Combining paintings on canvas or wood, works on paper, muslin prints, videos, and installations, Maty Biayenda creates an artistic universe that resembles a kaleidoscope of aesthetic experiments. Her works conjure a range of characters, both real and fictional, forming an enchanting journey between collective imagination and personal memory, where seduction and impertinence challenge social, racial, and gender norms.

The artist first explores and assembles archives, from personal photographs to historical documents on Black history and images from fashion magazines. Of Franco-Congolese descent, her research into the objectification and liberation of Black female bodies through fetishism led her to explore racialized transgender representations. This approach results in a visual archive of iconic nightlife figures, ranging from 1980s New York beauty queens to post-WWII Caribbean transformist performers at the Parisian cabaret Chez Madame Arthur, and fragments from glamour magazines.

The fabulous figures in her work seem to step out of Paris is Burning, the iconic film on voguing culture in 1990s New York. These characters contribute to a personal mythology where the artist’s life experiences are reflected and confronted.

At the heart of Biayenda’s practice is a focus on community, as seen in her depictions of the ties that bind us. Her canvases are inspired by friends captured in everyday moments—talking on the phone, riding a motorcycle, or listening to music—accentuated by evocative gestures and expressions.

Maty Biayenda was born in 1998 in Namibia. She lives and works in Paris.