Tattoo artist Ricky Luder has been plying his trade at Fremantle's port for more than 50 years.

Over the decades he has collected the designs and the stories behind them and now plans to share them during the city's annual Heritage Festival.

A walking tour and exhibition will showcase how prolific tattooing was, and still is, in the local area.

Sailors, convicts made Fremantle a tattoo centre

Tattooing in Fremantle can be traced back further than any other place in Australia, Mr Luder said, because it was both a busy port and a convict settlement.

It later became home to the Western Australia's main prison.

"We are probably one of the pioneers of tattooing in Australia," Mr Luder said.

"Many of the famous New York tattoo artists that prospered were here on whaling ships; we have got them on ship's records coming in and out of Fremantle.

"People like Gus Wagner, the founding father of commercial tattooing in America — they were all here."

Many inmates of Fremantle prison were talented tattooists. ( ABC Radio Perth: Emma Wynne )

The first convicts arrived in Fremantle on June 1, 1850 but by then the first inking had begun.

"The convicts, who had all the time in the world on the way out here, were tattooing with lampblack or the soot from their lamps and handmade instruments," Mr Luder said.

Business of ink goes back more than a century

The first recorded commercial tattoo studio can be traced back to 1917, although Mr Luder suspects there were earlier operations.

The exhibition Skin Sin at the Fremantle prison gallery has been curated by Emilia Galatis.

Ms Galatis has been creating alternative arts events in the city for eight years.

Emilia Galatis is planning to get a tattoo on opening night. ( ABC Radio Perth: Emma Wynne )

Normally, she takes people to see galleries and street art, but then last year a venue pulled out at the last minute.

"As a tongue-in-cheek thing we pulled a group of people who were expecting to see an art gallery into a tattoo shop," she said.

"From that we had such good feedback that the council approached me to do a whole event around the tattoo history of Fremantle."

The showcase will feature a large number of flashes (the paper sheets on which tattoo designs are recorded and shared), as well as implements prisoners fashioned to do tattooing in the early years.

'No women allowed'

The exhibition will also show photographs and flashes from Australia's first tattooed woman, Cindy Ray — who shocked the country in 1960 when she displayed her heavily tattooed limbs.

Cindy Ray (real name Bev Nicholas) is the original tattooed lady. ( Supplied )

Until the 1980s, inking women was taboo, even within the industry.

"In the old days I had signs out the front of my shop and a lot of studios did: 'No women allowed'," Mr Luder said.

"In Fremantle it was law; you never tattooed any Italian or Portuguese girls because you would end up in a cray pot out the back of Rotto [Rottnest Island].

"Even an Australian girl, if you tattooed them the father or brother would be in, they'd tear your shop apart.

"It was different days back then."

Live tattooing opens show

Ms Galatis, meanwhile, is not just an observer of tattoo culture; she got her first ink eight years ago and is now hooked.

"I'm Greek so I wanted mermaids and Greek gods and eyeballs and things that related to my kind of history," she said.

"And then I did start getting very heavily tattooed regularly after that."

There are still more than 50 tattoo studios in and around Fremantle today. ( ABC Radio Perth: Emma Wynne )

She is preparing to become an active part of the exhibition — getting a tattoo on the opening night chosen by an audience member.

"We are doing a raffle and they can pick the design off one of the Cindy Ray sheets and I will get it tattooed," Ms Galatis said.

"I haven't chosen sheets that I hate but I don't have control.

"I'm OK with that."

Art behind bars

Also revealed as part of the exhibition is the long association between prisoners at Fremantle's jail, which closed in 1991, and tattooing.

One inmate, Bobby Thornton, was not only a prolific tattooist but also a keen artist.

He painted a mural across the walls of his cell a few years before the jail closed — the walls have been reproduced as part of the exhibition.

"He was probably the most talented tattooist I've ever seen," Mr Luder said.

"He was a bit of a scallywag, never anything bad, but he caught up with the law a lot."

Thornton was transferred to Bunbury prison as a punishment for decorating his cell but continued a prolific business in tattooing behind bars.

"I went to Bunbury jail to pick him up at the end of his stint there and he has two laundry trolleys full of paintings, TVs; he'd swapped all this stuff for tattooing," Mr Luder said.

A piece of skin tattooed in 1974 and given to Ricky Luder by the owner for preservation. ( ABC Radio Perth: Emma Wynne )

Mr Luder even has a piece of skin tattooed by Thornton in 1974, donated by the owner who wants it preserved.

"That's what's interesting about this event, it's all this undocumented history," Ms Galatis said.

"But once you start talking to people that know things about it there are themes and narratives and characters that don't exist except for oral history."

The Skin Sin exhibition is at Fremantle Prison Museum from May 26 to June 4.