RA I

Thurston Jacobs, also known as RA I, is a multidisciplinary artist from Kraaifontein, Cape Town, South Africa, and the creator and founder of ABOXAN ARTS.

Working independently since beginning his art journey in 2019, RA I has created album artwork and designs for South African musicians including KxNG K, MR Griep and Seed Of Amenti. From 2020–2024, he created album artwork and graphic design for underground Cape Town music label 184Records. His work has also included logos and illustrations for community organisations, private companies and independent projects, including KOS Community Garden, Adwa Movement and Conquerors Reggae Band.

In 2026, RA I participated in Comic Con through the City of Cape Town Emerging Artist programme, where he developed his first Pan-African colouring book in partnership with Adwa Movement, Emerging Artists and the City of Cape Town.

His cultural preservation works created for The Battle of Salt River x Adwa were exhibited as part of the 'Our Cape Town Heritage collection project'.
He also presented two exhibition walkthroughs at Desmond Tutu House in Cape Town, speaking with audiences about the works and the histories they engage.

Creative statement

!Gâi
tses my name is Thurston Jacobs I go by RA I

I am the creator and founder of ABOXAN ARTS.
I am a multi disciplinary Artist
I am a Illustrator, Graffiti Writer ,Traditional Artist, Events Organizer, Poet ,
Hip Hoppa, Emcee from Kraaifontein Cape Town South Africa.

My works are focused on cultural preservation and the storytelling of the realities
of Africa her cultures and people and the mystic of creation itself.
I do many landscape and environment scenes, characters and creatures inspired by the imagination
and my community. I enjoy interpreting the past the present and future of Africa
and the universe through characters, symbols and Graffiti incorporated in the stories.
One of my Ras Tafari brothers I do works for, calls my work - Afro futuristic Art.
I document life as I see it and imagine it and use my illustrations to educate
and inspire people through the visuals I manifest from life experience and the
imagination.
We preserve our story through the expression of what we see and what we do, from that time till this time and a time to come.
Fulljoy the journey with the ABOXAN.

Practice

RA I works across digital illustration, pencil drawing, black pen design, painting and spray painting, alongside graffiti, poetry, hip-hop and emceeing.

His visual practice brings together cultural preservation, storytelling, imagined worlds and observations of contemporary African life. Characters, symbols, landscapes and graffiti become ways of moving between histories, present realities and possible futures.

He is currently developing his painting and spray-painting practice while working as a freelance illustrator and creating new books and stories centred on African life and history.