Across various forms and artistic disciplines, Maheke has sustained a long-term exploration into the ways that marginalised bodies, narratives and histories are made visible and invisible. Resisting a probing of identity that sits solely within the framework of identity politics, Maheke’s trajectory has continuously been channelled through spectral sensations. The artist has called in ghosts, spirits and non-human beings into his works to invite a re-orientation to the way that we, the audience, are able to perceive; which is to say, to reframe the way that we are able to see, feel and listen.
In reconfiguring the sensible, Maheke seeks to shift the dominant systems of discourse production and understanding that heavily depend on representation, visibility and legibility as the ultimate forms of truth, value and/or power. Instead, the artist nurtures the formation of a self through a state of in-betweenness; one where esoteric, spiritual, queer and embodied knowledge(s) help Maheke garner the potential for prophecy.

For the artist’s first solo exhibition in an institution in France, at Triangle in Marseille, Maheke invoked OOLOI, the third sex figure among the extra-terrestrial Oankali from Octavia Butler’s sci-fi trilogy, Xenogenesis. This fictional – yet, for all purposes here, real – entity infused the space with a heightened sensory field; one in which words, light, sounds and even subtle movements nodded to its invisible presence. Of particular sensory effect was the waving of sheer scarlet curtains that hung floor-to-ceiling across the vast expanse of La Friche Belle de Mai. Partitioning and dividing a physically vacuous room of the former tobacco factory, the curtains created a depth of field that blurred vision.
Maheke’s own body appeared and disappeared through these curtains as part of Sènsa (2019), a performance that saw the artist moving across the space, making himself at times as faintly visible – yet as palpable – as OOLOI. Both through his strategies for (dis)appearance and the seemingly improvised nature of his movements, Maheke’s Sènsa undoes the Western canon’s efforts of devaluing the transcendental by insisting on what is felt over what is seen; by being trusting of what the body and mind know, over what it has been asked to learn.

Eliel Jones

Paul Maheke, Taboo Durag, 2021, A light barrel in a river’s mouth, Glasgow International, UK
Courtesy the Roberts Institute of Art, Glasgow International and the artist
Photo: Eoin Carey

Paul Maheke, Exhibition view, "The Mauve Hour", 2021, Sultana Summer Set, Arles, France

Paul Maheke, Exhibition view, "Vanille Bleue", 2021, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Paul Maheke, Exhibition view, An apology, a pill, a ritual, a resistance, 2021, Remai Modern, Saskatoon, CA,

Exhibition view, « Clinique du Queer », 2020-2021, Maison Populaire de Montreuil, © Aurélien Mole

Exhibition view, « I LIKE THEM, THEY'RE NICE », 2020, Nir-Altman

Exhibition view, « Possédé.e.s », 2020-2021, MOCO

Exhibition view, « The Spectral Forest », 2020, Nida Art Colony, Neringa, Lituanie. Photo : Ansis Starks

Exhibition view, « La Pleine Lune Dort La Nuit », 2020, Musée d’art contemporain de la Haute Vienne, Rochechouart

Installation view, "HERE AND NOW - Transcorporealities" 2019, Museum Ludwig, Photo: Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln / Nina Siefke.

Exhibition view, "OOLOI", 2019, Triangle France - Astérides, Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille, Photo: Aurélien Mole.

Exhibition view, "21e Prix Fondation d’entreprise Ricard : Le fil d’alerte", 2019, © Aurélien Mole / Fondation d’entreprise Ricard

Seeking After the Fully Grown Dancer deep within, 2016-2018. Performance part of Meetings on Art, 58th Venice Biennale, 2019. Credit Riccardo Banfi. Courtesy Delfina Foundation and Arts Council England. HR - 16

Exhibition view, "A fire circle for a public hearing", 2019, Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Netherlands, Photo credit : Gunnar Meier.

Exhibition view, «Diable Blanc», 2019, Galerie Sultana, © Aurélien mole.

Exhibition view, "Dans l’éther, là, ou l’eau", 2018, "À Cris Ouverts", 6th édition des Ateliers de Rennes - biennale d’art contemporain, © Aurélien Mole.

Exhibition view, "Letter to a Barn Owl", 2018, Kevin Space, Photo: Maximilian Anelli-Monti.

Exhibition view, "Give Up the Ghost: Baltic Triennial 13, 2018

Exhibition view, "Le centre ne peut tenir", 2018, Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette,
Produced and commissioned by Lafayette Anticipations, Paris. Images: ©Pierre Antoine, ©ADAGP, 2018.

Performance, "The Distance is Nowhere", 2018, Manifesta, Palermo, © Paul Maheke, Sophie Mallett, Stella Sideli, GAM Palermo and Overalls Adv.

Performance, "Familiar familial place of confusion (channel)", 2018, performance in collaboration with Simon and Alix Maheke, Centre Pompidou, Photo © Hervé Veronese.

Exhibition view, "A fire circle for a public hearing", 2018, Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK
Produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery and Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middelburg. Photo: Mark Blower

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Exhibition view, «Acqua Alta», 2017, Galerie Sultana, Photo : ©Aurélien Mole

Exhibition view, "The dance floor could never be a story with one voice. The dance floor is packed with stories all pulsating with their own experiences and needs», 2017, DRAF, Photo: Tim Bowditch

Performance, « Mbu », 2017 - as part of BMW Live Exhibition: Ten Days Six Nights, Tate Modern, Photograph © Tate 2017, image: Brotherton-Lock.

Exhibition view, « In the Watery Core of those Stories », 2017, as part of the Diaspora Pavilion, Venice.
Courtesy of ICF, Galerie Sultana and the artist, images: Francesco Allegretto and Paul Maheke

Exhibition view, « What Flows Through and Across », 2017, Assembly Point, London, United Kingdom

Exhibition view, "In Me Everything is Already Flowing", 2016, Center, Berlin, Germany

Exhibition view, "I Lost Track of the Swarm", 2016, South London Gallery, London, Great Britain.