Joyce Malonga is a self-taught Swiss artist living in South West London. Painting has always been her passion, but it’s only after the completion of her law studies that she truly felt compelled to express her artistic identity and use her art as a form of self-expression and self-reflection.

She is developing a style of painting which aims to visually explore the way people process different emotions and relationships that are important to them. They are designed to speak to the viewer through the body, clay pots and her own very particular colour palette, which together evoke a series of poetic cover pieces for stories of resilience. She addresses a range of emotions that can leave painful impressions, whether this is seen through contortions of the body, textured surfaces or pots that represent the dark parts of the human existence that we all carry within us.

As an artist exploring these complex feelings, she pays attention to the mirroring of bodily movements and the cracks in pots that point toward the transformative possibilities of hope, recovery and learning when we process our most difficult human experiences.

This is why her colour palette matters. Its earthy and soft tones speak to being in the middle of these emotions, but also to her own heritage and memories of the colour palette among the people and landscapes of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This connects the work she does as an artist to her personal life: a journey of self-exploration and multiple heritages.

Most of Joyce’s artwork is available for sale on the website and is painted with acrylics on canvas or paper, but she also uses gouache, soft pastels and watercolour. Please contact the artist via this website to buy, view or commission a painting.