Remember those rave kids back in the 90's who wore crazy, colorful clothes, manic panic'd their hair, and dropped loads of ecstasy (I won't remind you of those awful back-packs, pacifier and whistle accessories and/or super wide-leg, baggy pants...)? Those ravers are sort of who Mustafa Maluka's solo show, A Place So Foreign, at Tilton Gallery remind me of. According to the exhibit's press release, "The faces of his transnational, racially and sexually ambiguous characters are densely painted... by building up layers of splashes and washes on the canvas surface alongside bold patterns and forms that determine the mood and overall tone of the works." The pretty, young, trendy subjects of his large-scale portraits are swathed in neon prints, adorned with green eyebrows and blue lips, and posed before eye-popping graphic backdrops. Through his psychedelically-colored canvases, Maluka is "theatrically confronting... contemporary critical theory and global politics."
The show's title, A Place So Foreign, is a reference to Maluka's "own experience as a global citizen." Born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1976, the artist was raised in Amsterdam. He currently divides his time between Helsinki and New York. The colorful kids in Maluka's paintings share with the artist worldly and diverse lifestyles and are fortunate to "inhabit Plural Worlds." Learn more at Jacktiltongallery.com. Check out the artist's website at Mustafamaluka.com. Through December 24th.
Home Again, Home, Again, 2009
I forgot where it all began, 2009
I Won't Let You Use Me Up, 2009
There's got to be an end to this beginning, 2009
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