Alex Binnie is a British tattooer and printmaker best anchored as the founder figure behind Into You London, the Clerkenwell tattoo and piercing studio begun in October 1993 with piercer Teena Marie. A central node in the 1990s and 2000s London custom-tattoo, blackwork, and neo-tribal-adjacent scene, he is also a woodcut and linocut portrait artist whose print practice runs parallel to his tattooing.

Who is Alex Binnie?

Alex Binnie is a British tattooer and printmaker associated with Into You London and, in the historical source body, with 1770 Tattoo in Brighton. The most defensible account of his career is narrow: he is documented as Into You's institutional founder, a public tattooer in the London custom scene, and a printmaker working in woodcut and linocut. He is treated as a living subject, so this page makes public professional claims only and avoids private-life detail.

What is Alex Binnie known for?

Binnie is known above all for founding Into You London in October 1993 with piercer Teena Marie. The shop at 144 St John Street ran as a 23-year Clerkenwell institution, closing in October 2016 when the lease ran out. Into You was a central node of the London blackwork, dotwork, and neo-tribal-adjacent field, and its roster and orbit include figures such as Tomas Tomas and Xed LeHead. Binnie is also known for his printmaking, documented through The Woodcut Portraits, published by Kintaro Publishing as a limited-edition hardcover of woodcut portraits of tattoo-world colleagues and clients, with a foreword by Henk Schiffmacher.

Biography and significance

The official Into You history and a local Clerkenwell retrospective place the shop's founding in October 1993, with Binnie and Teena Marie as the founding figures. A 2014 St John Street News interview at Into You identifies Binnie as founder and owner and gives first-person framing of his tattoo practice as a direct craft transaction outside conventional gallery and dealer mediation.

The significance of Binnie's work is institutional rather than reducible to a single piece. Into You gave London a serious custom-tattoo and blackwork home through the 1990s and 2000s, a period when the neo-tribal and blackwork reception field, seeded internationally by Leo Zulueta and the Tattoo Time "New Tribalism" issue, was maturing into a recognized contemporary style. Binnie's parallel printmaking practice, framed by Gallery 286's 2016 woodcuts exhibition, connects his tattoo work to the historical relationship between Japanese tattooing and Japanese woodcut traditions.

The Brighton thread is documented at archived-official tier: Binnie and Jason Mosseri started a Brighton shop in 2005 that operated first as Into You Brighton and later adopted the 1770 name after the London closure. The safe relationship is sister-shop, not legal successor; current Brighton ownership and continuity remain source-gated.

Lineage and influence

Binnie is most associated with Into You London, founded in October 1993 with Teena Marie. Roster and orbit figures include Tomas Tomas and Xed LeHead, both associated with the London blackwork and dotwork scene; no reviewed source proves either formally apprenticed under Binnie, so the safe register is roster and shop circle rather than master-apprentice. Upstream context for the broader neo-tribal and blackwork reception field runs through Leo Zulueta and the Tattoo Time New Tribalism issue, though that is reception context rather than a direct founding source for Binnie. Henk Schiffmacher wrote the foreword to Binnie's The Woodcut Portraits.

Cross-references

Sources

  • Into You official site, "A brief history of Into You" (into-you.co.uk). Official institutional source for the 1993 founding, Binnie and Teena Marie, 144 St John Street, the 23-year tenure, and closure framing.
  • St John Street News, "Into You: Getting inked in Clerkenwell" (April 4, 2014). Local-press interview identifying Binnie as founder and owner.
  • Chris Walker Creative, "Remembering London's premiere tattoo shop" (2019). Local retrospective corroborating the 1993 to 2016 / 23-year tenure and the 1770 sister-shop framing.
  • Kintaro Publishing, The Woodcut Portraits product page. Trade-publisher metadata for Binnie's woodcut portrait book, the Henk Schiffmacher foreword, and the 1,000-copy first edition.
  • Gallery 286, "Alex Binnie" (2016). Gallery source for Binnie's woodcuts and printmaking self-framing.

Editorial

Researched and written by John J. Mayo III, Editor, Tattoo History Atlas. Confidence is held at MIXED tier and intentionally narrow. The Into You institutional spine is well supported by official and local sources, the 1770 co-founder route is supported at archived-official tier, and the printmaking route is supported by trade-publisher and gallery pages. Living-subject discipline applies: no private-life expansion, no death-status claim, no formal-apprenticeship claims for later Into You artists, and no hard "first custom shop in London" language. Open items include early training chronology, full roster history, and current 1770 ownership.

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