Manuel Matheiu's two solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami feel like consecutive chapters in a book. The first, World Discovered Under Other Skies, is a traveling exhibition first shown at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto in 2021. It answers the question: What was home like and why did it make me leave? The second exhibition Dwelling on the Invisible is only accessible once the viewer passes through the first show. Both exhibitions are grounded in an abstract figurative painting practice, but various other experimental mediums, such as burnt fabric and biomorphic ceramics, are also sprinkled throughout the space. In both exhibitions, flowing linear waves of paint obscure figuration, yet the viewer often makes out a face, a body, and ultimately, the imagery of a nation in turmoil.
World Discovered Under Other Skies questions migration, an experience with which nearly anyone from Miami, be it grandchildren of Cuban immigrants like myself, or the growing Haitian population that surrounds the museum, are intimately familiar. Walking into the exhibition calls forth memories of another past, some national and some personal.
In Simone (2020), a bright, obscured face in a wide-brimmed hat looks at you without really looking at you through determined eyes and a drooping grin. This painting is a portrait of Simone Duvalier, wife to François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, the dictator of Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971.' In Strong Sunday 2 (2017), two figures march forward as they melt into their scenery, one with a fist midway into the air. The other dons a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, a vague reference to the United States as the latest in a string of geopolitical hegemonies with undue influence over the nation. Carcase (2012) jolts the viewer with the image of a decomposing animal. Parts of it seem to be exposed bone, while other reds and purples represent what little flesh nature has yet to disintegrate. In a country facing such strife and food insecurity, this abandoned livestock feels incongruous. Its decay feels global; it harkens to the decay of a subsistent ecology due to extractivist economics, or the decay of revolutionary values after decades of political turmoil, corruption, and bullying from the Global North.
In Dwelling on the Invisible, I saw less of Mathieu as the wary storyteller replaying the tragedies that prompted his migration, and more of Mathieu sharing his life, his circumstances, and his triumphs. The black abstract painting, Amnesia (2018), has what looks like tally marks of a prisoner counting their days. This work references Mathieu's amnesia and cognitive challenges after a serious car accident in London; its simplicity denotes a departure from the rest of the exhibition.? In the adjoining triptych Storyboard (2023), Mathieu employs the same style on one panel, coupled by his typical use of burnt fabric and flowing, colorful abstract painting in the others. The transition denotes a return to self, a homecoming after a time of deficiency.
Abundance and Drought (2024) is a mosaic piece inspired by a commission for Montreal's subway system.? A large metal frame leans on the wall with a mosaic of tiles that have been broken up manually and then reconfigured into one another, creating the image of a skull surrounded by a smoky mixture of black, yellow, and orange. The background appears as if it is a sheet of paper or fabric on fire. The skull stares ominously at a three-quarter turn. Les désenchantés (2024) is a large installation of several ceramic pieces on metal shelving. Although these ceramic pieces have been fired, they still look like greenware that has been left alone and is starting to undo itself. Adeze Wilford, curator of Dwelling on the Invisible, mentioned that Mathieu wanted the pieces to have a painterly quality. The result is not merely a general painterly style, but his own personal technique that creates a reflection of a figure over moving water, with reverberating lines and distorted shapes melting into abstraction.
At the end of the exhibition is a video installation Dife [le feu, en créole] (2024) that plays manifestations and active fires in Haiti. It's a sore reminder of the backdrop in many Haitians' minds as they live in the diaspora. Fires burn from inside thick black tires under a sweltering, bright sun as men, women, and children run through the streets. Smoke billows into the skies. The video reminds me of phone camera footage of protests in all of Latin America and the Caribbean, where WhatsApp group chats and Facevook posts have become the guerrilla alternative to any official news reportig. As these two chapters come to a close, Dife is a reminder that the story of violence and strife in Haiti continues.
1 Éric Clément, "2024 - La Presse in Miami: The American Rise of Manuel Mathieu," Actual News Magazine, June 6, 2024, https://actualnewsmagazine.com/english/la-presse-in-miami-the-american-rise-of-manuel-mathieu/.
2 Adeze Wilford, “Art Club: Curator-Led Tour of Manuel Mathieu at MOCA,” Soho House Art Cub, Speech presented at the Art Club: Curator-Led Tour of Manuel Mathieu at MOCA, June 21, 2024.
NOTE: This piece was my contributon as part of the 2024 cohort of Burnaway's Art Writing Incubator, a yearly summer program that offers workshops and mentoriships for emerging art writers. While it was never published, it was printed in a cute chapbook :)