Follow on Instagram @MalaykaGormally to see works in progress, studio photos, and latest paintings.

Biography

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Malayka Gormally works in the contemporary art field as a figurative painter, curator, and commission portrait artist. Her paintings are included in the City of Seattle Portable Works Collection, the Safeco Insurance Collection, and have exhibited in numerous exhibitions in the United States. In 2017 she was awarded a 4Culture Art Projects Grant to create portraits of immigrant and refugee women in King County, WA. She is currently working on two public art projects.

Since 1997 Malayka has been doing portrait paintings commissions, creating portrait paintings for over one hundred collectors in the United States and Europe, including individuals who have served as board members for the Seattle Art Museum, the Henry Art Gallery, and the Palm Springs Art Museum. One of her portrait paintings was shortlisted for the 2014 Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual exhibition in London.

Working with Tom Gormally as Gormally Art Services, Malayka curates rotating art exhibitions for corporate properties.

She is also a co-founder of ConcussionAlliance.org, a resource for concussions and post-concussion syndrome, built in collaboration with Conor Gormally, providing a consolidated source of treatments, information, and tools to help those suffering from concussions and post-concussion syndrome.

Malayka completed a Bachelor of Arts at The Evergreen State College, after studying at UC Davis, Swarthmore College, and the University of Oregon. Her multi-college BA experience was a product of a ten years hiatus spent cross-country ski racing and running a small business in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In Seattle, she studied with Drake Deknatel and Romson Bustillo at Pratt Fine Arts Center. She was born and raised in Berkeley, California, and resides in Seattle, Washington.


Artist Statement

I was born to immigrant and Jewish parents in the SF Bay area and raised during the civil rights movement. As I child I experienced the turmoil of newly integrated public schools and on weekends I marched in anti-war protests with my mother.

I’m interested in exploring connection and conflict between people of disparate races, generations, and political beliefs. One of my projects is based on personal observation of activists across the spectrum as well as hate-groups, observations made from the viewpoint of my participation in protest marches in Seattle since January 2017. The resultant paintings are reconstructed views of demonstrators that express the raw and uncomfortable energy of the public expression of political beliefs.

I’m also interested in the immigrant experience, and I’m currently painting ink/watercolor portraits of immigrant and women refugees affiliated with the Ethiopian Center of Seattle and the Tukwila office of the International Rescue Committee. This project is funded by a grant by 4Culture, King County, Washington.

For my body of work Beachlife, I based my paintings on the unselfconscious beach culture of Spain and Italy. I wanted to create these paintings for a US audience, particularly women, to provide a jumping-off point for reflection about how we feel about ourselves. Women in the US are much more self-constrained about our bodies, which adds to the measure of disempowerment that we feel. Cognizant of my role as a woman painting other women, I address women's concerns about body size and image, and my paintings reflect a range of physiques and stages of life.