Paul Maheke

What is invisible, what is felt, and what (dis)appears are some of the many motifs that Paul Maheke uses as singular manners of perceiving and understanding, which he borrows from esoteric, spiritual and occult knowledge, and from cultures that have long been marginalised. These perceptions reject Western knowledge, which is traditionally based on rational understanding, vision and written material, and question the hegemonic systems at play behind these types of knowledge.
Paul Maheke likes to blur boundaries: between what is visible and invisible, between the centre and the periphery, and between cultural and gender identities. His work is to be understood in the in-between, in layers, in elements which may appear discordant at first glance, but which he manipulates and weaves together in his projects.
This complexity is also present in the multiple mediums the artist utilises, from performing to drawing, from dance to installation work, and from video to fluid creative forms that often open up collaborations with other artists (dancers, DJs, musicians…). Above all, the figure of the ghost, an immaterial being who binds together the past, the present and the future, is central to Paul Maheke’s work, embodying erasure and the presence and absence of the stories and bodies marginalised by colonisation. .

Translated by Lucy Pons, 2024