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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. It is gallery season in New York, and there are shows opening up almost every day. Yesterday, we talked about the new Arshile Gorky show at Hauser & Wirth. Tomorrow, we will speak with artist Gina Beavers, who has a show at Marianne Boesky Gallery. Today, we are speaking to an artist whose life is very different from five years ago.

Wangari Mathenge got her JD from Georgetown, got a job, and in her mid-40s, she made a change. She was going to be an artist. She went to school and got an MFA in painting and drawing at the School of Art at The Art Institute of Chicago. It's been nonstop since. She's had solo shows in London, Milan, Los Angeles, and now in New York City. Wangari Mathenge joins us now from Nicola Vassell Gallery, where her show opens up today. Wangari, nice to meet you.

Wangari Mathenge: Thanks for having me. Nice to meet you too.

Alison Stewart: You are originally from Kenya, way back when. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Wangari Mathenge: I don't think I wanted to be anything. [laughter] I never thought of what I wanted to be, to be honest. When I was really young, I was introduced to just a lot of creative things. I was painting, playing music really badly, the piano, the recorder, and also theater. I was introduced to a lot of creative things but as a hobby. My parents, I think, always envisioned that I would be a lawyer. From early on, they kept on telling me that I was really good at arguments and that I would be a fantastic lawyer.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Where did art enter your life as a child, as a kid?

Wangari Mathenge: Actually, from primary school or even kindergarten, so preschool. I think we always had art classes. Then my mother, I think, noticed that I was really interested in painting, so she enrolled me in after-school classes. Even as early as six and seven, I was taking extra classes in painting.

Alison Stewart: When you said your parents, when you were a kid, they thought, "Oh, she'll be a lawyer, she'll be great," did you ever think as a young girl that people could be artists for a living?

Wangari Mathenge: No, absolutely not. I think this is because in Kenya, while we have a lot of art and culture, we probably didn't take it as a very serious endeavor. When I was growing up, we're talking about in the '80s and even probably early '90s, we have this fantastic museum, but it had more relics than anything. You didn't really see contemporary art. I thought art is for-- Yes, we create it now, but it's really a thing that's appreciated in the future. Whatever we're making contemporaneously doesn't have the import that-- it's just not important until we're dead.

That being the case, I never thought that people took it as a primary endeavor, a way of expressing themselves and also making a living through it. That never crossed my mind. I always thought I would do something else, medicine and law, but then have this hobby because I really enjoyed painting.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Wangari Mathenge. Bedimmed Boundaries: Between Wakefulness and Sleep is the name of her exhibit. It's opening today at the Nicola Vassell Gallery at 18th Street and 10th Avenue. You decide to go to traditional mode. You went to Howard and to Georgetown deciding on a legal career. Why the law?

Wangari Mathenge: Brainwashing. [laughter] Honestly, there's no other way to explain it. I just grew up hearing that, "You would be a great lawyer," and I was convinced that that was the path, because prior to that-- I have an MBA. I was working in finance, and I spent three years working in finance and realized pretty quickly that I was just not that interested in it. Then I remembered, "Okay, my parents talked about this law thing, so let me take a stab at it."

I enjoyed the study of law and probably initially the practice of it, but then shortly after, I started to realize that that wasn't it either. I had this really restless soul. I think somewhere along that journey is when I began to realize that I need an outlet. My return to art and to painting and the investigation of it was through just taking art classes in community colleges with the hope that it would balance out the stress that I felt in this other world, practicing law, but also not approaching it with this idea that I would become a full-time practicing artist.

Alison Stewart: What were your paintings like when you were at law school and when you became a lawyer?

Wangari Mathenge: They were abstract. I was still trying to feel my way around, sort of re-entering learning how to paint because I had stopped painting for over a decade. I was just experimenting with different styles. I was absolutely not a figurative painter, which is what I do now mostly. Learning the shift between abstraction and figuration happened in a very compelled way. I was in a class that was a figurative class, and they said you have to paint yourself, and I was like, "Oh, no, I don't want to do this." [laughter] But, I was in a class.

Then I think after a couple of sessions, I started to realize that there was this beauty in observation, and then essentially, I started learning more about myself. I was looking at myself and saying, "Wow, I did not know this about myself." First, it was just very superficial, the physical, but then I think it also helped me work into my inner self. It was therapeutic in that way just looking at myself.

Alison Stewart: I want to go back. You said you hadn't painted for a decade, or you hadn't really been involved in art for a decade. What did that feel like?

Wangari Mathenge: It felt normal because I focused on law, and that's where-- There was just no time. I didn't even think that there was something missing. Especially in the early stages when you're learning and you have this learning curve, it just takes up all your time. Now, the thing is, once you've learned everything and you're comfortable with what you're doing, that's when you create space in your mind and in your life to think, "Am I content?"

That's when you start thinking about the future and, "Oh, okay, so this is what I'm going to be doing on a daily. Is this sustainable, the way I feel?" Initially, yes, in that decade when I wasn't making art, I don't think I missed it. I was very focused and busy with learning law and becoming good at it. When it reentered my life is when it needed to because it just called upon me because I needed to find something else to balance myself out.

Alison Stewart: Wangari, you went to Boston, you got a job with a big firm, but at one point, you weren't really feeling it. What do you remember about deciding, "I think I'm going to go for an art degree"?

Wangari Mathenge: Gosh. The art degree was contemplated over a period of 10 years. While I was practicing law, I was taking art classes in community colleges. It would just be the one-off art class that you sign up for. It's not taking too much of your time. At some point, it was all practical, and then I decided it's time to delve into the theories, go into some art history. Art history class is what essentially drove me into really realizing how important this way of expression is, and that, yes, I can afford more time in my life for it.

Then it was my art history teacher who encouraged me to pursue an MFA, and also, just to consider art being a full-time practice. It took me 10 years from when I first started thinking of enrolling and then finally enrolling into the MFA. Obviously, this is because of the cost implications as well because they are pretty expensive.

Alison Stewart: What did you learn from attending art school that you didn't know before and that has proven useful to you?

Wangari Mathenge: So many things, but I think the most important thing for me-- Well, there's two important things. One was being able to critique art, to be able to look at what I was making and have a really strong and really solid understanding of why I am making this, because before, I was just all over the place painting all sorts of things that-- I really didn't understand, why am I gravitating to it? It's not necessarily that I changed what I was painting but that I was able to be critical and understand why I was doing it.

The other thing that I feel is that it helped me have the confidence to make whatever I wanted to make because-- I think this is still related to the fact that I can explain to myself because I am my audience when I'm making my paintings. I was able to explain to myself why I am making a certain painting, why I'm making certain compositional choices, why I'm using certain media.

That gave me the confidence to share my work, while earlier on, I didn't want to share my work with the world because I wasn't confident about what I was trying to say. Art school and being surrounded by other students who I was able to have conversations with and also the teachers helped me be able to be confident to share my work with the world and happy to do so.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Wangari Mathenge. Her new exhibit is called Bedimmed Boundaries: Between Wakefulness and Sleep. It opens today at the Nicola Vassell Gallery at 18th Street and 10th Avenue. We'll hear more about the exhibit after the break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Wangari Mathenge. She has a new show opening today at the Nicola Vassell Gallery. It's titled Bedimmed Boundaries: Between Wakefulness and Sleep. Wangari, this work is about the moment when you're either awake or asleep, or asleep or awake. Where did this idea come from?

Wangari Mathenge: This idea came from me having conversations with friends and also my partner. We were talking about our dreams, and I realized that I have a certain kind of dream state that is not that common. This is the dream state that happens as you're falling to sleep and also as you're just about to awaken. I've had these, obviously, all my life, but I thought that this was a common occurrence across the board, that we all have these three different types of dream states.

The most common one is the REM dream state. In the middle of sleep, you're in deep sleep, and then we have these dreams which either recur or not. Some people remember them, some people don't. I think that's the more common dream state that people talk about, but then I have these experiences where I am fully aware that I'm awake but I am dreaming. It's usually as I'm about to fall asleep or as I'm waking up. I also have these dreams when I'm awake and walking.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Wangari Mathenge: It was while I was having these conversations that I realized, "Wait a minute, this is very unique." I didn't even know what they were called. I started researching and found, okay, so this dream state is called hypnagogia. That's the dream state as you're falling asleep. The one that you're waking up, which is even rarer, is called hypnopompia. I experience both of them. In fact, with my hypnopompic dreams, those are the usual ones, which I fully probably wake up when maybe I've gone to the bathroom, and I literally have to tell myself, "Wake up now. Be done with this dream." [laughs]

Alison Stewart: I understood you took video of yourself. Where did you record yourself? How long did you record yourself?

Wangari Mathenge: I'm still recording myself, and I have video set up in my bedroom and also in my living room. When I decided to embark upon this project, I decided to have a camera that is on nighttime all the time, and it records my movements. Because I don't have these dreams all the time, on the day that I experience the dream, I record it, and then I extract the footage of that session. The works in the show today actually show specific moments when I had these hypnagogic or hypnopompic dreams.

Alison Stewart: Well, you also kept a journal, aside from your video. What did the diary reveal to you?

Wangari Mathenge: The journal was me recounting exactly what happened in that dream. I'd make sure that I recorded it very contemporaneously so that I don't miss any detail of what happened in that dream. Initially, my vision for this show was I was going to have paintings that describe these dreams, and then it changed. I decided that I think it would be more interesting to just show the state at which I was having these experiences.

I also have a video presentation, which then complements the paintings. In the video presentation, I do allow the viewer to step into what was going on when I was having these experiences. You get to see it through-- It's a video presentation, which is an animation.

Alison Stewart: First, we get to see the beautiful work you did. They're self-portraits. The first piece, I believe it's called Tightrope, and it's the first piece we see when we walk in the door. You look very cozy and restful. Can you describe it for us?

Wangari Mathenge: Yes. It's this painting where I am sitting on this-- it's kind of a daybed, and I have my duvet. I was actually watching TV, fell asleep on that specific session, but the viewpoint is me with this duvet that is just all over me. It's sort of a chartreuse color, the entire painting. From far, I look like I'm asleep, but then if you look closely, the eyes are open, slightly open.

Alison Stewart: Why did you want this to be the first piece that people receive?

Wangari Mathenge: Now, I think these are mainly stylistic choices in terms of how you present work in a gallery setting because you don't really have the choice of how the walls are and what looks good where. When you walk in, there is this almost between chartreuse and mustard wall, and that painting complemented that wall really well. That is really the reason why it is there. It could have been anywhere else, because I think all the paintings, when you walk into the space, really thematically are in line.

That painting really looked good because that's the only wall that actually has this separate, very different color from the rest of the treatment of the gallery. I think that's specifically why that landed there.

Alison Stewart: In a few of the pictures, there's a little stuffed animal that you sleep with. What does that mean to you?

Wangari Mathenge: That stuffed animal has been with me for decades. [laughter] It started off as sort of this sign. I make portraits, or just figurative work, generally, of people around me, but whenever I appeared in a painting, I said, "I will make sure that there is a sign that I'm in, that that's me reflected in this painting." It wasn't anything that I thought too deeply about. It just happened that they started appearing. Anytime that I was in a painting, then my stuffed animals would appear.

This show is entirely about me. When I was making this show, I thought, "They need to appear in this show," because, again, it is this nod to, Wangari Mathenge is here, in these paintings.

Alison Stewart: One picture story shows you in the middle of sleep. Your foot's almost touching the ground, but I notice over on the right-hand side, there's sort of clocks written on the wall. It's in between. I like your point, wakefulness and sleep. Why did you decide what was real and what was imaginary for the pictures?

Wangari Mathenge: All of these paintings are in lived-in environments. There's a lot of stuff around it. Initially, when I first started drawing, sketching, and deciding what was going to go into the painting, it was the environment as it currently is. In the past, a lot of my paintings do have this built-in environment that I think mainly because a lot of my paintings in the past have been talking about diasporic material culture. How does this space look like, where this being who has relocated themselves? What does this space look like?

The commentary is a little bit more than just the individual in the space. It's also about the environment. I wanted the viewer to delve into this inner space that this work is talking about being in this hypnagogic or hypnopompic state. I began to realize that I need to reduce the visual play that it would have if you had to contemplate all the things that were showing up. Clocks are important because, for me, I have these low grades insomnia, and I've had it for a really long time. One of the things that you suffer with is looking at the clock and realizing that you only slept 10 minutes.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Wangari Mathenge: [laughs] And morning is nowhere to be found, but you're awake. Clocks hold that meaning. That's why the paintings-- there's more of the focus on the clocks and the individual so that we delve into the psychological aspect of what's going on, as opposed to being distracted by the environments.

Alison Stewart: The name of the show is Bedimmed Boundaries: Between Wakefulness and Sleep. It opens today, and it runs through October 19th at the Nicola Vassell Gallery at 18th Street and 10th Avenue. Artist Wangari Mathenge, thank you so much for spending time with us.

Wangari Mathenge: Thank you for having me. It was fantastic spending--

 

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