Watercolor Tattoo Artist Baris Yesilbas - A Fusion of Art and Design

I'm Baris Yesilbas, a watercolor and fine line tattoo artist originally from Ankara, Turkey. I actually started out on a completely different path, studying economics in college with a future in a conventional career mapped out for me. But a chance apprenticeship offer from a tattoo artist changed everything — against my family's wishes at the time, I took the leap into tattooing, and I've never looked back.

I spent the first five years of my career building my craft in Turkey before moving to the United States in 2017 to chase a lifelong dream. I landed in New York City, tattooing at Gristle Tattoo in Brooklyn and eventually founding my own studio, The Base NYC, where I built a distinctive style fusing watercolor artistry with gaming, anime, and pop culture influences. That work grew my following to over 65,000 people on Instagram and led to collaborations with global brands including Nike, Levi's, Jack Daniel's, and Upton.

After more than a decade behind the needle, I brought that same artistic vision to Boston, where I now run a private, boutique studio serving clients throughout Somerville, Cambridge, Medford, and the Greater Boston area — as well as clients traveling in from New Hampshire and across the East Coast.