Khalil Mosley prays after inking his art on people

It is a Saturday night and Khalil Mosley just finished the last details of a tattoo he agreed on a week ago on a freshman. After his client leaves, he tosses away the sweaty blue gloves smeared with scrap ink and throws his head back on the couch’s headrest. His shoulder slouches from hours of crouching down.

The house was quiet, except for the cooing melody from his speaker. Khalil turns down the music and starts murmuring. He doesn’t call it praying. He asks God for forgiveness after injecting ink under someone’s skin and permission to pursue this path. 

Khalil has been working as an independent tattoo artist from his bedroom for four years. One of his clients describes Khalil as “methodical.” He is particular with his equipment and his process. Many also describe him as patient and open about his work and life. His style mainly consists of traditional, black and white tattoos, but Khalil hopes to expand it to color in the future. His impressive portfolio contains many designs with themes of Christianity, such as Bible verses, the cross and rosaries. “​​It depends on the client, if they're religious and want religious-themed tattoos, I would do it,” he explains.

Growing up, Khalil went to church every Sunday. As a boy, he used to look up to the covered arms of his mom and pops. The tattoos they usually show at home were not visible. “Tattoos have always been like a bad thing for us for certain people. But also it's a blessing. It's a beautiful thing because it sticks with you as a part of who you are,” Khalil said.

In a way, young Khalil grew up seeing the different artwork on his family’s bodies. He was curious as a kid and didn't know what tattoos or the idea behind it was. As he got older he realized his parents made their own decision. They wanted to get meaningful tattoos or to try something different. 

Khalil also possesses an extensive collection of tattoos for himself, most of which were designed or inked by him. His arms are almost full of designs, the ink faded with time. He has his mother's and sibling’s names tattooed across the length of his left forearm. On both his biceps, he has images of clouds and doves representing his loved ones who have passed away, including his uncle who was shot and died when he was a baby. 

Coming of age in the West side of Chicago, Khalil made acquaintances with the violence that haunted his neighborhood. People were poor, hungry, desperate and angry. Cops showed up at his school to search for drugs, only to find hungry bellies and hand-me-downs that were three sizes too big. He went to bed with the echoes of distant gunshots blaring, the street light reflected on his bedroom ceiling. Khalil understood more than anyone how important it was to live a life he could be proud of. “I managed to stay away from the wrong crowd, I stayed away from the wrong people,” he says. 

When the world around him became too cruel to bear, Khalil found solace in the form of sketching. Nurturing a deep love for animation, he found inspiration from anime classics such as Dragon Ball Z and Naruto. He filled sketchbook after sketchbook with doodles, portraits, shapes and colors. Art became a habit to Khalil and his love for it only grew bigger. 

Everyone at school knew Khalil as an artist, even the teachers. He was sketching all the time and everywhere. When his pencil began moving on the page to finish a draft he had left off from the night before, Khalil felt the world quiet down. The only sound beating through his eardrums was the swoosh of his pencil tip on paper.

To him, recognition meant approval. “A lot of people in school thought my artwork was so unique. And it could be something bigger, greater,” Khalil says. Until the age of seventeen, compliments only gave him the courage to carry on with his passion. However, during his senior year of high school, he found a spark.

It was 2020, and Khalil had just turned eighteen. To celebrate, his teenage rebellious instinct drove him to the tattoo studio. He remembered how his heart started racing the moment he lay down on the bed, so hard he was scared it might jump out of his chest like in those cartoons he loved. The needle felt like electricity flowing from the ink to his body, biting the skin to make its way into his system. 

During those hours when he submitted himself to the artist, Khalil knew he put his full trust in him. It took Khalil two appointments to muster up the courage to bring out his sketchbook to show him. He was impressed and suggested Khalil follow the same career as him. The third time Khalil showed up at the studio, he left with a duffle bag of tattoo equipment. “He just gave it to me for free and was like, So just go crazy and practice. And I said, bet,” Khalil laughs over the story. 

Under his mentor’s guidance, Khalil practiced on the skin of a grapefruit. Steadily, he graduated to artificial human skin, then real skin. His first tattoo was on his then-girlfriend. The responsibility of marking someone permanently felt heavy on his needle. While his first tattoo was four years ago, Khalil carries this weight as a reminder to be careful with his clients. “First and foremost, you have to make sure your client trusts you as a tattoo artist,” he says. Improving his capability, Khalil gained the trust of his family members, close friends and attracted a clientele.

When his new business started to blossom, Khalil came to Augustana College. As the oldest brother, he knew he had to make a difference. Since both his parents didn’t go to college, it was up to him to become a role model for his three siblings. He wanted to move his family to somewhere better and safer. While clueless about what his major would be, this intention motivated him to study.

He took a lot of classes but wasn't fully interested in any major, so he went to CORE. Khalil credited Keri Bass for talking through areas of study he can go into with his passion for art. After exploring options for artists, they landed on Graphic Design. He started taking different graphic design classes that tapped into uncharted territories such as Typography, Intro to Graphic design, Motion and so on. “Taking those different classes helped me as a graphic designer and as an artist because it helped me come up with designs that are original or designs that I was passionate about,” he recounted.

It was in one of those classes that he became close with AJ Joyner, one of his best friends and current roommates. Met through a friend of a friend, AJ was naturally curious about Khalil’s tattoos. He didn’t consider himself a visual artist, for he was more gifted with music. Khalil was the reason he took Drawing Inquiry. He witnessed Khalil’s talent by collaborating with him on projects for the class and felt his artistic abilities were amplified by Khalil. “It’s very nice as artists to see his artistic abilities and creativity versus mine and then just meshing those together,” he reminisced, “I think he has a lot of goals and aspirations and it's nice to have someone like that around because it kind of rubs off on you.”

For Khalil, he knows others have always thought of him as a closed-off, sometimes intimidating, person. He also knows they would change their minds once they get to know him. He wishes they know how open-minded he is or how he loves talking to new people. “From the way I talk, people will see that I'm different,” he said. His dialect and his quiet demeanor can come across as cold to some. One of them is Aniyah Davis, his friend and the Captain of Heavy Steppas.

They first met through mutual friends when Aniyah was a freshman and Khalil was a sophomore. At first, she thought Khalil was mean and not outgoing at all. Slowly, they developed a friendship. Her cold first impression of him melted and they grew closer each day.

Aniyah came to Augie knowing she wanted to do step dancing. She joined Heavy Steppas and participated in Yell, an Augie Homecoming tradition. When the club was looking for people to recruit, Aniyah immediately thought of Khalil. He agreed. After a year of performing together, she realized how much caring he is for people around him, “We have a sibling type of relationship,” Aniyah said, “He is the brother I never had.” The legacy Khalil has built at Augie goes beyond the tattoos he gave his clients, but the mark he left in his friend’s soul.

After four years of education and experimenting with his art, Khalil is now a senior. He dreads the question about his plan after graduation. If he could have it his way, he would work his way up to be fully licensed and open a tattoo studio. “My cousin is a barber and we have this idea of a joint place where he would do hair on one side and I tattoo on the other,” Khalil dreams of his future shop. From a teenager practicing on a grapefruit, Khalil Mosley certainly has come a long way. The future only seems to hold more for him.