Artist profile
Mafalda
Vasconcelos
Mafalda Vasconcelos was born in South Africa in 1993, from a Mozambican family, calling Mozambique her home country. Her diverse cultural background and ethnic identity have always been an influence in her work, allowing her to develop an interest in fashion and culture as a way of exploring and understanding how to express and create identity. As a fashion design graduate, fashion illustration and fashion in general are always prevalent in Mafalda’s work, being ion textures, colours, prints or even in the illustrative style of the work itself. The artist currently focuses on illustration, oil, and acrylic painting. Mafalda resides between Mozambique and Australia.
Career Highlights
1. Exhibited my work at the V&A Museum in London, African Fashion Futures Exhibition
2. Worked with brands like Penguin Random House, Sony Music, Revolve Clothing, Bed Threads, I Love Linen, NAKD Clothing, Scotch and Soda, Taibo Bacar, and others.
Artist Interview
What medium do you work with, and why have you chosen them?
Working mainly with oil paints feels specially intuitive and organic, not just because of the feel of the medium but also because it allows me to have a different relationship with time. Oil painting takes longer to dry, painting with it allows me to work consciously and slowly, at the pace that each painting requires.
How does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?
My work starts as a sketch on paper and I work on painting different studies of the same painting to test color and print for the final piece. From this initial painting comes a flood of ideas and inspiration that I then follow to create a collection of works for the exhibition. I find inspiration for color and print from local fabrics - Capulana (Ankara).
Can you tell us a little more about your creative working environment/studio?
My studio is filled with natural light, that come from large windows. I surround myself by different materials and colors as a form of inspiration.
