NICOLA NAPOLI (WIKO)

WIKO rarely sets out to draw something specific — the image usually finds him first. Some pieces arrive fully formed and he works backward from there; others emerge from something close to a trance, drawn without watching himself do it, the shape only becoming clear once the page is finished.

Before drawing, there was music: years spent performing, designing, and supporting other artists’ visions — work that put him in the same rooms as Snoop Dogg, Beenie Man, and Sizzla. That background left him distrustful of "concept" dressed up as marketing, and committed instead to a line that shakes rather than resolves, because imperfection is proof somebody was actually there, feeling something, when it got made.

Esotericism and an unresolved spirituality run under most of what he makes. None of this is a résumé — it's a work in progress, and he is not finished.