About us
* Clean, precise piercings by piercers with a combined 25 years of experience.
* The largest selection of high quality, beautiful body jewelry in western Canada.
* Five time winner of "Best of the City" for best place to get a tattoo in Nanaimo.
* All of our piercers are members of the Association of Professional Piercers.
* Artists who are proficient in various styles of tattooing.
* Custom, locally made gold body jewelry.
* All of our piercers are trained in infection control and first aid.
* Our piercers attend the Association of Professional Piercers Annual Conference in Las Vegas every year in order to stay up to date on the most current piercing techniques, jewelry, sterilization, and aftercare methods.
~ Piercers ~
Darren - Darren is a free range half-hippie capitalist. He started piercing in 1995 at Back To The Garden in Prince George BC. He’s worked in countries as diverse as Mexico and Australia. Darren completed a goldsmithing/diamond-setting apprenticeship with Richard Kotowski in 2009 and since then has combined the two disciplines to create an ever-growing line of custom offerings to his clients through his jewelry company Alchemy Adornment. He opened Tranceformations with business partner Roland Churchill in 1999 in Nanaimo, British Columbia. He is a proud and active member of the Association of Professional Piercers. Darren constantly strives to improve the services that Tranceformations offers and the quality of his work.
Krystal - The newest addition to the Tranceformations piercing team. She came to us with 5 years of piercing experience, and is a member of the Association of Professional Piercers. Krystal has a keen sense of fashion and a soft spot for unicorns. She would like to be a witch when she grows up.
Kara - A long time client of Tranceformations, Kara chased her piercing dream all of the way to San Francisco to attend the Fakir Intensives Basic Piercing course back in 2013. Upon her return, she insisted on working at the shop, and soon found... show more
herself apprenticing under Darren. Since joining the Tranceformations team, Kara has attended the annual Association of Professional Piercers Conference three times, and hopes to someday return to San Francisco for the advanced follow up to the Fakir course. Her goals include traveling to, and piercing in, as many studios as she can. Kara loves piercing, painting, short dresses, cheesy pop music, dinosaurs, and all things turquoise. You can make friends with her by bringing offerings of cheese and chocolate, or sending her cute corgi pictures.
~ Tattoo Artists ~
Ryan - Ryan has been an artist from an early age. He began tattooing in 2003 with an apprenticeship at Brian's Tattoo Studio in Abbotsford BC and stayed there for 5 years before setting out doing guest spots around the world. He's tattooed extensively in South America and Europe, and still travels regularly doing guest spots in Germany and the UK. Ryan worked at Tranceformations in 2012 and we're so excited to welcome him back now!
Tranceformations in 2012, and then again in 2015 before moving to BC to join us full time.
Follow Ryan on Instagram: @ryanholdentattoos
Nick - Nick is a prolific painter, spending much of his free time painting his favourite subject matter; wild animals. Many of his pieces are hanging around the studio. When he's not tattooing, painting, or drawing, you can find Nick exploring in the forest, dreaming of living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.
Follow Nick on Instagram: @SnakesnLadders show more