MIKAL MARIE McALLISTER

Mikal McAllister left a career in acting and music in New York City to move to Dakar with her husband in 2016 where she has since given birth to three children. Naturally drawn to visual arts, she has worked as a photographer and videographer in Senegal and started Magoma, a sustainable women’s clothing line. Throughout all of her creative and entrepreneurial endeavors, Mikal always found time to paint. Her 2022 Biennale OFF exhibition, “Strands”, explored themes of sexual violence in an interactive installation using leftover fabrics. Her current works are inspired by Senegal’s sea and sky, and the materials and clutter that bring Dakar to life.

Mikal says, “A painting is a living being and all I have to do is listen to what it wants to be. I see colors when I close my eyes. When I paint, I think of nothing.”