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Grimes has had at least 18 known tattoos:
Grimes and her friend Hana Pestle aka HANA got semi-matching Lord of the Rings tattoos in July 2018. Artist Delphine Noiztoy came over to HANA’s house to tattoo both of them with writing in J.R.R. Tolkien’s elvish language. This was HANA’s very first tattoo and she got the Gandalf quote “and all turns to silver glass” on her thigh. Grimes got elven script on three of her fingers reading “Contradiction / Be ready for war / No shields allowed” which is not a direct quote from the book series.
Grimes gave herself a stick-and-poke of three Cyrillic letters on her knee in September 2017. It’s placed upside down so that it faces towards her, which makes sense seeing as it was a DIY tattoo.
It seems that she meant to write “fae,” but it’s more of a transliteration than a translation. Her tattoo “ФАЙ” is pronounced like “fae,” but the actual word for fae/fairy in Russian is “ФЕЯ.” Coincidentally, her version looks more like the Russian word “РАЙ” meaning “paradise.”
Fae is an old English word for fairy, but Grimes has been using it to describe music that gives off fairy vibes. She curates a playlist called “the faé list” and has applied her own artistic backstory to the sound, writing “The fae are the children living at the end of the world, who make art that reflects what it’s like to live knowing the earth may not sustain humanity much longer. We live knowing that environmentally driven genocide is nigh, that the least equipped are to be struck down by the very earth itself. Repentance by the innocent for the sins of the rich. This does not mean that all fae art is directly about this, but that the influence of this reality is inescapable for the fae.”
In March 2017 Grimes got a series of mystical symbols hand-poked on her left palm by artist Grace Neutral, who captioned her photo “Spells for Elves.”
On her index finger is the alchemy symbol for the planet Jupiter (♃), which is associated with thinking and learning.
We have not been able to identify the other symbols, which may be custom designs. Magical sigils can be created by combining the letters into a unique design.
The lines at the center of her palm bear some resemblance to the letter E in the old Irish Ogham alphabet, but it doesn’t have the same bend at the bottom.
Grimes got this huge brushstroke tattoo on the front of her left leg from London-based artist Delphine Noiztoy at LoveLetters tattoo parlor in Los Angeles in January 2017. The creative blackwork design stretches from just above her knee all the way onto the top of her foot. The brushstrokes spell out the letters “тихо” which means “quiet” in Russian.
Grimes showed off a new finger tattoo in a November 2016 instagram photo. Artist Delphine Noiztoy created a geometric blackwork design, covering her whole middle finger with concentric shield shapes.
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Grimes got a tattoo on the right side of her ribcage from artist Delphine Noiztoy in November 2016. The parts that we can see contain the runes “ᚷᛈᚫ ᚷᛗᚫ” representing the letters “gpa gma.”
Grimes has tattoos on the side of her left hand of an alien head and a little symbol.
Grimes has two bands around the base of her left pinkie finger, like a ring.
Grimes has a geometric design of lines tattooed on her right index finger. There are two lines running along the length of the finger. One is un-ornamented while the other has many short perpendicular lines branching off of it.
Grimes got this huge brushstroke tattoo on her right forearm in December 2015. Although most of her other tattoos have been done by herself or friends, this one one created by Delphine Noiztoy, an artist who specializes in realism blackwork.
In an instagram post, she explained “Big streaks of paint so I always remember that I’m an artist, Delphine is a master of this style. I hope to add more specks of paint with her later, so that my hands always look as if I’ve just been painting and making a mess.”
The tattoo is a redesign of her existing cross tattoo, which was smaller and more ornate.
