Sono is an experienced tattoo artist orginally from Jogjakarta in Central Java, Indonesia. He has been creating skin art for the past 12 years and his talents have taken him all over the Indonesia islands and further to Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Europe. For now he calls the island of Bali home. Sono focuses on custom designs with each tattoo being a completely unique and individ
ual piece of art, not like any other. Each design is tailor made for the client based on their own inspiration and ideas then integrated with Sono’s specific tattooing style. His work is heavily influenced by a rich cultural heritage and inspired by Indonesian ornaments, carvings, statues, batik and traditional fabrics. Pointillism
Sono is skilled in pointillist (dot work) style of tattoo and combines this with Indonesian decorative and tribal motifs. Javanese script
Sono specialises in ancient Javanese script, which is a form of Sanskrit, the original language of Java. Traditional tattoo
As well as tattooing by machine, Sono can create beautiful and personal skin art using traditional tattooing techniques. Hand tapping is a method of tattooing originating from Borneo and the Mentawaii Islands. This is a style of tattoo that is completely unique in design, as it is created using wooden tapping sticks. This is done with the assistance of a stretcher, who stretches the skin for this technique. People will describe the hand tapping tattoo experience as a more gentle and meditative experience with only the sound of the tapping sticks. Another method is hand poking, where the artist uses a stick and needle to create a design dot by dot which gives a more subtle and delicate result from using a machine. Clients often say that hand poking is less painful and a very different feeling from the tattoo machine.
