Ajabu Sakile (they/Ja/Ajabu)
is a Baltimore-based ink artist. They were born and raised just outside of Baltimore City but have since fully immersed themself in the city’s beauty and realness. Originally a classically trained musician, Ajabu rejects their institutional education, opting to express in ways that are Afro-centric, accessible to their community members, and honor their transgender experience. They are a distresser of fabric, paper, wood, and skin, and their goal is to make something so detailed and dark that the viewer forgets simplicity.
Ajabu’s Statement:
I am trying to be free. I’m nowhere near free now, but when I am my freest and most hopeful, I create things about what true freedom will be like, through dark, light, stark, burning, shimmering flashes, and scenes of peace. Sometimes, at my least free, I describe what it’s like to wear my chains, through light, dark, stark, graphic, bloody, burnt flashes, fire, & spikes. I revere the dark because truth lives there, and because the collective consciousness seems to have forgotten it at this time.