We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Robert Malmberg. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Robert below.

Alright, Robert thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

To be honest, I think was born as a “creative”. I always seemed to excel in courses where I could leverage my imagination to achieve a unique and interesting outcome. I’ve always been a bit of a dreamer and find myself drawn to things that contain mystery and spark curiosity. I have a penchant for abstraction, and I think this is why I appreciate visual mediums. The more that I allow myself t0 accept these inclinations in my photography and design work, the more I appreciate the process itself and it enables me to enter a flow state in the studio.

I believe I’ve been pursuing a creative / artistic path my whole life. My scribbles and writing as a child ad adolescent have given way to my career path as an adult. I’m somewhat of a jack of all trades (so to speak): a professional phootgrapher, filmmaker, studio artist, and now a wallpaper and textiles designer working directly with the booming interior design trade.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Robert Malmberg and I’m photographer by trade. I went to a pretty intense private school to learn about the mechanics of photography and filmmaking. This experience gave me the formal training to step into the industry in NYC in 2006, where I assisted several fashion photographers and began my career as a young photographer, Around 2009 I decided to open my first studio in Brooklyn, where I offered portrait sessions to customers and began playing around with alternative processes in the darkroom to expand my studio art practices.

I’ve always been committed to offering a blend of commercial photography as well as my own fine art photography. In 2011 I started selling limited edition art prints to interior designers looking for new art solutions to offer to their clients. This sparked a lot of inspiration for me, as my archives of personal work were becoming pretty deep. This led to creating my first e-comm website, which allowed designers to shop my fine art by using keywords based on themes, colors, orientation etc. This little “side hustle” has now turned into a main stream of income, and I now offer bespoke wallpaper and textiles by the yard as well. The designs are comprised of layered photographs and mixed media studio art! We are now repped by several showrooms around the US and have bee featured in publications from Architectural Digest to the NY Times.

My current design studio is a raw workspace in Long Island City, Queens. This rugged warehouse space allows me to get creative and develop new wallpaper and textile designs, shoot portraits, meet with clients, and keep the creative business organized and flowing. I’m currently working on a series of mixed media collages on wood panels for a an upcoming exhibit later this year.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, being an artist or “creative” simply gives me the footing to be the most authentic version of myself. I’ve worked really hard at it for so many years and have been lucky to receive such amazing support from clients, friends, and family along the way.

Lately, I’ve been enjoying working in analog formats to produce my visuals, and realizing the process is allowed to be slow. We live in an online world that has become unhinged, and I think it can be particularly difficult for artists of all mediums to grapple with. Social media and society demand constant sharing and fast turn around “content”, most of which can look and feel superficial. Sure, we all have to share projects and such, but I’m leaning into working in an offline mode more and more. Offline meaning, enjoying the process of creating without the pressure or false need of sharing with anyone until it feels ready and complete.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I’ve always believed in supporting small businesses. To purchase artwork or goods directly from an artisan is such a great way to connect with your community and support people who have the courage to produce something unique and different. It’s so easy to get sucked into the world of Amazon and IKEA these days, but you can easily support locally and introduce beautiful original works to your home.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.robertmalmberg.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/malmberg

Image Credits
All photos by Robert Malmberg / Malmberg Studio, Inc