Lallali’s champion for The Wick is British artist and founder and curator of Art For Charity Collective Lucy Kent, who recently came across Lallali’s work on Instagram. “I was immediately struck by the bold colours and the graphic illustrative shapes of her subjects – every day objects with a comical, quirky spin. Immediately they made me feel joy and laugh all at once. This is the reason I love art: the power it has to make us feel deeply and provide escapism into another world momentarily. And with these challenging times we find oursleves in, the need for joy through things like art is more crucial than ever. Artists have been painting the everyday for centuries but Leila’s work really brings this subject matter into the 21st century with a colour-filled, glorious bang: cigarette butts, fried eggs and cowboy hats splling off her canvases. Leila is self-taught which I think lends an authentic purity to her paintings: they are simple, almost child-like, unbridled celebrations of colour, pattern and the little things in life that we should all cherish more.”

Indeed painting came later for Lallali, who is also an actor and has appeared in various short and feature films over the last decade, including the biopic of Hannah Arendt, and A Grand Affair, starring Marianne Faithfull and Ed Stoppard. Describing becoming a visual artist as “a leap of faith,” Lallali considers it among her proudest achievements to date. ‘It’s been the greatest blessing and something I am grateful for every day.”

Lallali is hard at work in her studio in Berlin at present – with some “really cool projects in the works” soon to be announced, including a special collaboration with a brand that she is especially excited about. This is the beginning of a new adventure for Lallali, and that whatever is next, she is relishing this time. “The more time I spend in the studio and the more I mature as an artist and person, the less serious I take things which in turn gives me a lot of freedom in creation. That’s something I am exploring at the moment, how much or how little can I get away with. It’s truly liberating.”