Malca Schotten

“My practice is predominantly drawing – large-scale and high energy. My work is about life, labour, documentation. It uses dynamic form, movement, life and energy. My drawings are carefully crafted yet raw and expressive, emerging from a primal response to the subject, using my visual and emotional memory to develop the work, representing the subject in its essence.”

“I am committed to a journey of exploring the subject matter, and to my mastery of drawing. For me drawing is an endlessly challenging and compulsive practice, as each subject demands a new approach and reassessment of previous working methods. It is a critical means of communication for me, a visual language which enables me to comment on the world and what I find interesting about it.”

Malca Schotten studied illustration at Brighton Polytechnic and her post graduation endeavours have seen her engage in a vast number of group and solo art exhibitions. Specifically she showed at Gressenhall, Norfolk in a solo exhibit titled Roots of Norfolk (2005) as well as with us at the Fairhurst Gallery in Maternity (2014) and collectively in If We Opened People Up We’d Find Landscapes (2019). Schotten’s landscape pieces, use a camera as an aide – memoire, she takes quick pictures before returning to her studio while the experience is fresh in her memory to create uninhibited, evocative drawings. 

The artist has also been supported by the Arts Council England on several occasions to produce a series of self initiated public art projects, including Lives in Science at the John Innes Centre, Norwich (2017), as well as working to run her own drawing and mark making workshops for adults. Further achievements Malca has been successful with is winning commissions for drawings and illustrations, including two BBC documentaries.