If you see Rino Valente from a distance, you might exchange him for Adriano Celentano: hat, a 3 button, long sleeve, grey shirt, leather vest, jeans and boots. But while Celentano walks around dancing and singing, Rino is a decadent biker and he rides a totally customized, painted brown 883.

Rino started tattooing by himself, Claudio Benvenuti encouraged him to go on, and so he did, inspired by the comic strips of Andrew Pazienza, the music of Ian MacKaye (Fugazi, Minor Threat) and the stories of the common people. He started traveling and working around the world, then, after a few years, he returned to Italy and with Gigi Fagni opened the Peek-to-Boo Tattoo Parlour in a hidden backstreet of Pistoia. He doesn’t like to talk about himself too much so, to cut a long story short, nowadays Rino Valente can easily be considered to be one of the most important tattooers of his generation; you can ask him just about any type of tattoo, but please don’t ask for political subjects or your girlfriend’s name. Rino has been doing drawings for tattoos his entire life: Japanese, revisited traditional models, black and grey. He is a really versatile artist and has recently collaborated with Puma and Sundek. When he doesn’t work, he cooks and eats, plays with his two lovely sausage dogs and sleeps a lot. He also travels a lot and takes part in international conventions, both to work and to stay with his friends and colleagues, to cause trouble and to play human bowling up to late night. Among his preferred tattooers is the symbolist Rudy Fritsch, a tattooer that has succeeded in bringing around for the world his genius and beautiful craziness.

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