Foreland Presents Greater Valley Artists: NTANGOU BADILA
On view: July 2nd- Sept 28th
Open Wed - Sun, 9am-2pm
111 Water St. Catskill, NY, 12414
Foreland Presents, Hudson-based artist; Ntangou Badila. Known for her vibrant, acrylic-based explorations of the inner human body, Ntangou Badila merges Congolese ancestral wisdom with contemporary visual language. In E(n)ternal Lighf, Badila paints the cosmos within; rendering organs, cells, and bodily systems as radiant constellations of stardust and memory. Her work fuses the seen and unseen, mapping the sacred rhythms of breath, heartbeat, and spirit with the reverence of myth and science intertwined.
Rooted in the legacy of her father, André Elombe Badila - a celebrated multidisciplinary artist in Congo-Brazzaville - Ntangou's own artistic path began as a reclamation of lineage and liberation. After a successful career as an executive pastry chef in Soho, she turned inward, trading sugar for color, and heat for light. Her canvases now shimmer with octopoid symbols, elemental forces, and sacred geometries, each piece inviting a deeper dialogue with the body's divine intelligence.
Badila’s work has appeared in AfroPunk, OkayAfrica, Demur Mag, and Snax Magazine, and she has exhibited widely, including solo shows like Queendwombmen, Gemini Moon, and E(n)ternal Lighf, currently on view at Hudson Hall. As a muralist and mentor, she extends her practice into public space, nurturing the next generation of visual storytellers through workshops and collaborative works across New York State.
Her paintings are more than anatomical meditations they are spiritual blueprints. In Divine Balance, masculine and feminine polarities dance in rhythmic harmony. In Zygote, life sparks into being. In Cells and Sense, she renders our miraculous biology with such vivid intimacy that viewers are reminded: we are not just bodies, we are galaxies becoming.
Greater Valley Artists is a tri-monthly showcase of artists exclusively based in Greene & Columbia County. GVA is free to apply. Submissions can be emailed to Jesse@forelandcatskill.com with a subject line reading GVA Submission. Please include 8 work images, work details, and an artist's bio.
