Chris Núñez


Chris Nuñez is an American tattoo artist, television personality and entrepreneur, who has been a tattoo artist for 28 years as of 2019. He is the owner of Handcrafted Tattoo And Art Gallery, a tattoo shop located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and a judge on the Paramount TV network's reality competition, Ink Master, in which tattoo artists compete in challenges assessing their tattoo and related artistic skills. Previously, Nunez was one of the featured tattoo artists on TLC's reality television program Miami Ink.

Early life

Of Cuban descent, he grew up in Miami, Florida. Nuñez had always been drawn to art, and began painting graffiti as a teenager, which he claims his father supported as long as it was an image and not just Nuñez's name. Soon, he discovered tattooing, immediately falling in love with it and obtaining an apprenticeship at a local tattoo shop. Nuñez claims that he is very grateful for the experience of an apprenticeship when he was younger, as he worked his way up from background work - cleaning, running errands, fixing machines - to learning how to tattoo and tattooing fundamentals. His father died when Nuñez was 18 years old, leading to him rebelling during his late teens and early twenties. Nuñez's first tattoos, which he got at age 16, were of his parents' names.

Career

After being a graffiti artist, Nuñez switched to tattooing, though even after opening a tattoo shop with friends he continued to do part-time construction work. He was the owner of Handcrafted Tattoo And Art Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He and Ami James later opened Love Hate Tattoos on Miami Beach.
He was a cast member of the TLC network's reality show Miami Ink, and later became a judge on the Spike network's reality competition, Ink Master, in which tattoo artists compete in challenges assessing their tattoo and related artistic skills.
He is a partner in the media corporation Ridgeline Empire, which operates the subsidiaries Ink Skins and Upset Gentlemen and an animation studio with two animated series in development as of 2014: Hoodbrats and Toothians.