Mala Iqbal
Region: Northeast
I work with a wide range of visual sources, taking cues from Western landscape
painting, Indian miniatures, kitsch, sci-fi book covers, graffiti, cartoons, and things I
observe throughout the day. I try to take something surface-oriented and add depth
and ambiguity, to bring together worlds and styles that aren t supposed to meet and
make them coexist in a way that is sincere and nuanced.
What I most enjoyed in the cartoons I watched as a child was the play with
convention and expectation. The coyote paints a tunnel on the side of a cliff so the
roadrunner will run into the rock, and instead the roadrunner goes straight through a
suddenly real tunnel. When the coyote runs after his prey, he smacks into the cliff. I
try to set up a similar relationship to reality in my paintings to simultaneously draw
someone into a believable space, and show up the façade.
![](https://nap-master.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/styles/entry_thumb/public/unmoored%20canoe-300dpi.jpg?6XykmunvWr_lZgJ6NT4k1VabbcOia9m4&itok=Sx_LTA1y)
![](https://nap-master.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/styles/entry_thumb/public/traveler-300dpi.jpg?LIbAyqWsnyA1nRa_i.5ykHzN9zFT6Xmu&itok=DzY919y4)
![](https://nap-master.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/styles/bio_cover_img/public/iqbal.jpg?XwEpfQxMiMb0O1l28CQF1VXBiYEblR5f&itok=J5-shWGt)