Malaika Temba

New York, NY

December 2020

in partnership with YoungArts

ARTIST STATEMENT

I learned how to make visual art from listening to music. Hip-hop — how it involves layering, a multimedia collage of instruments, voices, and machinery, and how it has the ability to convey universes of meaning via an iconic beat or ad-lib. My work is inspired by the storytellers who relate the nuances in their experiences to an overarching mission, placing Hip-Hop in its historical context, thinking about how the self-referential world honors, condemns, and progresses culture and cultural analysis. I create large-scale fabric installations that tackle emotional and intellectual vulnerability with heavily disembodied and charged topics. My work is a distillation of global, political and emotional ideas via innovative combinations of media and processes. I work by writing from research and experiences, translating textual ideas into visual ones, and expressing these essential ideas in immersive, experiential ways. The same way a wallpaper design creates motifs, evokes specific locations and eras, develops mood via color palettes and texture, applies designs in spaces, and immerses the viewer. As an artist I experiment radically with this convention by creating the elements of my story, collaging them, writing over them, redefining what that “wallpaper” is and questioning its overall purpose. Fragmented text in my work visually complexes ideas through layering, repetition and process-based iterations. Paint, stamps, stencils and spray paint over woven and silkscreened fabrics make surfaces look dedicated. While I want to communicate, I am scared of revealing too much, and angry about people expecting me to explain. I want to give myself room to be unpredictable, paradoxical and multifaceted. I refuse to feel alienated while feeling so intensely human. My work is a testament to the struggles of black womanhood, interpersonal relationships, and undigested reflections, and a monument to my compulsory PhD in emotional labor. It is a record of black vulnerability, sarcasm, anger, and bliss - distilled, fragmented and abstracted - because it is really about self-actualization, finding my voice and hollering with it. Hizi ni za ukweli, “these are the facts.” For East African Girls who have considered self-worth when Drake is not enuf.

BIO

Malaika Temba is a Textile Artist based in New York. She is extremely influenced by art at the intersection of visuals and sound. Outside of her studio practice, Malaika works as a print designer at the fashion company Pyer Moss, and as a design consultant at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Malaika is originally from D.C. and Tanzania, and graduated with a BFA in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Malaika has been moving since infancy - to Saudi Arabia, Uganda, South Africa, Morocco, then Maryland. She went to an arts high school, participated in the life-changing YoungArts Week, moved to Rhode Island to attend RISD, and now lives in Harlem, NY.
Malaika has worked for contemporary artists including Jim Drain and Kenya (Robinson). She served as President of Black Artists and Designers at RISD, and was awarded the Warren Family Social Engagement Award for her leadership success and impact in the RISD community. Her work has been on view from a gallery during Miami Art Week to the runway during New York Fashion Week and the 2019 MET Gala.

ARTIST LINKS

Website: malaikatemba.com

Instagram: @mvtemba