Azariah King is an artist, photographer and writer working out of St. Louis, Missouri. Catch him on Instagram here and here.

I have a thing I do when I look at people. Sometimes I observe how their facial structures are composed over their muscles and bone structure. I instantly translate their face, their body, their skin into a messy or clean mental picture of a charcoal drawing or multicolored painting.

I tend to see people in multi-colors. I rarely have a specific message to send through my work, but when I do, it usually pertains to social justice issues like racism, bullying, abuse, etc. I mostly like to capture the beauty of the human face and body, and after taking figure drawing in college, I developed a love and appreciation for the human body regardless of what shape it’s in.

My signature style in painting developed primarily through arranging a clash of warm and cold colors. None of it was intentional—it all developed and evolved over time. Plus I didn’t know how to make flesh tones so I just… went for it.

My influences are first and foremost everything I see, feel and experience, but I’ve always loved comic books, figure drawings, anime, and particularly work by Stephen Bennett, Daniel Leon Hodges, Cbabi Bayoc and Billy Bill.