Mustafa Maluka

#MustafaMaluka

Born in 1976, Cape Town, South Africa.

Lives and works in Turku, Finland.

Mustafa Maluka explores people's interactions that happen within particular contexts with references and predications that have context-specific meanings and outcomes.  These in turn have a multitude of effects on how, over time, people develop means of coping by looking for overlaps and similarities in order to absorb new influences in their process of acculturation.

He paints provocative portraits of characters presented against striking  backgrounds of vibrant color and textured gestures. By using  various techniques in applying multiple layers of paint, Maluka creates his signature striated and flecked faces with calm yet sublime and often indifferently stoic expressions.

This style of layering paint allows Maluka  to inject his characters with their reserved stares into their created contexts one layer of paint at a time, and thereby fleshing out their idiosyncratic identities.