‘I am my main subject. I change so much so fast. I can’t stay on one angle all the time. My perspectives change the more I learn, read, come in touch with people.’
Mustafa Maluka (1976) took up residency at the Thami Mnyele Foundation in 1998.
His current body of work deals with his attempt to develop a theory towards a definition of the aesthetics of trauma. Maluka had started working with the subject of trauma very early in his work. One of his strongest early portrait paintings was of a man in a Nazi war camp.
His current technique, while relying more on colour than painting skill, has evolved to a point where having his computer crash a few times during the making of a work can sometimes be the best thing for a piece. Aesthetically, he has incorporated the anomalistic interference caused by pushing his machine to the max, thereby driving his processor to the limit.
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