About | malka

ABOUT MALKA

At Malka place’s your eyes uncontrollably flit from one artwork to the next. The art, the house, the pet dogs, the family photos commingle, becoming a pulsing whole, an amalgamation of energy and the handmade.

It is nearly inconceivable that someone who began making art only twenty years ago, at age sixty, could produce this quantity, quality, and variety of work. Malka explores multiple themes using an array of materials, particularly the labor intensive processes of cast bronze and aluminum. Her mediums require a real physicality that is not for the faint of heart or weak bodied.

There is palpable, infectious verve in this work and in Malka’s being. Her art is not dispassionate or market driven. It exists because of her engagement with the gamut of life’s affairs. There are works of real joy with images of family and animals. She does not shy away from humor or whimsy.

Nor does she avoid more difficult topics. Malka also constructs tough, disturbing works dealing with death, torture, and abuse of women and children. Her own history allows her to see life as it is: dense, complicated with happiness and horror, richness and squalor, compassion and dread. Through it all she moves forward, determined and positive. An impression of deep empathy permeates these artworks.

To be with Malka in this stimulating environment with her sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, is to feel empowered with the notion of possibilities. Without hesitation or reticence she has embraced the whole of her life as her subject.

Like her name, Malka is singular.

Dane Goodman
Retired Director, Atkinson Gallery
Santa Barbara City College

August 28, 2012