Malayka Gormally’s figurative paintings combine linear simplicity reminiscent of graphic novels or street art with fluidity and emotional expressiveness. Amidst bright blocks of colors, her oil paintings depict moments of physical vulnerability and emotional connection between people of disparate races and generations.

Gormally’s paintings stem from documentation and elaboration. She creates iPad drawings from her photographs of her diverse community and the people she encounters while traveling, which become source material for her paintings. Her work has exhibited in galleries throughout the United States. Gormally has a background in commission portrait painting and has created portraits for one hundred families, including significant international art collectors. One of her paintings was short-listed for the 2014 Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition. She is a graduate of the 2015 Artist Trust EDGE Professional Development Program, and her work is in the collection of the Seattle Portable Works Collection and Safeco Insurance Corporation. Gormally is American, born in 1960.