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Manuel Mathieu

Born	October 9th 1986 Port-au-Prince, Haïti
Nationality	Haitian, Canadian
Education	Goldsmith University, London
Website	https://www.manuelmathieu.com/

Manuel Mathieu (born October 1986) is a Haitian contemporary visual artist recognized as a painter of abstract works that suggest figurative forms within ambiguous spaces. Mathieu draws from Haitian visual cultures and from Western art movements such as expressionism^[1] and existentialism. His practice weaves together formal techniques, Haitian contemporary art movements to explore phenomenologies of human relations as they relate to power dynamics, loyalty, love, nature, subjective experience, history writing.^[2] Mathieu’s work reflects on the intersection of individual and historical identity, examining how personal histories resonate within larger socio-political contexts.^[2]

Early life and education

Manuel Mathieu was born Ayizan Pierre Manuel Mathieu on October 9, 1986, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Both his parents are Haitian and raised their children with high expectations of educational achievements. His father Philippe Mathieu is an agronomist^[3] while his mother has a Phd in psychology. He has two younger sisters that both reside in Canada. When he was 15, he got closer to his cousin and groundbreaking Haitian artist Mario Benjamin. He often went to his house, a space full of magazines, art catalogues, and sculptures. There, at Benjamin’s house, he became acquainted with artists that influenced his own work, trailblazers such as Mona Hatoum and Clyfford Still.^[4]

When he was 19, Mathieu moved to Quebec, into his grandmother's house who had emigrated to Canada with her children, without her husband, a colonel under Jean Claude Duvalier's dictatorial regime. His parents associated Mathieu's artistic exploration to his struggles. When he moved to Blainville, Quebec, he began painting, as well as doing photography and video art more intensely with the support of his grandmother.^[2]

In 2016, he obtained a Master of Fine Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London, England.^[2] Since his graduation, Manuel has become a sought-after artist with international representation by art galleries Hugues Charbonneau, in Montreal, Maruani Mercier in Brussels, Belgium, and HDM gallery in Beijing, China and London, United Kingdom.^[5]

Artistic influence and style

In 2015, one year into his postgraduate program at Goldsmiths, Mathieu was involved in a near-fatal motorbike hit-and-run. He suffered a severe concussion, facial trauma, fractures of his jaw, and short-term memory loss. This experience influenced the subject of his MFA thesis show “One future.”^[6] After his physical recovery and no more visible traces of his accident, he wanted to express what lingered innately. He found a correlation between his invisible trauma and that of his country after the Duvalier dictatorship. “One Future” explored the Duvalier regime in order to address the national trauma that was scarcely being addressed in collective settings. The accident also drew him closer to his family and consolidated his friendships. Many of Manuel’s portraits are of his immediate circle.^[2]

Deconstructive processes shape the overarching themes of Mathieu’s work, as he develops an visual language that pushes the confines of representational depictions and what is considered figurative.^[7] He extrapolates abstract formal techniques to portray historical Haitian figures and subject matters, creating a visual language that indicates his point-of-view through interpretative considerations. The textural, compositional, and thematic transparency in Mathieu’s work underscore his practice and deep concern to uncover the power and spiritual structures behind modes of thinking, of behaving and manifesting realities.^[1] Recent critical essays have highlighted his ability to blend texture, composition, and transparency, emphasizing how his practice reveals the power dynamics and spiritual structures underlying human thought, behavior, and reality.^[8]

His paintings often re-stage archived materials such as videos and photographs to bring forth the fact of erasure, of invisibility and the consequent curiosity and questions that arise in the face of narrational voids. His work interrogates the gaps and silences in historical narratives, particularly those imposed on the Black diaspora through colonialism and marginalization.^[9] This approach has been celebrated in several recent articles where critics have praised Mathieu’s ability to bring forth narratives that question official histories while amplifying collective memories of trauma and resistance.^[10]

As a multidisciplinary artist, he draws from various musical practices— jazz improvisation and repetition— and material processes that allow him to expand and diversify his approach on a subject matter that he explores years on end.^[2] Mathieu consistently refers Haitian visual cultures of religious hybridity such as in The Poto-Mitan movement, ecology, nature as it appears in other movements like Saint Soleil, which further broaden his multidisciplinary approach .^[5]

Reviews of his exhibitions, particularly those showcasing Pendulum, have noted the project’s emotional resonance and conceptual depth. The work has been described as a critical turning point in Mathieu’s career, reflecting his expanded exploration of history, trauma, and spiritual resilience. These exhibitions, held at prestigious venues like The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Miami, have solidified Mathieu’s reputation as an artist who transcends traditional forms and themes, creating work that resonates with both personal and collective histories.^[11]

Drawings and other media

Mathieu's official website, https://www.manuelmathieu.com/, serves as a portal to his multifaceted artistic practice. Beyond painting, Mathieu explores various media, including drawing, textile, video, and installation art. His drawings, often created on a smaller scale than his paintings, have been instrumental in triggering breakthroughs in his painting technique, offering a space for experimentation and the development of new ideas.^[12]

His short films push the boundaries of conceptual narration in his perpetual study of how beliefs, and history informs our perspectives and our reactions to political and/or intimate events. One of Mathieu’s most celebrated film projects, Pendulum (2023), exemplifies this multidisciplinary approach. The project has been exhibited internationally and has garnered significant recognition, earning Mathieu the Best Short Film Award from the International Festival of Films on Art. Pendulum has been featured in major exhibitions in venues such as the Power Plant Contemporary Art, the Gallery TPW in Toronto, the Saint-Louis Art Museum, the Perez Art Museum in Miami and the Museum of Contemporary Art Miami.^[6]

Selected exhibitions

Solo

2024 - Dwelling on the Invisible, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Miami, USA
2024 - World Discovered Under Other Skies, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Miami, USA
2024 - The End of Figuration, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, UK
2023 - Rising From the Ashes, K11 Art Foundations, Shanghai, Wuhan and Shenyang, China
2023 - World Discovered Under Other Skies, Owens Art Gallery, Sackville, Canada
2022 - Dear mélancolie, Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, Montréal, Canada
2022 - Keeping Things Whole, Pilar Corrias, London, UK
2022 - Silk Road Traveler, Lethe’s wanderer, Fondation Longlati, Shanghai, Chine
2022 World Discovered Under Other Skies, ICA Plug In, Winnipeg, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Art Gallery of Windsor, Canada
2021 - Son of Voodoo, HdM Gallery, Beijing, China
2021 - Build Within You, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles, USA
2021 - Negroland: A Landscape of Desires, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, USA
2020 - World Discovered Under Other Skies, The Power Plant Contemporary, Toronto, Canada
2020 - Survivance, Montreal Museum of Fine arts, Montreal, Canada
2019 - Wu ji, HDM Gallery, Beijing, China
2018 - The Spell on You, Maruani Mercier, Brussels, Belgium
2018 - Nobody is watching, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, USA
2017 - Truth to Power, Tiwani Contemporary Gallery, London, UK
2017 - Art Brussels, Maruani Mercier, Brussels, Belgium
2016 - One Future, Goldsmiths Graduating Show, UK
2012 - Prémices / Open-Ended, Montréal, arts interculturels, Montreal, Canada

Group

2024 - Toronto Biennial of Art: Precarious Joys, TPW Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2024 - Abstraction (re)creation, Consortium Museum, Dijon, France
2024 - Soft Power, DAS MINSK Kunsthaus, Potsdam, Allemagne
2024, Ré-enchantement, Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France
2024 - Les doigts dans la terre, les yeux vers le ciel, Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, Montréal, Canada
2023 - Riopelle, à la croisée des temps, Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa, Canada
2023 - SHIFT: Ecologies of Fashion, Form + Textile, Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver, Canada
2023 - Julien Creuzet : Oh téléphone, oracle noir (...), Le Magasin Centre national d’art contemporain, Grenoble, France
2023 - Elsewheres, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, USA
2023 - A voice answering a voice, Tanya Leighton Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2023 - Hervé Télémaque: Double Language, digital program, Serpentine, London, UK
2022 - Body Language, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, USA
2022 - Fellbach Triennial, Fellbach, Allemagne
2021 - Fragments of Epic Memory, AGO - Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada
2021 - Social Works II, Gagosian, London, UK
2021 - In the Eye of the Storm, Z33 House for Contemporary Art and Architecture, Hasselt, Belgique
2021 - North by Northeast : Contemporary Canadian Painting, Kasmin, New York, USA
2021 - La machine qui enseignait des airs aux oiseaux, Contemporary Art Museum of Montreal, Montreal, Canada
2020 - Relations: Diaspora and Painting, Phi Foundation, Montreal, Canada
2019 - The other side of now, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, USA^[13]
2019 - Over my Black Body, Galerie de l'UQAM, Montreal, Canada^[14]
2018 - Arco Madrid, Maruani Mercier, Madrid, Spain
2018 - CIRCA 2018 benefit exhibition, Montreal, Canada
2018 - Playlist, Antoine Ertaskiran, Montreal, Canada
2018 - Here we are here: Black contemporary Canadian artist,^[15] Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada
2017 - We are all very anxious, Dye House 451, London, UK
2017 - In-visibilité Ostentatoire, Fondation Clement, Martinique
2016 - Deptford X Festival, London, UK (commissioned work)^[1]
2016 - Will Nature Make a Man of Me Yet? PI Artworks, London, UK
2016 - Myth Material, TAP, London, UK
2014 - Haïti, 2 centuries of creations, Grand Palais, Paris, France
2014 - Consisting of superposed Layers that sometimes partially merged, POPOP Gallery, Montreal, Canada
2014 - Les Contemporains, Artv Studio, Montreal, Canada
2014 - Les Contemporains, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Canada
2014 - Les Ateliers TD, ARSENAL, Montreal, Canada
2013 - In Extremis: Death and Life in 21st Century Haitian Art, Museum of Civilization Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
2013 - On Common Ground, Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, D.C., USA
2013 - Haïti: Radical and contemporary, Grande Finale - 2013 A.R.T Fabric, Freland France
2012 - Haïti: Radical and contemporary, Musée du Montparnasse, Paris, France