"Rise and Shine stems from a curiosity around formal and figurative abstraction, which I use to investigate real and imagined biographies, including my own. My process is driven by a shifting cooperation between intuitive gesture and intentional action, further guided by formal and material restraints that lead me to arrive at unexpected outcomes and conclusions.

During the early years of the pandemic, I started sketching figures loosely copied from drawings made in my adolescent years. This practice led to deeper conceptual questioning and motif development on the subject of representation and identity. For example, the 2022 series of works on paper Das Boot (shown above) explores American exceptionalism and the common expression, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” In more recent paintings, I depict characters reminiscent of 18th-century royalty, re-imagining ruling class and court figures. Works such as Chariot and Lighten Up address the erasure of individuals historically and still today within the dominant White narrative."

- Taj Matumbi, January 2024