Paul Maheke
- Justyce Shelton-Edwards
- Apr 13
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 29
Ancestral Muse I (night blue and sodium brown) (2023)
Close Looking: Queer African Art and Spirit
Visual description:
Ancestral Muse presents a figure that seems to hover between emergence and dissolution, rendered through soft gradients, layered washes, and semi-transparent contours. The body appears porous, as if shaped by currents of light, memory, or breath, and the surrounding space feels charged with movement. The painting suggests a threshold that is neither fully material nor fully spectral, inviting viewers to consider what is visible, what is withheld, and what is sensed rather than seen.
Context:
Paul Maheke is a French Congolese artist whose work explores queer embodiment, ancestral presence, and the politics of visibility. In an interview with Goodman Gallery, Maheke reflects on how his Congolese father shaped his imagination through storytelling, an influence that continues to inform his practice. His work often engages with Afro-diasporic cosmologies, particularly the idea of the body as a vessel for memory, spirit, and lineage.
BaKongo cosmology offers one lens for understanding this work. In Death and the Invisible Powers (Bockie, 1993), the Kongo world is described as a continuum between visible and invisible realms, where ancestors remain active forces. Wyatt MacGaffey’s Astonishment and Power further describes how minkisi, or power figures, mediate between worlds and hold layered histories, intentions, and spiritual energies.
Interpretation:
Viewed alongside BaKongo figures in the National Museum of African Art, resonances emerge: porous boundaries between life and afterlife, the body as a site of spiritual activation, and the presence of ancestral guidance. Maheke’s painting does not replicate these traditions, but echoes their conceptual frameworks. His use of opacity, dissolution, and atmospheric layering can be read as a contemporary, queer reimagining of how the body holds and transmits ancestral knowledge.
The figure’s blurred edges suggest the body as a threshold between visible and invisible worlds. The painting’s atmosphere evokes a sense of ancestral presence, aligned with Maheke’s interest in memory, storytelling, and lineage.
The work can also be read as a queer reconfiguration of inheritance—one that is chosen, embodied, and cosmological rather than strictly biological. Its refusal of full legibility echoes Maheke’s broader use of opacity as a form of protection and self-determination for Black queer subjects.
In this sense, the painting may function as a contemporary counterpart to minkisi: a site where energies, histories, and identities converge.
Reflect and Explore
What aspects of the figure feel most present, and which feel intentionally obscured?
How does the painting’s atmosphere shape your sense of the figure’s relationship to the surrounding space?
Does the figure seem to be emerging or dissolving? What might that ambiguity suggest about identity or belonging?
How might the work resonate with BaKongo ideas of visible and invisible worlds?
In what ways does the painting challenge traditional portraiture or representations of the body?
How does knowing about Maheke’s connection to Congolese storytelling shift your interpretation?
Does the figure seem to be emerging or dissolving? What might that ambiguity communicate about identity or belonging?
Learn More
Artist & Primary Sources
Further Resources
Contextual reading
Comments