Tattoo artist and illustrator Nipinet is an Indigequeer Anishinaabe and Michif artist currently based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. They are a descendant of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and a citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation and are deeply drawn to the history of the lakes and prairies they grew up on. Nipinet is passionate about using art to tell contemporary Indigenous stories, especially those involving complex queer and two-spirit identities, and even more so when they can draw a throughline from the past, through the present, to the future. They have been telling these stories with their tattoo clients for nine years. Aside from tattoos, Nipinet makes comics, murals, linocut and risograph prints, and digital illustrations, and they are known for their strong linework and bold color gradients. Nipinet is inspired by the cultures of their ancestors and the complexity of the world around them, both natural and otherwise.
I make work across multiple different media, but the work that I have submitted here is made using an iPad, Procreate, and a variety of photographs that I’ve taken myself. Manoomin is a short comic I created in 2025 in collaboration with Em Matson-Brady— they wrote the poem it is based on, and I did the art. It was originally slated to be published in an anthology by Power and Magic Press, but we pulled out of that project due to a mismatch in values. Cityscape is a piece I created when moving back to Minneapolis after eight years away and the complicated emotions that brought up. Riverbed is a piece I created to process my feelings about the intersection of urban life and the natural world, and how hard it is to navigate living by traditional patterns in a capitalistic, urban setting. Ancestor is a piece created based on a Turtle Mountain bandolier bag held by the Smithsonian, and Ghost Pipe is a piece that deals with grief, mental health issues, and the support of powerful plant medicines.