Profile PictureKhalil Malone

A 25yo self taught visual artist with 10+ years of professional freelancing experience. His passion for art grew from childhood as he was dealing with being hospitalized from birth due to an extreme heart condition. While bedridden after his two heart surgeries, he only had space and time, so he chose to draw. As he grew strong enough to live normalized, his focus began with traditional mediums like charcoal, acrylic, and even clay sculpturing. As he progressed, he became more fueled by digital media and how it allowed for more streamlined workflow without all the material cost. A few years of practice and many adobe free trials later, he felt confident enough to take on client work for logos, banners, cover art, minor UI design, tattoo design, and so on. As word spread, work picked up slowly, and allowed him to help many Marines with vector design projects for engravings of medals and awards. In his personal work, he became more moved by Suminagashi, inks, alcohol and watercolor. After high school, he spent a couple years dedicated to his music, but suddenly found himself 'homesick' in a way. Around that time, he had the opportunity to paint a multi-walled mural for an after school nonprofit organization in Savannah, GA. This reignited his passion, and threw him into acrylic painting more seriously. After creating his first painting, in adulthood, to be auctioned off at the Black Women's Expo in Chicago (2018) he knew this was what he should be doing. Since then he's painted over 100 pieces, and work hard to gain new techniques everyday.