NC tattoo artist revives dream after losing her arm and shop to botched surgery in Brazil

Brittany George and her mom were in line for more than 30 minutes Saturday before Beauty Art Studio opened its freshly painted blue, pink and purple storefront at 149 E. Franklin St. in Chapel Hill.

At least a dozen others gathered behind them by the door with the twirling. black-and-white barber shop pole. At 11 a.m., they climbed the stairs to the studio, past a chalk wall covered in well wishes. They took a number, choosing from the tattoo designs on the wall.

Studio owner Camila Gama Marrache flitted about, making last-minute adjustments, chatting with customers and friends, and setting out a sidewalk sign. She made sure the catered hors d’oeuvres and white sangria — her favorite — were ready for the party.

George, 30, drove over from Raleigh after seeing the Beauty Art Studio announcement on Instagram, she said. A tiny palm tree added to her ankle matches the seashell tattoo she got recently and marks her upcoming move to Florida, she said.

“The fella that did mine was very quick,” George said. “It was practically painless, and it was right on the bone.”

She would encourage others to also get inked, George said when asked, adding, “Why not? Life is short.”

Marrache, 42, shares that outlook after losing her right arm and her tattoo studio in Apex last year.

She invited guest tattoo artists, a barber, friends and family to join her Saturday, some of them traveling from Florida to lend their support. Neighboring business owners dropped by to welcome Marrache downtown.

She was so excited that she left a key piece of her prosthetic arm at home, Marrache said during a quick tour of her shocking pink, private work space just past the neon “Girl Boss” sign.

“I never, never, never think about my arm,” she said. “I’m happy. I look at the mirror, I look beautiful.”

New life in the United States

Marrache said she didn’t plan to move to the United States. She had been a police detective in her native Brazil for 15 years. Then, in 2015, she traveled to Florida to visit her aunt and met a man. They married four months later.

Marrache applied for permanent residency, working long hours in a bakery and cleaning houses. When the marriage ended five years later, she learned microblading, a semi-permanent kind of eyebrow tattooing, as a way to support her son Caike, now 18, who had moved with her from Brazil. She started traveling to serve clients in North Carolina, where a friend of hers owned a spa.

In 2020, Marrache moved to Raleigh and found herself stuck at home during the COVID lockdown. She always loved art, she said, and bought tattoo equipment, practicing on herself before seeing clients in her apartment. She applied for jobs in tattoo shops, but no one wanted an artist who didn’t speak English, she said.

She opened the first Beauty Art Studio on Capital Boulevard in Raleigh with space for barbers and other artists. That’s where she met her fiance, Marco Alvarez, a local construction contractor who saw her across the room during his barber appointment.

In late 2022, he helped her move the shop to Apex, where the business grew to a steady number of customers, including some from as far away as Charlotte and Georgia.

“I felt, oh my God, this is my dream. I felt amazing,” Marrache said. “Everybody knows my job, follows my page, talks about me. Yeah, I was very happy.”

Losing her arm and her shop

Marrache admits it was vanity that made her seek liposculpture surgery to reduce the size of her butt in 2023. Friends and family recommended a plastic surgeon, and she flew to Brazil for the March 13 procedure.

Five days later, she fainted and was diagnosed with anemia. She had a blood transfusion, and after fainting again the next day, received a shot of Noripurum to treat the anemia. When her fingertips turned black, she was admitted to the hospital for a blood clot in an artery.

In late March, after four surgeries and 12 days in intensive care fighting blood clots, her right arm was amputated above the elbow.

She remembers feeling calm and “very strong,” she said, because the pain, and the emotional toll of sharing a room with 19 mostly older patients, many in agony as they died, had become unbearable.

“You can take off my arm,” she remembers thinking. “I don’t want tomorrow to stay here. I want my life.”

She stayed in Brazil for rehab, closing her shop in Apex and, she thought, ending her life as a tattoo artist.

Ivani Rohling was with Marrache in Brazil as she struggled following the surgery. They met when their kids went to the same school in Broward County, Florida. A native of Brazil, Rohling worked for the company where Marrache had her life insurance. She was able to help Marrache negotiate for an insurance benefit to meet her daily needs after returning to the States, she said.

What happened to her friend was shocking, Rohling said, but Marrache is a strong woman.

“From the bottom of my heart, I feel so, so happy,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “It’s a dream for me to see her like this, to see her (studio) so beautiful, because it’s not just her dream, but it’s somebody who has a good heart (and deserves) to succeed.”

Return to Cary challenges couple

Marrache was in Brazil until June 2023, while Alvarez bought a townhouse in Cary and moved in her belongings. He built a studio in the basement, arranging her tools and tattoo chair to create a familiar space when she returned home.

The transition tested the couple’s commitment.

They had only dated four months before the surgery, and he wasn’t planning to settle down yet, Alvarez said. Marrache struggled with being home alone during the day and couldn’t work, cook or care for her personal needs, she said. Alvarez helped her with daily tasks, taking her to medical appointments and prosthetic fittings.

“I felt destroyed, because I felt, oh my God, this is not my life, and we have a very hard time together, because everything is new for him, too,” Marrache said.

She turned to meditation and art, and with encouragement from Alvarez and her son, learned to draw with her left hand. She learned pointillism, a form of Impressionistic art using small, closely positioned dots to create images, and practiced on herself and Alvarez.

In September 2023, she opened a boutique in the basement studio, selling handcrafted Brazilian sandals, clothing and jewelry. She began tattooing clients in November and invited cosmetologists, a body piercer and other tattoo artists. That didn’t sit well with the neighbors, and Wake County officials told her she needed a permit to keep operating. That’s when she found the space on Franklin Street.

Alvarez completed the renovations with help from Marrache’s longtime friend, Igor Oscar, including the specially designed floor tiles with swirling silver and purple on black acrylic. In December, he surprised Marrache with a marriage proposal.

They’re waiting until next September to make it official.

“One thing, one year at a time,” Marrache said, laughing.

Living with humor, positive attitude

In Brazil, lawsuits are pending against the plastic surgeon and the hospital, which provided statements last year to the Globo G1 news organization. The hospital denied any liability, saying police are still investigating whether an anesthetist punctured Marrache’s artery.

The surgeon declined further comment, but said the damage was not from the liposculpture procedure, the statements said.

Marrache, meanwhile, is moving forward with gratitude and faith.

“She’s been given the inspiration to move others, and ... she’s been learning to love herself more than before and love the people around her,” Alvarez said, translating for Marrache as she slipped into her native Portuguese.

“She’s got more love for life than before, and she’s not worried about the things that she could do.”

Instead, she laughs at them, posting Instagram videos to her 60,000 followers showing how she moves her “bionic arm” by flexing her biceps and triceps. In another video, the lid of a takeout coffee cup pops into the air when she grasps the cup in her metal hand.

Alvarez recounted how a father recently approached them to thank Marrache, because her positive attitude helped his daughter, who has leukemia.

“The guy starts crying, then we start crying,” Alvarez said. “People on social media are always thanking her. (They say), ‘I was in a similar situation, and now I see that you are so strong, I just want to be positive and be like you.’ It’s helping her so much to help others.”