Grace Neutral

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Grace Neutral
Born
Grace Walker

(1989-03-29) 29 March 1989 (age 35)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
NationalityBritish
Occupations
Websitewww.instagram.com/GraceNeutral

Grace Walker (born 29 March 1989), known professionally as Grace Neutral, is a British television presenter, model, and hand-poke tattoo artist based in the United Kingdom.[1][2] She holds a substantial social media presence with over half a million followers.[1][3] In 2016, Neutral was the presenter in an i-D magazine documentary Beyond Beauty.[4]

Personal life[edit]

Neutral was born in Dubai and spent most of her childhood traveling around the world with her family as her father was a captain in The Royal Navy. [5] Later, they returned to England, settling in the village of Newton Ferrers in Devon, and Grace attended the independent school Plymouth College. At the age of 20, she relocated to London, where she now lives and works.[6] Neutral began ballet dancing at a young age[7] going on to take classes at Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts and summer school at the Royal Ballet, eventually sustaining a hip injury that ended her ballet career at age 14.[8] [5] After this injury she start attending punk and alternative gigs at The Phoenix Tavern in Plymouth and became more interested in various aspects of alt culture such as tattoos and other body modifications and culture, which later became the focus of her career. [5][8] In 2008 she moved to Bristol where she enrolled on a stage makeup course at City of Bristol College, before moving to London in 2010 where she got a job at the café in Madame Tussauds.[9] Neutral has numerous extreme body modifications including a bifurcated tongue, tattooed eyes, reconstructed ears, a removed navel, and facial scarification.[10]

Career[edit]

Neutral entered the body modification industry as a piercer before hand-poke tattooing,[11] a machine-free tattooing method. Following her move to London, she gained an apprenticeship as a piercer at Self Sacrifice Tattoo after being handed a flyer on Oxford Street and then going in to inquire about work. There she was trained by Ala who was a member of The Psycho Cyborgs performance arts troupe which further piqued her interest in the body modification lifestyle.[12] In 2011 she was working as a piercer at Pure Ink and was asked to model for Alex MacNaughton's 'London Tattoos' book, after which she was put on the cover.[13] Neutral also worked for Good Times Tattoo and attended the London Tattoo Convention[14] with them in 2014.[15]

Neutral is the founder of Femme Fatale Studio.[16]

Television and film appearances[edit]

In 2012 she co-starred in Idles music video for their song "26/27" alongside a group of her Bristol based female friends, filmed on location at their home and directed by former Tracey Beaker star Felix Drake.[17] In 2015, she was featured in the Phaze What music video Tokyo.[18] She is the presenter of i-D magazine documentary series Beyond Beauty,[19] which launched on the i-D YouTube channel.

Neutral's documentary Beyond Beauty with i-D magazine aired on Viceland in 2016.[4] She is currently the presenter of Needles and Pins, a Viceland series documenting tattoo culture across the globe. In 2021 she sat as a subject on Season 8 of Sky Arts' Portrait Artist of the Year.[20]

Books[edit]

  • Neutral (2019)

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Jones, Ellen E. (16 September 2016). "Viceland: how VICE's TV network aims to be 'the most original and important channel for young people'". Evening Standard.
  2. ^ Nickell, Amy; Johnson, Krystal (6 November 2015). "Tattooed 'pixie dream girl' redefining the face of beauty as we know it". Yahoo News.
  3. ^ Instagram
  4. ^ a b I.D. staff (27 October 2016). "Grace Neutral". VICE Media.
  5. ^ a b c Grace Neutral | A Twenty First Century Tattoo | S2 EP1. Youtube. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
  6. ^ "grace neutral was born to be different | read | i-D". i-D. Archived from the original on 5 March 2017. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  7. ^ "Spindle". spindlemagazine.com. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  8. ^ a b Judy Godhart (25 February 2016), Grace Neutral on Self Love, retrieved 4 March 2017
  9. ^ "GRACE NEUTRAL | TTTISM". TTTism. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  10. ^ Dunn, Francesca (1 December 2014). "Grace Neutral's Beauty is Out of This World". Vice. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  11. ^ Squier, Chemmie (2 November 2015). "We Chatted With Grace Neutral About Her Clothing Collection, Tattoos and Body Modification". The Defrief. Archived from the original on 29 November 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  12. ^ Grace Neutral | A Twenty First Century Tattoo | S2 EP1. Youtube. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
  13. ^ "READER PROFILE 209 - GRACE". Big Tattoo Planet. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
  14. ^ "Grace Neutral". The International London Tattoo Convention. 2014. Archived from the original on 29 November 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  15. ^ "10th international London tattoo convention – in pictures". the Guardian. 29 September 2014. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 28 February 2024.
  16. ^ Thompson, Hannah (8 July 2021). "24 Of The Most Stunning Hand-Poked Tattoos". Elle.
  17. ^ "IDLES: 26/27 | imdb". IMDb. Retrieved 4 September 2021.
  18. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Phaze What - Tokyo (Official Video). YouTube.
  19. ^ "Grace Neutral | i-D". i-D. Retrieved 4 March 2017.
  20. ^ "Portrait Artist of the Year| sky.com". sky.com. Retrieved 4 September 2022.

External links[edit]

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