TUJ Art Binalmas Malak is a Saudi Arabian contemporary artist based in Tokyo. Malak works with a variety of mediums such as oil paint, pastel colors, gouache paint, printmaking, and graphic design. However, her main used mediums are oil paint and graphic design but also mixing them in one art piece. She finds that creating art relaxes her, which can be noticeable in her color palette that consists of pastel and some dark muted colors that give a sense of calmness to her artwork. Malak came to Japan in 2017 wanting a career in gaming character deployment. Yet after coming to TUJ she had discovered a different path. During Covid-19, she found her love for flowers. Thus, now Malak’s main subject of choice are flowers with some illustrations of her favorite food. She always likes to include tulips because they have a personal meaning. She does many self-portraits projects expressing herself as a sunflower, as she feels it fits her personality the most.
During the time where I had a connection with flowers, I have found the most important person in my life. The bracelets here depict our promise to each other and having multiples of it emphasizes on the significance of the bracelet to us.
The flowers are placed in shape that looks like a compass and each flower has a different direction to it. The blue morning glory aims for affection, the pink tulip means declaration of love which is what I’m aiming to do with my work. The red rose says I love you and lastly the sunflower means adoration. All of these flowers have their own unique way to direct a person to find love.
I received a tulip at the beginning of 2021, I saw it blooming every day, which was mesmerizing to witness. Thus, I thought that when we patiently wait for the time to passes everything will turn out to be okay. Each day or month we wait, we have to appreciate the beauty of it.
I used the petals of a tulip I got as gift. I think that adding some real objects in an artwork add some kind of a sentimental touch for me. Especially with tulips that started my passion in flower artworks.