<div><p>The Haitian-Canadian artist attempts to connect with the infinite through painting, sculpture – and now filmmaking</p></div><p><strong></strong></p>

Chloë Ashby

On the rise: Manuel Mathieu 

<p>When the Haitian-born artist Manuel Mathieu was 15 years old, his cousin, Mario Benjamin, introduced him to Western art. He would show him catalogs filled with works by Willem de Kooning, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Clyfford Still, Cornelia Parker, and Pierre Bonnard. ‘I felt like what these people had within them was infinite, and I wanted to explore that – to be connected to the source,’ Mathieu tells me when we meet in London. ‘It wasn’t about being an artist, because I didn’t know what that was. I was just drawn to this feeling of infinity. So, I started making work, and I never stopped.’</p>

<p>Since completing his undergraduate degree in fine art in Canada at the Université du Québec à Montréal, and an MFA at Goldsmiths in London, Mathieu has worked with drawing, painting, ceramics, and installation. ‘I’ve also just directed and produced my first short film,’ he says, smiling as he adds: ‘I’m all over the place – wherever the work takes me, I trust it.’ But the medium he keeps coming back to is painting. ‘To be honest, I think the reason is because I’m not yet sure what it is – it fulfils my desire to learn and to grow.’</p>

<p>Mathieu’s kaleidoscopic paintings are at once entirely abstract and evocative of people, moments, and places. They blend Haitian visual culture with Western art movements and draw on the kind of catalogs he was absorbed by growing up, as well as conversations, experiences, and photographs. ‘The source image is just a structure,’ he says. ‘Look at the painting alongside it and you can see that structure, but look at the painting alone and it’s a different ballgame.’ Two pieces he’s particularly proud of: <em style="background-color: initial;">The Ritual</em> (2018), a light-filled canvas of lemon-yellow and violet, loosely based on a photo of the artist propped up in a hospital bed after a traffic accident, and <em style="background-color: initial;">Les Immortels </em>(2022), a vast diptych inspired by a picture of the Eight Immortals, from Chinese mythology, in a boat at sea. What the artist hopes is that each viewer brings to each work a unique perspective: ‘I hope they trust themselves.’</p>

<p>Manuel Mathieu is represented by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1424/Pilar-Corrias">Pilar Corrias</a>, London. He is currently in residency at Art Explora&nbsp;– Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and presents&nbsp;‘World Discovered Under Other Skies’,&nbsp;a solo show at Art Windsor-Essex in Windsor, Ontario. In 2021, he participated in the Artists’&nbsp;Influencers panel, moderated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist, during Art Basel Miami Beach’s Conversations program.</p><p>Chloë Ashby is an author and arts journalist based in London. Her first novel, <em>Wet Paint</em>, was published in April 2022.</p><p>Captions for full-bleed images: All&nbsp;artworks by Manuel Mathieu, courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London. 1. <em>Unmade</em>, 2022. 2. <em>The weight</em>, 2022.</p>

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<p>Captions for full-bleed images: All artworks by Manuel Mathieu, courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London. 1. <em style="background-color: initial;">Unmade</em>, 2022. 2. <em style="background-color: initial;">The weight</em>, 2022.</p>

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The Haitian-Canadian artist attempts to connect with the infinite through painting, sculpture – and now filmmaking

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