Ante Up by Taj Matumbi
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 6, 2025, from 6 pm-9pm
Exhibition Runs: December 7 - January 18, 2026
In Ante Up, Matumbi blends the Western art canon with African American history, particularly the post–Civil War Reconstruction era. His paintings reclaim this historical narrative, highlighting enduring cultural signifiers and examining their influence on "the West's" collective consciousness. Matumbi critiques the "myth of America" and the moral ideals often linked to Western identity, reshaping them into a unique, personalized mythology.
During the early years of the pandemic, Taj Matumbi began sketching figures loosely copied from drawings made in his adolescence. This practice led to deeper conceptual questioning and the development of motifs centered on representation and identity. Matumbi’s lexicon has since evolved into symbolic figurative abstraction which interweaves references to skateboarding, hip-hop, and historical aristocratic structures. His work combines opposing imagery within a Modernist compositional framework, presented through a lens of playful tension and balance.
Matumbi’s painting technique integrates figuration, formal abstraction, and symbolic patterned motifs. The vernacular and iconography in his work delve into the complexities of identity through fluid, multifaceted abstraction that defies singular interpretation. In addition to painting, he has a background in printmaking, drawing, and collage. Through his formal exploration of multiples, Matumbi recognized how these iterations resonate with his personal experience of "in-betweenness" as a biracial individual. The use of multiples in his imagery reflects his understanding of how he consciously and subconsciously projects different versions of himself to fit various contexts—a phenomenon sometimes referred to as code-switching or "passing," which places the individual between reality and fiction.
Taj Matumbi draws inspiration from artists like Jacob Lawrence, whose Migration Series and The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture recontextualized historical narratives, and Romare Bearden’s Black Odyssey, which blended myth with Black history. During his MFA studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 2019–2020, Matumbi developed an exhibition that examined Jim Crow–era minstrelsy, the writings of James Baldwin, and his experiences living in rural Iowa during the rise of Trump’s political influence. After graduating, Matumbi shifted his focus to art history and visual allegories, creating abstract portraits of imagined Black Royalty from the Renaissance as a new frontier.
As Matumbi explains: "In these recent paintings, I am intrigued by the Renaissance representation of humanist values. Throughout these pieces, I wrestle with the challenge of depicting concepts of morality and spirituality, blending both imagined scenarios and personal experiences. As an American painter living in the 21st century, I find myself in a culture and society that strongly identifies with these humanistic values. Each flat and abstract figure in Chicanery (shown above), Hustle (shown above), The Equatorial, and Old Fashioned is dealing with their own moral and spiritual dilemmas within a world of temptation and distraction. These works serve as personal allegories as I grapple with my own personal challenges in society that continues to feel as if it is on the brink of apocalypse."
Taj Matumbi is an emerging artist who grew up in Northern California. He recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with an MFA in painting and received his BFA in ceramics and painting from Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa. Matumbi has held two solo museum exhibitions at MOWA’s satellite gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the University of Alabama’s Paul R. Jones Museum in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He is also currently featured in the MMoCA’s 2025 Triennial group exhibition. Since 2022, Matumbi has been represented by Maus Contemporary gallery in Birmingham, Alabama. He has also participated in numerous national group exhibitions in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Birmingham, Seattle, Madison, and Minneapolis. His paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Alabama; the Paul R. Jones Museum in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, Alabama; and the Louisiana State University Museum of Art in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Images in order of appearance:
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“Hustle” acrylic and flashe on canvas, 2025
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“Chicanery” acrylic on canvas, 2025
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“Sir George”, acrylic on canvas, 2024
