Maliza Kiasuwa

Maliza Kiasuwa is a self-taught artist of Congolese-Romanian origin, born in 1975, in Bucharest. She works and lives in Nairobi, Kenya. She uses painting, sculpture and collage. Kiasuwa works with everyday objects and materials, with an interest in the history and mutability of objects.

Kiasuwa evokes forms that intertwine the natural and the artificial, working with materials ranging from paper and wool yarn to raffia, rubber and polyethylene mesh. The cultural and historical associations that these materials carry as a consequence of the global flow of goods and the changing utilitarian value of these materials, form the basis of an inquiry into her own personal identity, as a Romanian-Congolese woman born in Europe and raised in 21st century Africa that questions the nature of art today.

Kiasuwa's work has been shown in solo exhibitions in 2019, Sulger-Buel Gallery, London, Impact Art Fair, Lagos, Nigeria, Heinrich Boll Foundation, Nairobi, Kenya, Kenya CCCM Gallery, Switzerland , to Kohler Gallery, Switzerland, to Circle Art Gallery, Kenya.