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, British Art Show 9
Aberdeen /Wolverhampton United Kingdom
2021/2022
© Mike Davidson
© Stuart Whipps

Paul Maheke, FIAC, Grand Palais Ephémère, Paris, France, October 2021
© Aurélien Mole

Paul Maheke, Futur Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine, October 2021 - January 2022
© PinchukArtCentre & Maksym Bilousov

Paul Maheke, screenshots from "Mauve, Jim and John", 28 : 05 min, 2021
Produced by Artangel

Paul Maheke, "Taboo Durag", Performance at Goodman Gallery, London as part of Performance Exchange, 9th July 2021.
© Damian Griffiths

Paul Maheke, "(in)visible", Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö, Sweden, June 2021 - January 2022

Paul Maheke, "Taboo Durag", "A light barrel in a river’s mouth, Glasgow International", UK, 2021
Courtesy The Roberts Institute of Art, Glasgow International and Paul Maheke
© Eoin Carey

Paul Maheke, "The Mauve Hour", Sultana Summer Set, Arles, France, May - July 2021
© François Deladerrière

Paul Maheke, "Vanille Bleue", Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, April - May 2021

Paul Maheke, "An apology, a pill, a ritual, a resistance", Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada, March - August 2021
© Blaine Campbell.

Paul Maheke, "La Clinique du Queer", Maison Populaire de Montreuil, September 2020 - February 2021
© Aurélien Mole

Paul Maheke, « Possédé.e.s », MOCO, Montpellier, France, September 2020 - May 2021
© François Deladerrière

Paul Maheke, "The Spectral Forest", Nida Art Colony, Nida, Lituania, August - November 2020
© Ansis Starks

Paul Maheke, "La Pleine Lune Dort La Nuit", Musée d’art contemporain de la Haute Vienne, Rochechouart, France, February - September 2020

Paul Maheke, "HERE AND NOW - Transcorporealities" Museum Ludwig, Köln, Germany, 2019
© Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln / Nina Siefke.

Paul Maheke, "OOLOI", Triangle France - Astérides, Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille, 2019
© Aurélien Mole

Paul Maheke, "Levant", Ludlow 38, New York, USA, 2019
© Carter Seddon / Goethe-Institut, New York

Paul Maheke, "21e Prix Fondation d’entreprise Ricard : Le fil d’alerte", Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, Paris, France, 2019
© Aurélien Mole / Fondation d’entreprise Ricard

Paul Maheke, "Seeking After the Fully Grown Dancer deep within", Performance part of Meetings on Art, 58th Venice Biennale, 2019.
© Riccardo Banfi / Courtesy Delfina Foundation and Arts Council England.

Paul Maheke, "A fire circle for a public hearing", Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Netherlands, 2019
© Gunnar Meier.

Paul Maheke, «Diable Blanc», Galerie Sultana, Paris, France, 2019
© Aurélien mole.

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

Paul Maheke, "Letter to a Barn Owl", Kevin Space, Vienna, Austria, 2018
© Maximilian Anelli-Monti.

Paul Maheke, "Give Up the Ghost: Baltic Triennial 13, Lithuania, 2018

Paul Maheke, "Le centre ne peut tenir", Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette, Paris, France, 2018
Produced and commissioned by Lafayette Anticipations, Paris.
©Pierre Antoine - ©ADAGP

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

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

Paul Maheke, "A fire circle for a public hearing", Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK, 2018
Produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery and Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middelburg.
© Mark Blower

Paul Maheke, "Habits of care", Blackwood Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 2017
© Henry Chan / © Toni Hafkenscheid

Paul Maheke, «Acqua Alta», Galerie Sultana, Paris, France, 2017
©Aurélien Mole

Paul Maheke, "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», DRAF, 2017
© Tim Bowditch

Paul Maheke, "Mbu", as part of BMW Live Exhibition: Ten Days Six Nights, Tate Modern, 2017
© Tate 2017, image: Brotherton-Lock.

Paul Maheke, "In the Watery Core of those Stories", as part of the Diaspora Pavilion, Venice, Italia, 2017
Courtesy of ICF, Galerie Sultana and the artist
© Francesco Allegretto and Paul Maheke

Paul Maheke, "What Flows Through and Across", Assembly Point, London, United Kingdom, 2017

Paul Maheke, "In Me Everything is Already Flowing", Center, Berlin, Germany, 2016

Paul Maheke, "I Lost Track of the Swarm", South London Gallery, London, UK, 2016