Maliza Kiasuwa

Maliza Kiasuwa was born in 1975 in Bucharest to a Romanian mother and Congolese father. She is a self-taught, multi-dimensional artist and a true citizen of the world. Kiasuwa was raised in Kinshasa and Brussels and currently lives on a disaffected farm by Lake Naivasha, in the heart of the Rift Valley in Kenya. She has had solo exhibitions in London and in Nairobi where she is represented by Circle Art. Kiasuwa examines questions of identity and lineage through painting, stitching and collage. She revisits old engravings representing stiff pot-bellied white paternal ancestors and reimagining them with features from traditional African art in a labor of intimate métissage, reminiscent of surrealism. She also combines handmade materials from Japan with found objects from around her farm.