Sam McAleese

Sam McAleese is 27 years old from Ballymena, Northern Ireland. He has been making art most of his life and started painting wall murals in the last couple of years. He is a tattoo artist by trade, having just opened his own studio, Coven Tattoo in 2022. 

Whether it’s walls or skin, he love leaning into portraiture stylistically as he believes it has presented him with some of his greatest challenges and yielded some of the greatest rewards. 

That being said, Sam prides himself on being a versatile artist and hasn’t yet limited himself in what he takes on. He has spent the last nine years honing his craft as a tattooist but it wasn’t until the last few years when studios found themselves closing all over the world that he turned his hand toward murals as a means of keeping himself active and engaged in art. What started on large scale canvases quickly made its way onto walls and shutters across his hometown. 

Early in 2022, Sam was tasked with providing mural work as part of a scheme to brighten up Ballymena’s storefronts and town centre. If you have been in the area in the last year you may have already seen some of the results of the project, which he will be revisiting in 2023 and adding a good few more pieces. All of that has led him here, and Sam is very much looking forward to adding his art alongside other amazing artists at Hit The North this year.