Charity Hamidullah

November 15, 2020:  Charity Hamidullah who goes by “Cake” is a multi-discipline artist who works in mediums ranging from tattoo ink to acrylics to pencil and charcoal. Charity’s creative canvases include human skin, concrete walls, and yes actual canvas. Cake was born in Rochester New York in 1989 where she attended Monroe Community College. One evening after school Hamidullah was channel surfing when she ran across a show about tattooing. This life changing moment inspired her to pursue the freedom to create and to be herself that only the arts could provide.

The tattoo business may have disadvantaged some young black women. But that wasn’t the case for Charity. Cake strove for excellence, embraced her uniqueness and turned her situation into an advantage. At age 16 Hamidullah obtained permission to begin an apprenticeship with a local tattoo shop by telling her parents that it was part of a college preparatory internship (which wasn’t exactly true). At age 19, she began the hard work of being a beginning tattoo artist at Inkaholicz Tattoo Family in Rochester. In 2011, Charity moved to Atlanta and began working at Iron Palm Tattoo, a shop with a nationally famous reputation for black tattooing. Cake doesn’t just crank out tattoos, she tries to develop a unique connection and friendship with each client as they work through the creative process together. Hamidullah’s hope is that her relationship with each client will last as long as the tattoo itself.

But there’s more to Charity than just tatooing. Cake is also a fine artist who creates work ranging from brightly colored abstracts to insightful studies of black women. But wait… there’s more. Hamidullah is also one of Atlanta’s top muralists. Her murals were featured by Elevate Atlanta and Forward Warrior. Charity has also been spotlighted as a Black woman tattoo artist by Sprite P.O.U.R. (purveyors of urban reality), in a MIC Dispatch article, and in a VoyageATL article. In the VoyageATL article she said: “I am a creative who specializes in tattooing, visual arts, and mural art; but I don’t want to place myself in a box. One day, I could wake up and decide to be a chef, writer, spiritual advisor or clothing designer. Who knows.”

Link to Charity Hamidullah’s Website: http://charityhamidullah.com

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