Kat Von D (Katherine Von Drachenberg) (born March 8, 1982 ) is an Argentinian-American tattoo artist based in California, best known for her work as a featured artist on the TLC reality television show Miami Ink. A subsequent TLC series starring her, LA Ink, premiered August 7, 2007 in America and 11th November in the UK

Biography

Kat Von D was born to Argentinian parents René Drachenberg and Sylvia Galeano in Nuevo Leon, Mexico in 1982. At age four, she and her family immigrated to the United States, settling in Colton, California. Von D is of Spanish, German and Italian descent.

She did her first tattoo on herself at the age of 14, a letter "J" in Old English style on her ankle. Her first work on someone else, a Misfits (Crimson Ghost) skull, was done soon after. She first started working for a tattoo shop at age sixteen under mentor Tim Hendricks.

Until recently in 2007, Kat lived in Hollywood, California and worked at True Tattoo, owned by Clay Decker. Later, she joined the Miami Ink shop in Miami, Florida during the shop's first season of their reality television show of the same name. However, at the end of season two, she left the Miami shop, and thus was no longer a part of the tv show, after a series of escalating personal differences with fellow tattoo artist and shop owner Ami James. Kat then returned to Los Angeles to open her own shop High Voltage Tattoo and landed her own Miami Ink spin-off entitled LA Ink which premiered in August 2007.

Besides her previous series' namesake shop, Miami Ink, she has also worked at Elm Street Tattoo in Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas and Inflictions in Covina, Califonia. Kat is frequently a featured artist at tattooing conferences in the United States and Canada.

Kat is now known for portraits and realistic art with an emphasis on black-and-gray. She has tattooed celebrities including Eric Malburg, Matt Skiba, Kurk Gravitron, Davey Havok, Eric Balfour, Mike Vallely, Ryan Wombacher, Kimi Huggerbean, Scott Danough, Brandan Schieppati, Derek Youngsma, Bam Margera, Ville Valo, Steve-O, Gordon Listerine, Frank Iero, Travis Barker, Jenna Jameson, Nick 13, Jeffree Star, Scott Ian, Nicole Richie, Sebastian Bach, Margaret Cho, and Eve.

Personal life

She is recently divorced from tattoo artist Oliver Peck. Kat is currently dating Alex "Orbi" Orbison of Whitestarr.

Outside tattooing

Besides her tattoo career, Von D has also appeared in a version of HIM's music video for "Killing Loneliness".

She is also sponsored by the soda company Jones Soda