AJ Azike has many inspirations for his art.
First, it was characters such as Snoopy and Wolverine that he saw in comic books he read growing up in Salt Lake City, Utah. Then the cartoon animal drawings he received from his mother when she was in jail when he was six years old.
As a teenager, Azike snuck out to paint graffiti, which was a process that he says made art “sexy.”
“It’s an adrenaline rush, and it’s dangerous,” he says. “When I was a kid, you would sneak out of the house and come back at 4 or 5 in the morning. Just like a ninja.”