Han Ju Kim is a tattoo artist in Korea who focuses on reality tattoos. He focuses on the clients’ memories, favorite characters, families and values, and painting them on their bodies.
Han Ju Kim started working in the tattoo industry because he loved to draw. As a child he loved to draw and dreamed of meeting, exchanging, and communicating with people through painting.
“My job as a tattoo artist was also a job where I could meet and communicate with people through painting and leave my paintings on other people’s bodies with my work. I got a new dream. After that, I became interested in a job as a tattoo artist and started this job after studying tattoos.” Han Ju Kim shares.
Life is full of challenges people must overcome in order to continue on their path to success. When you are new in any industry, it is always a bit complicated at the beginning, among other things because not many people know your skills or experience.
“The challenges I ran into included finding a client who accepts my inexperienced skills as a tattoo artist, and as there is not much work, the day to day life can be difficult financially. Since tattoos stay on the body for a lifetime, tattooers want a proven and competent artist. When I first started tattooing, people didn’t know my skills and didn’t trust me because I didn’t have a lot of work. So there were times when I had to ask my acquaintances if they could accept my work, and there were times when I had to work for free.” Han Ju Kim explains.
There was a time when things were not going well for Han Ju Kim, which included his parents’ opposition to him doing tattoo work because tattoo work in Korea is considered illegal. In order to overcome this difficulty, he had to persuade his parents.
“My parents wanted me not to choose illegal work. I explained about the tattoos to my parents and asked them to reconsider after a year. After that, I became independent from my parents, and my parents recognized my work as I showed my life without support from my parents.” Han Ju Kim says.
As an artist and skilled tattoo artist, Han Ju Kim differs from other artists in the fact that he takes care of details in every work which makes every client impressed by the quality of details in his tattoos and cannot take his eyes off those details.
“When it comes to design, I reflect a lot on the opinions of my clients. If I communicate a lot with my clients and understand their ideas, they will trust me. There are designs that clients want and designs that I pursue, but I try to satisfy the opinions of both. If that happens, better work will come out, and I think that’s also what sets me apart from other artists.” He adds.
In the near future, Han Ju Kim plans to finish a project he started in Korea earlier this year, as well as accepting an invitation to work at an Israeli tattoo store as a guest tattoo artist.
Learn more about Han Ju Kim’s work here.