Taj Matumbi’s ‘Hot House’ at MOWA-DTN

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Photo: Museum of Wisconsin Art

'Sucker Punch Prince' by Taj Matumbi

'Sucker Punch Prince' by Taj Matumbi

I knew from the moment I saw the paintings being carried into the gallery by the curators that something spicy was cooking. A palette of mustardy yellows, burnt pinks, and saturated greens hemmed in by blocks and bands of inky, umbery reds and browns. Each painting I saw toted into the space uncapped a new array of seductively odd, saturated colors: orange, violet, ochre, mint green. Visions of Mardi-gras, Kenté cloths, batik prints, Hans Hoffman and the 1980s Denver Broncos uniforms flashed through my mind. I couldn’t come up with that list of associations naturally to save my own life. And no mauves … it’s not often one sees a painting without mauve in it these days. I was sucked inside Taj Matumbi’s exhibition “Hot House” at MOWA-DTN before I knew which end was up, literally.

Seeing the show densely but neatly hung the following day was equally revelatory. It was only then that I noticed the perfectly orchestrated balance of form and content. The work punches you in the nose as formal abstraction only to have you open your eyes to a slowly materializing world of figures and objects. This duality splits the show into two parts, which is a great thing, because you’ll want as much of it as you can get.

Some of the paintings are more clearly representational than others. For instance, Prince Uhuru a medium-sized canvas, maybe 40 x 30 inches, presents the pared down portrait of a stoic, regal subject with yellow eyes and lips on a charcoal-toned face, buttressed by sections of geometric motifs and repeated organic shapes. Whether abstraction has slipped into the known world, or the prince dissolved into the abstract one is unclear, but it’s a gripping composition either way. Another painting, Dirt Rich Prince, develops and holds along similar lines, only in a cadmium yellow, cobalt blue, and transparent red palette. More ambiguous and complex is The Therapist, featuring a cartoony alligator (the therapist as reptile?) in the upper left. A window with what might be a bird anchors the upper right of the painting just above a horizontal array of similar but darker bird-like forms. Elements of collage break the painterly fourth wall, while the slightest sense of architectural space breaks the third at the painting’s lower register, dominated by a mesmerizingly unorthodox puzzle of chrome greens.

Total Satisfaction

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Photo: Museum of Wisconsin Art

Taj Matumbi

Taj Matumbi

The painting After Hours tucked me in as I pulled the covers over my eyes and drifted out of the show with total satisfaction. The aqua, seafoam, and wine-colored painting of a sitting figure provides a chromatic foil to the electric sensibilities in the rest of “Hot House.” The color scheme in the work is tranquil, and the understated figure viewed in profile is less severe than the frontal princes and crocodilian therapists. Still, there’s the slightest nod to the history of reclining figures in Western art, and perhaps to Manet’s Olympia.After Hours is the spoonful-of-seasoned sugar in an otherwise salty-spicey gumbo of paint, color, and freewheeling directness. In that stew of elements are unmistakable but subtle evocations of otherness, history, and diverse cultural influences. Indeed, Matumbi is bi-racial, male, and concerned with a host of social issues that emerge by painting from that perspective. He shows us this point-of-view in paint ever-so-delicately without having to tell about us about it in ways that take us out of his paintings.

The wall text at MoWA-DTN says that Taj Matumbi’s work in HOT HOUSE “depicts a dynamic world of alter egos” in his paintings “through a complex layering of encoded meaning, personal narrative and social commentary.” Which is accurate, perfectly clear, and well-articulated. But I’m glad I gleaned those inferences through the subjectivity of Matumbi’s imagery before I read it on the wall. It’s so often we need a road map to locate the context of contemporary artwork, that when we don’t and still find our way, it feels like magic. And we could all use a little more magic in our art diets.

Openings

July 23–July 29, 2023

The Open (830 E. Chambers St.)

• A Celebration of the Life and Art of Thaddeus Kellstadt
• Sunday, July 23, 11 a.m.–2 p.m. 

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Sunday, July 23, 2–4 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Sunday, July 23, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Tour: Architecture and Collection Highlights
• Sunday, July 23, 2–3 p.m.

Walker’s Point Center for the Arts

• Opening Reception for “9th Annual Youth Art Show: Brave Encounters/ Encuentros Valientes Exhibition”Sunday, July 23, 4–6 p.m.

Jewish Museum Milwaukee

• Max Beckman: The Bourgeois “Degenerate”
• Tuesday, July 25, 7–8:15 p.m.

Wustum Art Museum

• Free Art Drop for Kids
• Thursday, July 27, 2– 4 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Lecture: “A Very Strong Likeness of Her”
• Thursday, July 27, 6:15–7:15 p.m.

Real Tinsel

• Opening Reception for “Rosebuds and Sidewalk Ends”
• Friday, July 28, 5–6 p.m.

NŌ Studios

• Empower Gallery Night, a powerful one-day art show
• Friday, July 28, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Saturday, July 29, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. 

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Story Time in the Galleries
• Saturday, July 29, 10:30–11:30 a.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Tour: Architecture and Collection Highlights
• Saturday, July 29, 2–3 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Lakeside at MAM
• Saturday, July 29, 11 a.m.–4 p.m.

Saint Kate-the Arts Hotel

• AIR Time, Art and Studio Tour with Jeff Zimpel
• Saturday July 29, 5 p.m.

Var Gallery

• Into the Universe: Artist Talk with Nykoli Koslow
• Saturday, July 29, 3– 4:30 p.m.