Conversations with Kyle Kozek

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kyle Kozek

Hi Kyle, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve been an artist my whole life. Since I was a child I was always fascinated by it and was always making pictures, by any means necessary. Was told at a young age I’d be a starving artist by most anyone I told of my aspirations of one day becoming a professional artist. Though many other ideas came and went, art was always there. When I graduated high school I went on to the Columbus College of Art and Design with the intention of studying advertising and graphic design. Thankfully I decided to drop out after one year as school, even art school, just wasn’t my thing.
After leaving school, I worked odd jobs off and on, but quickly started hanging out in a tattoo shop with friends I had made. It was gritty, and I loved it. In hindsight it was honestly more grimey than anything else, and I’d spend many years trying to unlearn bad habits taught to me by folks who weren’t very well equipped to be teaching, but I didn’t know any better at the time. I hung out for a year or two before finally getting an actual apprenticeship and was tattooing within like six months. A few months after I started tattooing, my friend Andrew, who had brought me into the shop, and I moved to Florida, from there we moved to California and spent a bunch of time on the road. The first six or seven years of my career I moved a lot, and got really good at traveling and doing drugs and drinking. My tattoos got to be ok at their best.
When my daughter was born, I got a reality check and became far more focused than ever before. I ended up getting into a shop which had a pretty solid reputation and had a good number of talented artists come through their doors. It seemed like an amazing opportunity, and in a lot of ways it was. I grew artistically so quickly and had tons of doors opened for me. After seven years with that shop I realized it had become an incredibly toxic environment, where my accomplishments would always be co-opt by the shop and claimed as their own. It was a way for them to keep everyone feeling indebted to and dependent on them. On top of that our labor was being exploited in other business ventures that the non-tattooer owners were investing their time in more and more.
After realizing the ship had run it’s course I came to Columbus Ohio and joined the incredibly talented crew at CAULDRON Tattoo. Mike Moses has been one of my favorite tattooers for years, and I’m forever grateful for the opportunity to make art alongside him and the rest of my amazing friends, Nate Burns, Bee Sue, and Sam Fortney. I’ve gotten to learn and grow so much from all of them. On top of all that, the move has given me so much more freedom and time to explore more artistic endeavors, as well as travel to a bunch of other rad shops. I feel so lucky to have gotten to work with so many talented people and I’m super excited to see what the future holds here in Columbus!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Haha, hell no! Who does walk a smooth road? Everyone struggles.
I first must preface this by saying, I am a suburban white male who grew up in a middle class family, so there is a certain amount of privilege that comes with that sort of upbringing. That being said I didn’t ever make anything easy on myself. I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 9 and began dealing with anxiety and depression at a young age as well.
As I had mentioned before I got really good at doing drugs and drinking, I leaned very heavily on vices and addiction to deal with my mental health, counterproductive as it was, I suppose it’s just what made sense at the time haha.
When we found out our daughter was coming that was a huge motivator to do better. It’s also brought plenty of it’s own struggles as well, but life seldom happens without some sort of turbulence.
Now I am sober, well California sober I suppose haha. But I take the struggles as they come and welcome the challenges life brings.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
2025 will be my 17th year tattooing, it took me quite a while to find my lane and figure out what it is that I like to do. At this point I love to make art centered around the natural world, typically involving twists of magic, science fiction, or a connection to the universe. I love space, mushrooms, plants, animals, life, death, and everything in between.
At this point a lot of people come to me for my bright and unorthodox use of color. But I also really enjoy making black and grey tattoos as well! I really just love making tattoos for people, I love the connection that happens, I love the magic of it all. I’m just so honored and eternally humbled to be able to make permanent marks on people for a living!

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
If they’ve been tattooed by me probably not haha, I’m a pretty open book. Anyone who hasn’t been tattooed about me has probably already learned some shit they wouldn’t have known by reading this, so I guess that’s it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kylekozektattoo.com/scheduling
• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/kylekozektattoos