John was born in Bergen County, NJ and attended Paramus Catholic Boys High School. After graduating in 1980, he took commercial and fine art courses at Bergen Community College and drafting courses at the Plaza School of Drafting.
In 1982, John worked as a structural steel draftsman and did airbrushing and commercial art projects on the side. On the advice from his cousin, John started to seriously think about broadening his horizons and take the plunge into the tattoo field.

During the 80’s and early 90's,(check out "Tattoo Machine" by Jeff Johnson for more) tattooing was not an open field and tattoo artists were very close to the vest with sharing information. The choices were extremely narrow. John gathered bits and pieces of the craft from watching other artists tattoo him and then proceeded to get the equipment and started tattooing himself. Shotsie Gorman had shown him the important basics in sterilization techniques and needle making. John’s friend Robert Balter had shared machine tips and other technical information. In 1988, John’s tattoo career was on a roll. Moving to California in December of 89, John worked with the legendary Kari Barbi before starting his home studio "Tattoo Expressions".
John has also had numerous publishings in some of the top Tattoo magazines (see Press).

Along the way, he has had the opportunity to work with Tom (“Prison Break” and “Red Dragon”) Berg, Ethan and Terry Morgan at So Cal Tattoo in San Pedro, Ca. and tattooed actor Don (“Ogre” from “Revenge of the Nerds” and the Capital One commercials) Gibb.
Working his way back to the east coast, he worked at Shotsie”s Tattoo in Wayne NJ and then Shotsie”s Tattoo West in Newfoundland NJ.

An avid computer graphics, comic book and movie buff, John stays inspired to keep improving the quality of his work.

John now works at Monarch Tattoo in the same location with owner Jen Carmean, Matt Graham, Dave Spataro and Anthony Iarossi.