Moonfish Meadow I and II (2023)
Species (left): Moonfish (Lampris guttatus), Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis), Banyan tree (Ficus benghalensis), Blue Mussel (Mytilus edulis), Arum Lily (Zantedeschia aethipica)
Species (right): Moonfish (Lampris guttatus),
Banyan tree (Ficus benghalensis)
Moonfish Meadow I and II form a diptych biosphere that honors plenitude, sidereal symbioses, and relation at its most generous. An ecological community in constant metamorphosis, this fugitive landscape is anchored by the ever-elliptical Banyan, and crowned by the Evening Primrose. These works are inspired by the eco-poetics of Éduoard Glissant, a legendary Martiniquan poet who writes of landscape not only as enviroment, but as a mode of self-realization. Through embracing our landscapes, our beings burgeon beyond their borders; as opposed to understanding our existence purely through anthropocentrism, or as man above nature, we move into an intersubjective, interspecies relation that restores our harmonious relation to the natural world.
The Moonfish (Lampris guttatus) is the mythic subject of this landscape of poetic immersion. As members of the deep sea, the Moonfish symbolize the untouched forms of knowledge and being that await in worlds opaque to the human gaze. The first environment recognizes the abundance present within the opacities of anthropocentric epistemology, especially with regard to the ever-elusive beauty of Earth’s aquatic landscapes. The compositional decisions of this first landscape serve as a surrealist representation of the plenitude in our water-worlds. The second environment exists as a stark but necessary contrast to the ecological abundance of the first, a special effort to foreshadow the depth of loss to be faced by our ecosystems if the violence of climate change is not adequately confronted.
A meadow of plenty or a meadow of loss: this is the choice the Moonfish presents to us.
Artist Bio
Matou (b.1999) is an interdisciplinary Gambian-Virginian artist, writer, and researcher. She graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts in African Diaspora Studies and Comparative Literature. Since 2019, Matou has developed an intertextual practice between her writing, research, and artistic work. Blending 3D and 2D methodologies of digital art, she invents surreal ecosystems rooted in a deep engagement of Black history, literature, and music. Matou’s artwork has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including: Southside Contemporary Art Gallery’s “Diaspora Crossing”, Second Street Gallery’s “Home”, curated by the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective, and “Imaginary Worlds” at the Ann-Marie Art Center. She has also showcased her work in UNCF’s 2025 “Gala Noir”.
Recently, her pieces have been showcased in “Echoes of Black Sound” at the South Dallas Cultural Center, and “Light on Cut Paper”, a juried exhibition hosted by the New Orleans Photo Alliance in collaboration with Kolaj Magazine. Her written and visual work has also been published in Burnaway Magazine’s fourth annual reader, Where I’m Calling From.
Instagram: @dadolldemba
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