Bio

Malaika Ross is a graduate of Hampshire College. She earned her B.A. with a focus in soil microbiology and her Div III thesis was titled “The Impact of Solar Arrays on Soil Microbial Activity”.  She studied Painting and Drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design, San Francisco Art Institute and the Marchutz School of Fine Arts. She completed intensive coursework in sustainable farming, ecological restoration and Hawaiian ethnobotany at the University of Hawai’i, Hilo.

She grew up on the very small island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and spent the vast majority of her childhood playing outdoors with soil, walking among tall grasses, feeding goats and learning about the healing qualities of plants from all the women in her family.⁠

Her grandmother was a small-scale farmer with an extensive kitchen garden packed full with every plant her grandmother would need as an ingredient in her cooking or herbal tinctures. Malaika learned from her that honoring the land was an essential part of life.

Curriculum Vita

GRANTS

  • 2023, Valley Creates Project Evolution grant. A program of the Community Foundation of Western MA and MASS MoCA.

  • 2023, Mass Cultural Council grant for creative individuals.

  • 2022, Valley Creates Capacity-Building grant. A program of the Community Foundation of Western MA and MASS MoCA.

EXHIBITIONS

  • 2024, UMass Amherst Design Building Gallery, Amherst, MA. Y3K On Distant Keys group show.

  • 2023, MCLA Gallery 51, North Adams, MA. Reflecting Ecologies: Artists in Nature.

  • 2023, Geissler Gallery, Stoneleigh-Burnham School, Greenfield, MA. A Different Way to Experience Winter.

  • 2023, Peacock Room, Bombyx Center for Arts and Equity, Florence, MA. Contemporary Botanical Paintings, Winter.

  • 2022, ECA Gallery, Easthampton, MA. The Microbes That Saved My Life: A survey of drawings and paintings of soil microbes.

  • 2022, The Gallery at Hope & Feathers, Amherst, MA. Summer to Fall, a collection of 12 botanical paintings.

  • 2022, ECA/MAP Workspace at Eastworks Open Studio / Solo Exhibition, Easthampton, MA

  • 2021, You + Me Gallery, Group Exhibition: Urgent Unity, Unprecedented Healing: Reflections from COVID, Greenfield, MA

  • 2021, Creative People Leading Climate Action, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (The Augusta Savage Gallery, the Arts Extension Service, and partners in Creative Women Leading Climate Action Virtual Symposium co-hosted Creative People Leading Climate Action, a juried digital visual art and multi-disciplinary exhibition.)

TEACHING

  • 2022, Co-facilitator, Smith College New Student Orientation, Northampton, MA

  • 2022, Workshop Instructor, Watercolor Your Way, Easthampton, MA

  • 2022, Workshop Instructor, Drawing and Painting, Make-It Springfield, Springfield, MA

  • 2022, Guest Artist Speaker, Summer Camp, Easthampton, MA

  • 2022, Guest Artist Speaker, Art Teens, Shelburne Falls, MA

 RESIDENCIES

  • 2022 Easthampton City Arts, MAP Space Artist Residency, Easthampton, MA

Contact

If you have questions about my artwork or would like to send me a general art related message you reach me via email at malaikaross.studio@gmail.com I’ll be in touch within 48 hours.