Public Art

Sofia’s work spans painting, textiles and video with a current focus on exploring the material production of wool and the practice of craft in the digital age. She is interested in the relationship between the image in digital and ‘off-line’ cultures with a particular interest in how online images have afterlives beyond the screen. Her practice is continually engaged in artist publishing, working on many publications both independently and collaboratively along with co-organising publishing fairs across the UK.

She is a founding member of artist collective OOMK, who publish works exploring art, politics and faith. Along with Rose Nordin and Heiba Lamara (OOMK), she currently runs Rabbits Road Press, a community Risograph printing press in Newham, London.

Recent and upcoming commissions include Southbank Centre, Serpentine Galleries (with OOMK), Eastside Projects, Grand Union and Bethlem Gallery. She is currently writing a book to be published by Book Works in 2023.

Sofia says of her work for the festival:

“Experimentation and play became an important source of joy, solace and distraction during the early months of the pandemic. Learning new ways of working with simpler materials, this series of artworks explore the process of ‘making without consequence’.

Featuring painted ceramic tiles, tapestries made with hand-spun and/or naturally dyed wool and quick textured mono prints, the artworks are largely inspired by intuitive working and forms found in the natural world.”

Earth, Wind and Fire by Mustafa, a young Newham resident and character artist / illustrator.

“I am a confident and enthusiastic person with ASD who loves to encounter new sorts of challenges. My dream is to become a character designer for cartooning, gaming and illustration. One of my best hobbies are video gaming, animation and Art; which is the
main where I saw some artists develop their character designs for their work such as Gaming, Media and other various industries.

However, this is where I came after my dream to become a character designer in cartooning. One of my major inspirations by other characters artists from the comic and animation industries from Hanna-Barbera, UPA, Tex Avery, DePatie-Freleng, Walt Disney Animation and Walter Lantz Studios. For Instance, my favourite character artists were Ed Benedict, Jerry Eisenberg and Mark Christiansen, who developed their retro style characters which I am in love with.

My other favourite was Patrick Ventura, who showed his outstanding art style to make his cartoony looking designs look edgy, quirky and very surrealistically zany for my liking.”

Mustafa has created three characters for Newham Unlocked, he tell us about each:

Quartzino (Earth, He/Him)
Quartzino is a mythical creature representing an Earth element who digs underground to look for quartz and other sorts of treasure that’s hidden somewhere rare. He only loves quartz because they are so shiny and shimmery, that’s because all of these shiny pieces of quartz make him feel calm and relaxed. He doesn’t want any treasure but he only gives the rest of the unwanted treasure to the people who are poor and homeless; he only wants to keep the
quartz pieces.

Breezius (Wind, They/Them)
Breezius is a non-binary wind droid representing they’re own element. They live up in the mysterious paradise somewhere above the clouds; where all the other wind droids are. Breezius’s hidden magical talent is making art out of gusts of wind. He secretly does
that whenever they are stressed and feeling a little down in the dumps. That is the only way to make them feel good again.

Pyron (Fire, He/Him)
A large but intelligent elemental person who is made out of fire. His greatest power of all is his mind. He uses his fiery brain which is the handy part of him; that he can solve problems and puzzles that are extremely challenging. Pyron always takes the heat by focusing on the hardest challenges that help him to increase his strength, intelligence and concentration. It goes to show him not to “quit”.