Mallory Battista

Mallory Battista is a visual artist and writer who is dedicated to bringing more art to public spaces and working to make the enjoyment and practice of art accessible. Her art tends to be colorful, whimsical, and explores truth through humor. She has painted over a dozen outdoor murals, designed and worked together with Columbia Fire & Iron Blacksmiths to forge a sculptural steel bike rack for her neighborhood, and recently completed a large public mosaic sculpture in collaboration with Lisa Soranaka and managed its installation as part of a neighborhood gateway in Spokane. She enjoys working with many different materials and thrives on a variety of art practices, whether it be painting, forging, building sculptures, block printing, or writing and drawing comics.

Mallory is currently the president of the Columbia Fire & Iron Blacksmiths, a Spokane-based nonprofit that works to promote and teach the art of blacksmithing, providing affordable or free education to the public. She also volunteers her time helping to run “Spokane Sequential”, a free quarterly comic zine that cultivates and showcases the work of local comics writers and artists. She is passionate about local libraries and has been running “Blacksmithing at the Library” events since 2019 through the Spokane County Library District, and was an artist-in-residence 2022-23 at Spokane Public Library’s The Hive®, where she and Lisa Soranaka built their mosaic sculpture and conducted several free tile-making workshops for the public.