STEAM
Mat Sadowski;
“Never let go of your dreams”
Mateus Sadowski goes by the name of Mat. It’s not your typical Polish name, but then again Mat is far from your typical Polish guy.
He’s only been on this planet for 26 years, but his body and face are already covered in ink. As his looks might already suggest, he doesn’t work in a bank, or as a lawyer. Mat is a tattoo artist, working in ASK tattoo in the urban part of North London, Camden Town.
Mat makes very good money from doing what he loves. But life for Mat hasn’t always been so bright. Coming from a working-class family and never knowing his father were not the only unfortunate things in his life. When he was a kid, he used to get bullied for being fat, and different from the other kids.
“I used to sit home every day and draw or play video games, while all of my friends were playing football outside,” he recalls, sitting in his cramped studio, where the walls are covered with skateboards and drawings in fancy frames.
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The desire to be accepted and cool didn’t bother Mat when he was very young. But as he grew older, he started to go out more and cause trouble. As a teenager, he began to get involved with drugs and, eventually, the police.
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Mat stopped drawing for a year or so but came back to it eventually. A few years later he started doing tattoos in Krasnik in Poland. He became very good at it and developed a specific style, which he says shows the “dark side” of his mind.
He now specializes in dot work and line work, and only uses black colour on his artworks. They often include dead, scary animals such as rats and crows or simple lines and shapes.
Mat was happy with his new life, being able to draw every day, until his mum was diagnosed with cancer. Mat started to put all the money he made on her treatment, but sadly it wasn’t enough. So he decided to move to London, where he knew he could make more money.
He came to London with nothing, just some money in his pocket and from there he built a new life for himself, in a city where he didn’t know anyone.
“When my mom died few months later, my life has changed. I realised I wasn’t a good son to her and I wasn’t there for her in the worst times,” he says.
Mat now tries to help everyone around him, whether it’s his friends or random people he meets in Camden. “Despite being Christian, sometimes I organise protests against the Catholic church, because of the number of child rapes done by priests.”
He thinks of tattoos as art, his way to express himself but also as a tool to make people happy. His friends and colleagues like him for his personality and great talent. “Mat is a great artist and I’ve learned a lot from him,” says Thomas Schiller 26, his colleague from ASK tattoo, whom Mat took under his wing.
His flatmate and a long-life friend Jacob Klaskala, 25, added: “He might look scary because of his face tats and the beard, but don’t trust the looks. In his heart he is generous and kind.”
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Even during puberty, Mat continued drawing, and it became a kind of a therapy to him. Soon he began to dream about going to art school, where he would learn to draw from professionals. But his mother, who wanted him to be a success through a more traditional career, didn’t let him go. “I remember breaking my pencils and throwing them away. I was so angry,” he said.
By Dominika Kubinyova
