In Con­ver­sa­tion with Malki Jayakody

From child­hood memor­ies of watch­ing her mother knit to cre­at­ing layered con­tem­por­ary art­works that ques­tion beauty stand­ards and iden­tity, Malki Jayakody has built an artistic prac­tice deeply rooted in per­sonal reflec­tion and social obser­va­tion. Cur­rently pur­su­ing her Mas­ters in Fine Arts at the Uni­versity of Kelan­iya, the emer­ging visual artist uses por­trait­ure, mixed media, and tex­tured mater­i­als to explore themes of col­our­ism, woman­hood, memory, and self-accept­ance.

 

Fea­tured at Take a Chill Pill at Rad­icle Gal­lery, Malki speaks to The Sun about exper­i­ment­a­tion, emo­tional expres­sion, and trans­form­ing lived exper­i­ences into thought­pro­vok­ing con­tem­por­ary art.

 

Q: Can you tell us about your jour­ney into visual arts and how your artistic iden­tity has evolved over the years?

 

Since I was around four or five years old, I nat­ur­ally became inter­ested in art by observing my mother. She used to do knit­ting as a hobby, and while watch­ing her, I began draw­ing as a way of imit­at­ing her cre­at­ive pro­cess. That early con­nec­tion with mak­ing things by hand became the begin­ning of my artistic jour­ney. My par­ents gave me the free­dom to fol­low my pas­sion rather than for­cing me into con­ven­tional social expect­a­tions. Because of their sup­port, I was able to pur­sue Fine Arts aca­dem­ic­ally and pro­fes­sion­ally. I com­pleted both my Bach­elor’s and Mas­ter’s degrees in Fine Arts at the Uni­versity of Kelan­iya. Throughout my aca­demic jour­ney, I remained deeply com­mit­ted to con­tinu­ing my artistic prac­tice, and over the years my artistic iden­tity has evolved through research, exper­i­ment­a­tion, and per­sonal reflec­tion.

 

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May 25, 2026