My name's Malaki, usually I'm probably painting or maybe drinking tea at beach, eating Nando's
or sometimes I'm lurking on the street on the corner trying to find a new spot to paint
or something or if the sun's out I'll be chilling by the canal, mixing up squash with
the canal water, making it extra tasty.
My first bike was a BMX that I got from the dump. It had one red wheel, one blue wheel
and it had those plastic mag wheels. I've been saving these Spoky Doki's that I got
with my Weto cereal for weeks beforehand and when I got the bike home I was super bummed
out because I couldn't put them on because they had the plastic wheels. I ended up putting
on like sellotape and a reflector what I got in my Monster Munch as like a substitute for
this.
I've always had this idea to paint quite a fun design on a bike frame with a pattern
and little eyes poking through. The pattern works on the frame because it's easy to link
up on the other side because it has to go 360 all the way around. I picked out the colours
from my paint stash that go together well and then I mixed the acrylics to match those.
Like everyone when they were young, everyone loves colours, colourful things and then when
you get older people seem to like shy away from the colours and it's just something you
can hold and everyone can relate to and it just reminds them of being a kid almost seeing
these big colourful pieces and I was definitely influenced from when I went to a bar in 2000
for the first time and saw all these colourful abstract pieces on the streets and I didn't
really know what they were but I really liked them and that's where it all started. I knew
what I wanted to do, I knew I wanted to do something like that.
When I first moved to Barsa I just couldn't get any work done because with the English
mentality is when the sun's shining you don't stay inside, you've got to go outside, drink
some beers and chill. I probably lost the first three months just because I'd be outside
every day because it's sunny every day, just chilling.
Painting's fun and I love painting so I try and put this energy across when I'm painting
my characters and it's always the head or the face that really brings the character
to life so from painting a shot you've got maybe limited space but you can use it to
the biggest impact, just painting like a big head with a character and then it doesn't
even really need a body, you put on like little legs and it makes it fun and with the character
I would never paint a real picture of a cat that's boring, I could look at a photo of
a cat if I wanted to but if someone said there's a cat with three eyes skateboarding, eating
an ice cream that's something I'd want to see.
