippe and features a Native American-inspired arrow inked on his forearm with a compass-like arrangement of dots, circles and arrows in the background, which the tattoo artist says people have taken to calling “Woo arrows.”
Dr. Woo is the Future of Pop Star Tattoos
Dr. Woo is becoming a big name in the tattoo world, and there’s no doubting his incredible talent and the absurd level of detail he introduces into each and every tattoo he does, regardless of the recipient’s star power. But perhaps the thing Dr. Woo’s clients like best about him is his quick-witted nature and his willingness to connect to his clients. “Sometimes I will just sit and listen, that’s kind of the job,” he says, highlighting the more intimate side of giving people tattoos. “It’s a very personal thing. You’re spilling someone’s blood, together, right there. It’s very spiritual, in a sense.”
As bold, visible tattoos become increasingly more acceptable on the red carpet and the runway, tattoo veterans and newbies alike are turning to masters like Bang Bang and Dr. Woo for permanent accessories that are “at once trendy and timeless,” as The New York Times so aptly puts it in a recent article written about the work of Dr. Woo. And when it comes to the few artists A-list celebrities like Drake, Ellie Goulding and Sarah Hyland trust to put a tattoo needle to their skin, Dr. Woo has found himself a spot among Hollywood’s elite.
