http://voyagela.com/interview/meet-king-afa-of-los-angeles/
I started practicing tattoo in 2001 after I dropped out on my 2nd year at Engineering Technology Institute in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia in South East Asia.
Creative art came naturally since childhood and my interest in engineering developed from Tonga.
I grew up very poor in a 1 room traditional fale (house) in the Kingdom of Tonga, raised by my grandparents in ‘Eua Island ,Tonga without electricity and bathroom.
I moved and lived in Fiji for 7 years. I have lived in the US Territory CNMI Northern Marianas. I came to the US alone and I saw a lot of really bad Polynesian and Tribal tattoos.
I am the first Tongan artist to create a value for Tongan tattoos when Tongans worldwide did not value tattoos as Art. I practiced tribal tattoo in countless garages before hired to work at Zulu Tattoo Hollywood Los Angeles in 2006.
My clients traveled from all over the United States and a wide range of clientele from across the world
https://www.instagram.com/king_afa/
“I do not know to copy the same Polynesian tattoo design on everyone like most tattoo artists, my brain does not function like an assembly line”
“I do not remember people’s tattoos I’ve had done in the past, but I remember people’s stories. I spent tens of thousands of hours with people. We go through pain together and share life stories and life experiences”
“I want people to know that NOT ALL POLYNESIANS TATTOOS are/were just WARRIORS TATTOOS as claimed by most Polynesians today. In an island village community, there must be fishermen, herbal medicine and spiritual healers, cooks, slaves and servants to Kings, Queens and Chiefs, farmers and sea navigators, canoe and weapon builders, storytellers and tattoo artists, musicians, and poets, and traditional house architects and carpenters. There’s an obsession amongst Polynesians today with this “WARRIOR TATTOOS” where they tattoo a shark and not think or attack opportunities like a shark. People tattoo a turtle and they do not have patience like a turtle or create a hard shell of resilient like a turtle.
Micronesians had a better-advanced navigation system. There very few Polynesians today who are spiritual, they became very religious”
“There are 100thousands of people all over the world today who are wearing Polynesian art for aesthectic reason.
“It is not the fault of foreigners that they do not understand Polynesian tattoos, it is the failure of Polynesian artists. It is an artist obligation to educate people on history of this ancient art, culture of this ancient civilization” King ‘Afa