Malaika Favorite

Malaika Favorite (1949, Geismar, Louisiana) is a visual artist and writer whose art work can be found in major collections in the U.S. She works mainly in oil, acrylic, and water color and has carried out experiments with folded canvas and the written word as another dimension of a painting's text. Her provocative paintings and sculpture pieces emanate as much from her personal history as it does from the wider world.

Early life

The second of nine children, to Amos Favorite, Sr. and Rosemary Favorite. In the 1960s she integrated the Ascension Parish high school in Geismar, Louisiana, when she became the first African-American to attend the all-white high school.

Career

Favorite received her B.A and MFA degrees in fine art from Louisana State University where her first works appeared. Her art work is featured in Art: African American by Samella Lewis, Black Art in Louisiana by Bernardine B. Proctor and the St. James Guide to Black Artist, edited by Thomas Riggs and can be found in the following collections: Absolut Vodka collection, Morris Museum of Art, Augusta GA, Louisiana State University Print Collection, Baton Rouge, LA., Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria LA., The Coca Cola Company, Atlanta GA., Hartsfield International Airport, Atlanta GA, The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati Ohio, Rosel Fann Recreation Center, Atlanta GA. She also has outdoor murals on Auburn Ave in Atlanta and on White St. in Atlanta.

She has published a collection of poetry, Illuminated Mansucript, New Orleans Poetry Journal Press, 1991. Her poetry, fiction, and articles appear in numerous anthologies and journals, including: you say. say and Hell strung and crooked (Uphook Press) 2009 & 2010, Pen International, Hurricane Blues, Drumvoices review, Uncommon Place, Xavier Review, The Maple Leaf Rag, Visions International, Louisiana Literature, Louisiana English Journal, Big Muddy, and Art Papers. She is the winner of the 2005 Louisiana Literature Prize for Poetry.

Favorite works in a variety of forms and media. Her experiments with literature as part of the painting's text and those wit folded canvas are prime examples, and she's equally at home working in oils, acrylics, water-colors, and lithographs. She notes in one of her artists statements that:

it is very difficult to explain a work or art, mostly because the work is its own explanation. Art is not for the immediate audience only, if it was it would be a prop or backdrop for a play, designed to be viewed for a limited time. Visual art should be timeless. It should speak to each generation, and to each viewer as an endless dialogue that continues to inspire, fascinate and delight.

Awards and grants

• Puffin Foundation Grant, 2008
• Porter Fleming Foundation Grant, 2007
• Georgia Council For The Arts, 1992
• Special Grant for Excellence in the Arts, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, 1987.
• Fulbright-Hays study tour, Art of India, 1978.
• African American Institute, 1975.

One person shows

• Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur GA. March - April 2000
• Camille Love Gallery, Atlanta GA January 1996
• Stephens College, Davis Art Gallery, Columbia Missouri, November 1993
• Augusta College, Augusta GA, February 1993
• Paine College, Augusta GA, January 1993
• Galerie Melancon, Lake Charles LA. February 1990
• Posselt Baker Gallery, New Orleans LA. November 1989, 1986, 1985, 1984
• South Shore Bank, Chicago Illinois, February 1989
• Zigler Museum, Jennings LA., August 1988 Baton Rouge Gallery, June 1988.

Major collectors

• St. Margarets Catholic Church, Lake Charles LA.
• Morris Museum of Art, Augusta GA.
• Louisiana State University Print Collection, Baton Rouge, LA.
• Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria Louisiana.
• The National Ecumenical Museum of Art: St. Louis, Missouri.
• Lucey Laney Walker Museum, Augusta GA River
• Road African-American Museum, Burnside LA.
• The Coca Cola Company, Atlanta GA.
• King and Spalding Law Firm, Atlanta GA.
• Absolut Vodka, New York, NY.
• Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, Atlanta GA.
• Harriett G. Damell Senior Multipurpose Facility, Atlanta GA.
• National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati OH.
• West End Mall, Atlanta GA.

References

Lewis, Samella, Art: African American. California: University of California Press; 1 edition, 1994.

Proctor, Bernardine B, Black Art in Louisiana, Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1989.

Riggs, Thomas (Editor),James Guide to Black Artists, Michigan and New York: St. James Press and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 1997.

External links

• http://www.africanamericanmuseum.org/exhibits.html
• http://www.jmu.edu/furiousflower/favorite.shtml
• http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/Malaika.html

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