Affanita

Tala Easton, aka Affanita, works at The Rising Tide Tattoo Collective in Poole. Although she is not long into her tattoo career, she has already established herself as a talented artist with a unique style.

Tala was born in Singapore and came to the UK at the age of 12. The unfamiliar environment of the south of England was in complete contrast to her Asian childhood home. “Yes, the transition was a bit weird,” she recalls. “It was a massive culture shock. Singapore is full of the remnants of its British Empire past, but England seemed so different, and nowhere near as multicultural.” Tala remembers going with her father to a local tattoo studio in Singapore. “It was a really tiny place called Johnny Two Thumbs, in a shopping centre. It was those visits, with my dad, that sparked my early interest in tattoos.”

“When I was younger I was always creating art,” Tala tells me, “and I was producing stuff to sell. That's where the name 'Affanita' comes from. It was my art name before I began tattooing, so it just seemed natural to keep it going.”

“I wasn't interested in becoming a tattooist from the get-go,” Tala continues. “That only happened after uni. I went to uni because I believed it was what I should do, but I actually hated it. I changed my course twice. I did video game design at first, and then I changed to illustration. But that didn't work out either, so I changed back to video game design again before finally deciding to leave uni altogether.” Tala really wanted to get something out of higher education, but admits, “The only thing I got from it was a lot of free time to get into tattoos... and a lot of people who would allow me to tattoo them!”