Bay Ridge tattoo shop finds new home in Sunset Park

Rain taps softly against the windows of Saints x Sinners, mixing with the hum of a tattoo gun, as owner Isidoro “Izzy” Garcia greets visitors with a wide, welcoming smile.

At 45, Garcia has spent the past five years building the kind of tattoo shop he once searched for himself — open, welcoming, and rooted in community. This August, he relocated Saints x Sinners from Bay Ridge to its new home in Sunset Park, 4120 Fourth Avenue.

“I always wanted to do tattoos. This is my core, like, I love art,” Garcia said. “I am high on life all the time.”

Born and raised in Bushwick to Mexican parents, Garcia grew up in a household that valued stability over self-expression. Through his twenties, he worked retail jobs — stocking shelves, managing shifts, clocking out exhausted but restless.

“I had a cousin of mine who told me tattooing would be great,” Garcia said. “Specifically because I created my own art. Because I had the natural ability to draw.”

At 33, Garcia took an apprenticeship at Itzocan, a tattoo shop on 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue, blocks away from where his new studio now stands. Spending his days juggling three jobs and his nights tracing designs onto practice skins, he immersed himself in the craft.

As he gained experience, Garcia also looked beyond his apprenticeship for ways to grow. “YouTube and Instagram at the time helped me a lot,” he said. “I would ask questions to other tattoo artists in other places, and eventually I would practice on my own.”

That mix of formal training and self-teaching helped him develop a steady hand and a style defined by fluid linework and bright color, a contrast to the heavy black outlines common in many traditional shops.

By 2018, Garcia had left retail for good to tattoo full-time. A year later, he opened his first studio in Bay Ridge, naming it Saints x Sinners, after his father, Santos Garcia, and inspired by a saying that had stuck with him: “not a saint, not a devil.” He wanted to chip away at stereotypes around tattoos. “People see tattoos and think it means trouble,” he said. “But to me, it’s just self-expression.”

Business was slow for the first six or seven months. The Bay Ridge location was a bit out of the way, and it took time for people to trust a new artist. A few friends and relatives came first, then strangers who discovered his work on social media. Before long, his books began to fill up. “A lot of them came from Staten Island,” Garcia said, laughing.

Owning a business brought new lessons. “It’s never accurate,” Garcia said of trying to predict profit. “This business is so up and down. It’s like the stock market. Your stock is your art, your vision, your creativity. One day you can have 50 grand. The next day you can have less than $100.” Still, he refused to measure success in numbers. “As long as we can pay the rent, we’re good.”

Garcia’s adaptability carried him through the pandemic and into a new shop after disputes with his former landlord. This summer, Garcia relocated to Sunset Park with a team of seven artists, most from the neighborhood.

“It’s never been just me, it’s always been us,” he said. “I’m teaching my son too. He’s 19, and he wants to be a tattoo artist.”

Family runs through every part of Saints x Sinners — not just by blood, but by spirit. Apprentice Christopher Canogo, 19, came to the shop after his father, a friend of Garcia’s, introduced them four years earlier.

He was skipping class a lot at the time and Canogo’s father used the opportunity to train under Garcia as motivation to finish school.

When Canogo returned, Garcia put him through a rigorous initiation. “The first day I apprenticed at the shop, Izzy had me tracing for, like, what, seven hours straight,” Canogo said, laughing. “In my head, I’m like, What the f—? But I understand it was a process.”

However, what kept Canogo working for Garcia was not Garcia’s authority, but his humility. “I’d be telling Izzy that he’s my boss,” Canogo said. “He’s like, ‘Hey, you’re my boss.’”

Another artist, 23-year-old Richie Cohetero, met Garcia through family too. “Richie I met through my nephew who, at that time, he wanted to learn how to tattoo,” Garcia said. “Richie ended up coming over and just hanging out.” Eventually, hanging out turned into work. Now, Richie is a full-time tattooer, known for his extremely fine-detail tattoos.

The camaraderie inside Saints x Sinners blurs the line between work and friendship. Nights often stretch past closing time, with artists staying to talk or clients dropping by just to hang out. “He didn’t even come in to get tattooed,” Canogo said about one of his regulars. “He came to hang out with me. From like 11 to like three in the morning, just to hang out. Izzy was telling us stories. I was dying. Everybody here was dying. It was so funny.”

That family vibe might also have something to do with how Garcia runs the business. Most tattoo shops split earnings evenly, half for the artist, half for the shop, according to Garcia. At Saints x Sinners, Garcia gives 70 percent of each tattoo’s profit to his artists. When asked why, he said he wanted his employees to have more to live on. It’s one reason the employees call him “Unc,” short for Uncle, a nickname bestowed for the way Garcia looks after them.

Looking to the future, Garcia wants the shop to represent the next wave of tattooing, one that embraces pop culture, anime, LGBTQ+ expression and fine-art influences. “Some people don’t want to do those tattoos,” he said. “Our quality is a little bit on the higher end, so a lot of people are not accustomed to that, but they will soon.”

His clients, often students, service workers and creatives, tend to be young. “Younger crowds, they still want to look cool, they still want to feel a certain way,” Garcia said. “It’s about identity with them, and they’re willing to spend the money for something that represents them. That’s why my artists, mostly, are young, or young-minded.”

Even in an oversaturated market, he’s optimistic. “We’re ushering in a new era of tattooing in Sunset Park,” he said. “We’re trying to come up with ideas on how to promote different styles and also giving out better quality. The overall goal is to become more stable financially through the art.”

As the rain outside slows to a drizzle, the last tattoo machine quiets. Garcia looks around the shop. Richie is finishing a client’s piece and Christopher is sketching by the counter. “You know,” he says with a smile, “it’s beautiful when you can create a lifestyle from something you love.”