Featured Artist: Keone Nunues

Keone Nunues is a traditional Hawaiian tatau practitioner based in Nanakuli. With over twenty years of experience, he began tattooing using the traditional Polynesian "tapping" method, using his own handmade moli (tattoo tool) and pa'u (ink). 

Nunes learns about his subjects before he settles on a unique design that represents who they are. He believes that a tattoo is more than just skin-deep. There are no books filled with tattoo designs in Nunes’ tattoo room, just as there is no tattoo studio where he does his work.  He has no website, no contract to have his own reality TV tattoo show.  He knows 175 various motifs in the Hawaiian tattooing tradition, which are mostly based in the genealogy.