“I still draw every day,” Varo says as he sets up to tattoo a small spider with an eye of Buddha on its abdomen. You can tell this is true when you look at the variety of his pieces. While a good portion of his artwork is characterized by pan-Asian, neo-traditional styles, Varo is capable of a wide range. He does blackwork with small splashes of color; bright, full-color pieces; and illustrations with fluid anatomy. When he visited the US, he even focused more Western icons for the new audience he was visiting. Exploring new styles is a big part of his art and feeds into his creative nature.

Varo has a new shop with a Thai partner in Bangkok called Avakard Tattoo Space inside Super Nice Land, where he works every couple of months for extended periods. He was born and raised in Korea where he also runs two other shops in Seoul and Busan under the Lighthouse banner, a team he started 12 years ago. When he first started visiting Bangkok, it was to guest at Common Ground and then at Yellow Hippies. “This city has a special, comforting vibe to me—plus I love the food,” he laughs.

Graffiti and murals initially caught Varo’s interest during high school, but soon after graduating he got his first tattoo and was hooked pretty much immediately. “That’s still my close tattoo brother,” he says of that original piece’s artist. Varo studied alone for about three years before getting a start. Much of his style is inspired by art and picture books, but one of his biggest idols is the recently-passed Kim Jung Gi, a famed Korean illustrator who drew dense, large pieces freestyle with ink brushes. The permanence of that ink, where there’s no way back from a mistake, is clearly related to tattooing. Watching Varo work, you can see the comfort in his own lines, and the ease with which he handles the tattoo gun. It’s also evident in his work. Judge for yourself, you won’t regret it.