Seoul, Korea based Han, aka Hey Hey Diary is a 21-year-old traveling artist and a tattooer. He only makes handpoke which is a machine free method done all by hands and needles. His story starts with growing natural interest in arts thanks to her mum who studied arts in her 20s. “I have a year younger sister. When we were both young, my mom had to keep me busy to avoid me cause trouble, so that she can take care of the younger one. She used to buy me diy toys, toys that you have to build by yourself. I had robots, warriors, cars and everything. I still have a strong reminiscence of me so focused building those toys in my room in the past. I think that is how I started to get really interested in arts, especially crafting with my hands.” he told us in our online interview, and continued like this; “I’ve been tattooing since 2019 and this is my third year. I have never planned to make tattoos. It just happened. I was taking a year off from my collage. But I wanted to continue creating arts and stay productive. I was into installation arts at that time, so having no access to facilities and tools were a big problem. Then this idea of tattooing flashed in my mind. I witnessed stick and poke when I was in school dormitory a couple of times. The idea came from that memory. Tattoo is a very unique and distinctive form of arts to me. So I was dragged to this unique field and contacted tattoo shops.” At first, he started tattoing with machine, then he learnt handpoking by himself and got help from Zzizziboy. ZZ is the pioneer in this field and he observed him a lot, while he was inking. When we asked him about his future plans, he replied us as follows; “My plan is and was to travel to different countries and meet people who are interested in my arts. But unfortunately, due to the pandemic, I had to change my plan. I would love to be back on my journey as soon as the situation is under control. I don’t know till when I will be tattooing tho. Kind of a paradox, but I’ve never regarded myself as a tattooer, but more as an artist. I am getting more intrigued in expanding my knowledge and experience in arts. Since the pandemic, this market has reduced especially Seoul, South Korea where I am temporarily located. Although many people has tattoos in South Korea, tattoo is in fact illegal. It certainly is not the best condition and an environment to pursue what I am doing right now. I will continue to develop what I already have, but I will have to see how things go.” Below you can see some of his most favourited handpoked tattoo examples.
