Majik
Majik
Majik, PORTAL, 2021/25, Mixed media, paper, found objects, installation and performance. Photography by Tessa Hallmann.
Mixed media installation piece featuring an art piece from my personal archive (Rainbow Masquerade, 2021) above an altar of assembled objects. The wall behind is decorated with paper flowers containing messages and sigils. A poem/spell is scrawled on the walls. The overall effect is the creation of a magical opening/portal between my world and the world of the gallery. A short performance activates the portal, creating a space for myself, my ancestors and my community to commune. Visitors are encouraged to leave their own “objects of power” around the altar as tributes for themselves and their ancestors.
A response to the Beecroft Gallery Archive
How do you respond to an institutional archive that doesn't acknowledge your existence?
My first response was disappointment. How could I - a black, queer person - possibly find inspiration in an archive that is none of these things?
Next came anger and frustration. what was the point of this exercise? Why had been invited to respond to this archive and why should i even bother? I wanted to protest.I wanted to vomit rainbow colours all over the walls. I wanted to leave an empty black hole. I wanted to leave a middle finger for everyone to see my utter demoralised disdain.
BUT
I also realised that this is exactly the kind of response that is expected of people like me. These are the responses that confirm the stereotypes, the angry, black queer, clapping back at institutional injustice by burning it all down. Not that this wasn't a valid response but it didn't really feel right for me.
A DIFFERENT APPROACH
As an artist my practice is embodied, I settle into a work and let it slowly reveal itself by how it feels in my body. I knew that for my response to feel right to me, I would have to look deeper at what lay underneath my initial responses. I needed to return to my grounded self. The result of this is PORTAL, a ritual doorway that opens the gallery up to my world, my ancestors, my spirit,my queerness, my community, myself. By creating PORTAL I'm opening a door to let everything that I feel is missing from the archive through.
Biography
My name is Majik and I make mixed media, assemblage,collage and paper art, stop motion animation, and performance art.
My art is self taught and spontaneous. My aesthetic is bold colours, symmetry and shapes, patterns, symbols and chaos. I'm interested in exploring community and identity; modern expressions of African art and culture; the intersection of spirituality and psychedelia; and queer and punk cultures.
Through my work I attempt to explore an ongoing conversation around representations of, and space-making for, myself, my community and my heritage as a queer person of African descent.
My first solo exhibition called Friends and Monsters was held at the Barbican Arts Trust Atrium Gallery in July 2022.