Malike Sidibe is a 25-year-old artist (originally from the Ivory Coast). Besides producing beautiful work that is influenced by his African heritage, Sidibe has gained global recognition for his emotive and poignant images documenting the Black Lives Matter Movement. His clients include Time Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, MET Museum, Nike, Instagram, Footlocker, Nikon USA, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, Stern Magazine, The Atlantic, Esquire Magazine, Town and Country Magazine, and many others.
Major themes in my portraiture are movement and surreal visual-scapes. I love playing with the subjects, frozen still as if suspended in a dream, sometimes placing them deeply set within their environments, such as in my Mamiwata Series, or conversely, existing on their own plane, as if my lens had the power to suck the air out of the room. I’m especially focused on this technique when capturing a moving subject. A silk scarf swaying in harmony with a woman or pearls dancing from the cap of a seemingly still man, capture the traces of a subject who is most interesting in my eye when they are moving and in harmony with the space.