This Vancouver barber has mastered the fine art of cutting hair

Growing up in northwest Toronto, Junior Adusei remembered being surrounded by trouble.

"Everybody [was] seeking respect — whether they're willing to take it by force, or just prove a point to somebody. That's the kind of environment," Adusei said. Today, he's a barber and business owner in Vancouver.

Adusei was raised in Toronto's Rexdale neighbourhood. At 16, he started looking for work to help support his family.

It began as a hobby, with Adusei cutting his friends' hair and building a reputation as the guy who could do a good flat top. He said that's how he got his first job in a local barbershop.

"Cutting hair kind of saved my life, because a lot of my friends that were in school with me... well, they didn't have such good endings," Adusei said.

The job unexpectedly set the trajectory for his future as an artist in a non-traditional setting.

After studying a year of fine arts at Humber College, Adusei said he became a hair artist.

"If you are going to draw a face or something on the back of somebody's head, you have to know how to draw. Otherwise you'll end up with a stick man on the back of someone's head." 

He said his education taught him to think about anatomy — to see veins and curves on the skull and to understand how they could work with his designs.

Adusei now owns a barbershop in Davie Village, with a second location opening soon in Kingsway, close to Boundary Road in Vancouver.

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