Bali Tattoo Artist: Marmar Herayuki

Being introduced to tattoo by his neighborhood community, a friend of his brother often made tattoos in Marmar’s house and brought tattoo magazines.Started from looking at the pictures in the magazines, Marmar began trying to draw on papers. Until the time when he was on high school, his friend brought full tattoo equipments and that was the beginning of his tattooing experiences, he started to make tattoos for his friends after school. Sometimes some parents of his friends came to his house and protested because their kids got inked by him. As time went by, he seriously pursued his interest in being a tattoo artist, ever worked at a tattoo studio in Nusa Indah, which was also his first tattoo studio. The studio was joined with a distro in one place. After almost a year working at the studio, Marmar opened a studio in his house for 2-3 years, and moved to Star Tattoo Legian, before finally he joined Suicide Glam Tattoo Parlor. It’s from this place he has learned a lot about management. He feels that Suicide Glam has influenced him in his character development as a professional tattoo artist.

As a tattoo artist from Bali, Marmar admitted that most Bali tattoo artists have good skills and can do freehand, but tight schedules make many of them not up to date. Different with tattoo artists outside Bali, Marmar has the opinion that their designs are up to date, and besides, they’re dare to spend time searching
new designs from the internet or magazines. For tattoo artists, Marmar chose Ibud and Shotonk as they create great works, while Ade Itameda is quite consistent and original in Indonesia.

Now, Marmar reruns the studio in his house, named Hellmonk Tattoo Studio, located in Denpasar. It’s cozy and capacious, not by the side of a big street, and so it fits for relaxing, far from the hectic atmosphere. Most of Marmar’s pictures use traditional figures, like Bali or Japan figures (these 2 kinds are the easiest to find in his gallery and being displayed in the studio). In creating a concept for his client’s tattoo design, sometimes Marmar has a unique habit. He will draw while listening to the client’s favorite music, or by summarizing a story based on his conversation with the client. Besides being busy with his new studio, Marmar also make things for the studio displays, and of course music. For him, music is something he cannot leave behind.