a bittersweet send off
It’s back to school season, and for Smithworks that means waving goodbye to artist and fabricator extraordinaire Malik Jalal as he heads back to school to get his MFA in sculpture at Yale. We are so very proud of his work in the shop as well as the continued success of his art practice.
Malik always dreamt of a career in art and has been creating art since he can remember. He first wandered into Smithworks way back in 2013 as a 19 year old Oglethorpe student studying drawing and painting. He was looking for an internship during the summer, and his mom suggested Smithworks. Malik remembers spending his time interning once a week as mostly watching the others work, and sweeping…he remembers doing lots of sweeping. It wasn’t too long before Jason reached out to Malik for more work because he needed a hand wrapping up a rail. Malik worked off and on in this fashion as needed until he was working every Friday. By his senior year, he was working 3 days a week, and by the time he graduated he was working full time.
Malik continued to balance his work life and art practice. While he was slowly picking up skills and learning the trade of blacksmithing, Malik’s art practice was still primarily focused on painting until Jason encouraged him to apply to make a steel sculpture for Art on the Beltline. His piece was accepted (you can still see it on the Westside trail). That was his first exhibition outside of school, and his first time incorporating what he had learned in the shop into his art.
Malik’s paintings got his toe in the door to the Atlanta arts scene, but he started making more material focused work when the notion of painting was not big enough for some of the ideas he wanted to communicate. It made sense to shift towards more sculptural work because when your studio is a metal shop, it becomes difficult to paint.
Smithworks has benefited greatly from Malik’s creativity and design, and his experience at Smithworks has helped Malik grow his capacity to see and maintain a vision and understand the steps to execute it. We are excited to see what he is able to visualize into form next.
Malik has had shows recently here in Atlanta at the Swan Coach House as well as in New York at the gallery March. He curated the current show Surplus in Pantomime at the Alabama Contemporary Art Center and will no doubt continue to make waves here in the south east and beyond.