Why Jodie is getting an artwork 'no one likes' tattooed on her arm

Well, fond-ish. It was somewhere in the backstreets of Queanbeyan, and he was so intimidated by the huge bikies in charge that he just pointed to the first thing he saw.

It was a skull, and he has since had it covered over by something else.

It's all part of the journey - his and everyone else's.

Theodosiou has run Armani Art Space, a tattoo studio, in Narrabundah, for more than 10 years, and says it's a privilege to be part of other people's journeys through pain, recovery or self-discovery.

From a second-wave Greek migrant family, he's been an artist since leaving school, both on canvas and skin. He also specialises in paramedical tattoos - works that help clients heal from surgery, self-harm or other experiences that have left them altered.

"We do things like 3D areola simulation for post-mastectomy," he says.

"People who have lost their breasts, we recreate nipples and areolas. We do scar repigmentation, we do stretch mark camouflage. Anything where there was medical side of things."

He first got into this side of tattooing via scalp micropigmentation - dots on the skull to simulate hair follicles, for balding men or women with thinning crowns, for example.

"Another big area is self-harm scars ... that's got mental health stuff attached to it and our biggest hurdle with that is just getting people to come in to chat," he says.

"They might be good one day and the next day not so good. When we get them in to chat, the next hurdle is getting them to come in for the session, so we understand that it's hard."

But not all people who come through his doors are going through difficult experiences.

Over in another part of Canberra, baker Jodie McGrath has been thinking a lot about personal expression, and specifically the painting she's had on her wall for nearly 20 years.

Bought when she was 16 from a "little gothic shop that used to be upstairs somewhere in Civic," she used up all her savings to buy it and lug it home.

From her teenage bedroom wall, to various living rooms over the years, the painting has had pride of place, and is her most prized possession.

And pretty much everyone in her life hates it.

"I just saw it and I knew I had to have it because it's just really comforting," she says.

"It's been a topic of conversation a lot in my house. No one likes it. My parents hated it. My children hate it. I don't know why I like it so much."

She recently decided to try and find the artist, and, in the most Canberra story possible (albeit one involving its dark, gothic, death-metal underbelly), she put a post on the Canberra Notice Board on Facebook.

"Dark art comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comforted - this painting feels like safety to me," she wrote.

"Anyway, they said it was by a tattoo artist in Canberra. If you see this, thank you. This piece of your art means a lot. And hey, if you're still tattooing, would you be keen to tattoo it on me?"

The post got plenty of replies, with several identifying the shop as Raven Clothing, formerly above a menswear shop on Bunda Street.

And within hours, the artist himself - George Theodosiou - replied.

The two connected, and she has booked in to have him tattoo the painting on her bicep later this year.

"I was surprised because I had, number one, completely forgotten about the painting that I had put into Raven so long ago," Theodosiou says.

"We [he and his wife Jan have long worked as a team] were in a completely different situation with our lives back then. And then two, it just popped up all these good memories of when we were doing 100 per cent artwork."

He had recently been planning to put more time into his visual art, and here, out of the blue, was a reminder of his former self.

"Back then, we were going into our gothic stage - heavy metal, gothic, anything alternative, anything macabre, anything to invoke interest and turn heads," he says.

"Raven, the store, seemed to be the best place to promote and market, because that was their thing, that was their genre.

"And Jodie was the best person to grab it."

McGrath was also in a different place back then. A troubled goth teen, she remembers high school as a dark time.

After finishing school, she settled down in her 20s, trained as a baker, got married and had a couple of kids.

But Hush, as the painting is titled - it's a gaunt, vampiric figure with a long crooked finger held to its bloody lips - has been with her all the way.

Now 37, she has 10 tattoos, all done by a Sydney tattooist who's also the lead singer of her favourite deathcore band To The Grave.

It's hard to square McGrath's bubbly personality with her love of dark art, but she says it's important to her that people gravitate towards what makes them happy - even if others think she's weird.

"I see all these things on TikTok where people that were alternative kind of spent their 20s trying to fit in and look normal, and then now they're reverting back to the way they were as a teenager," she says.

"And that's how I feel with my tattoos. I've started getting them, I get tattoos that people generally don't like, they're very dark art, but they make me really happy. They make me feel really confident and they made me feel safe. And I think art can be really healing."

Is she worried she might one day regret the permanent artworks on her arms and legs?

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"No! Millennials and Gen Z - we're fine!" she said.

"My dad said, 'What about when you're in the nursing home and you're the only one with tattoos?' And I'm like, 'Dad, I won't be the only one, tons of people are going to have tattoos. Everyone has tattoos now."

Theodosiou says he only has a few rules as a tattoo artist. He won't do micropigmentation on faces to simulate facial hair, "because it's stupid". He doesn't do laser removal, and will often suggest changes to a client when he thinks what they want won't work.

But ultimately, all he asks is that you put a bit of thought into what you're doing first.

"Just think about it," he says.

"The biggest thing I get is, 'What happens when I get older? Is it going to sag?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, everything else is going to sag too.

"The thing is, the older you get, you get yourself a tattoo, it's going to look fresher than the 18-year-old who got it who's now your age."