A Connecticut Army veteran has taken home two Guinness World Records after having 99.98 percent of her body tattooed and altered—and she’s still hungry for more.
Esperance Lumineska Fuerzina officially became the most tattooed and body modified woman in history after a ten-year project that saw her have her eyeballs tattooed and scale-like implants injected into her scalp.
“I think it’s obvious that I don’t try to conform to traditional beauty ideals. That can be liberating on the one hand, but on the other hand it’s also something that a lot of people don’t understand and can take negatively,” Fuerzina told Guinness World Records.
According to the new record holder, her body represents a moving canvas that follows the theme of “transforming darkness into beauty.”
This artwork includes ink on her tongue, gums, eyeballs, and even her genitals.
But Fuerzina didn’t stop there. She can also boast of 89 body modifications – including 15 subdermal implants, a forked tongue, nipple removal and 18 genital piercings.
Fuerzina’s lack of fear of intense changes to the most sensitive parts of her body helped her surpass her record-holding predecessors.
The Army veteran narrowly beat the woman with the most tattoos, Charlotte Guttenberg, whose body was 98.7% covered – but Fuerzina easily broke the record for body modification. The previous record of just 40 tattoos had stood untouched since 2012 and was just waiting to be broken by the Connecticut woman.
According to the new record holder, her path to becoming the title winner was nothing more than a coincidence.
Fuerzina had been painting and mutilating her body for over a decade – peppering it with memories of world travels and drawings by friends – before a friend mentioned that she had a chance of winning the title.
“I had some concerns at first,” Fuerzina admits, looking back on the application process, “but I wanted to try to show the strength of women and what is possible by applying for the record myself.”
Her love of ink began at age 21, when she got her first tattoo: a symbol on her hip tied to her time with a previous lover, which she soon had covered up.
Just a few years later, Fuerzina began undergoing body modifications, starting with her forked tongue.
She does most of her own drawings, but she often lets the creative energy of her trusted tattoo artists flow and uses her body as a drawing board, she said.
Even now, with little space left on her body, Fuerzina shows no signs of slowing down: “With my body covered, I still find it hard to imagine the set ending.”
“Of course, I’m not finished yet!”
