Wangari Mathenge Selected for Artsy Vanguard 2022

'After The Break (2022), a painting by artist Wangari Mathenge, takes us inside a home, where a person appears before an upholstered chair and ottoman covered in a tropical leaf pattern. The space is accented by actual flora—raspberry tiger lilies and kelly green lemongrass—along with a teacup and a clementine. The subject, most likely a woman, is stretched over the ottoman, legs and head not pictured, but presumed to be dangling. The body language hits a familiar nerve; they’re either in distress or taking respite amid struggle.

 

The scene is mysterious and intriguing: The viewers know nothing about who or where this person is; the only identifier is the subject’s chestnut brown hand lying on its torso. The contextualizing indicators of race, gender, age, and place are irrelevant in the face of Herculean feelings of pain or despair. Mathenge bypasses the noisy political rhetoric surrounding Black art and figurative painting and gets to what matters more: the human experience.'

 

'After The Break (2022), a painting by artist Wangari Mathenge, takes us inside a home, where a person appears before an upholstered chair and ottoman covered in a tropical leaf pattern. The space is accented by actual flora—raspberry tiger lilies and kelly green lemongrass—along with a teacup and a clementine. The subject, most likely a woman, is stretched over the ottoman, legs and head not pictured, but presumed to be dangling. The body language hits a familiar nerve; they’re either in distress or taking respite amid struggle.

 

The scene is mysterious and intriguing: The viewers know nothing about who or where this person is; the only identifier is the subject’s chestnut brown hand lying on its torso. The contextualizing indicators of race, gender, age, and place are irrelevant in the face of Herculean feelings of pain or despair. Mathenge bypasses the noisy political rhetoric surrounding Black art and figurative painting and gets to what matters more: the human experience.'