Many know Taahliah for her live, high energy, euphoric appearances at queer clubs such as Glasgow’s Shoot Your Shot, or her pop-infused, confessional, dance music releases. Her debut album Gramarye was shortlisted for 2025’s Scottish Album Of The Year Award and she’s shared stages with Sophie, Eris Drew, Loraine James and London Contemporary Orchestra among others. But things will come full circle when the DJ and producer, real name Tahliah Simumba, makes her visual art debut with a solo exhibition during Glasgow International. 

‘Not many people realise that I was a painter first,’ she says over Zoom from her studio in London. ‘Growing up as a working-class kid in Kilmarnock, I was always arts and craftsy. I won a bunch of awards for my oil paintings: I was a child star! Painting was such a cathartic process; it helped me understand my identity and my race. I’d paint these gorgeous feminine portraits as a child and teenager before studying painting at Glasgow School Of Art.’

Although GSA allowed for artistic experimentation, that phase wasn’t entirely comfortable. ‘I wasn’t prepared for the level of critique that art school subjects you to. Also, my tutors didn’t look the way that I looked. I was beginning to transition around that time. I was going through a lot and my instinct was to rebel; my act of rebellion was making music.’ Her career snowballed rapidly with live sets at Glastonbury, Sonar and Fabric, plus a viral Boiler Room performance, but Simumba felt exhausted after extensive touring. ‘I don’t like to feel constricted creatively; my practice is multi-disciplinary. I hadn’t painted for a few years so I was nervous, but I’m excited to return to it.’

Her debut exhibition, A Star That Burns Forever Is A Star That Burns In Me, brings together a series of spotlit oil paintings accompanied by a durational sound installation. The title comes from an academic essay by Marquis Bey, a professor of black feminist theory and transgender studies at Northwestern University, Illinois. ‘I remember reading this really wonderful thing in “The Trans*-ness Of Blackness, The Blackness Of Trans*-ness” comparing transness to a strange, primordial, almost celestial force. It said, “in the beginning stars floating without laws set in motion that originary trans*-ness, the fundamental openness of our world”. I just thought that was a really nice way of thinking. Also, my show is full of stars, as in celebrities, icons, artistic figures in culture.’

TV personality Pete Burns, hyperpop producer Sophie, trans activist Marsha P Johnson, and Warhol muse and actress Candy Darling all appear in Simumba’s collection which explores transness ‘not as a fixed taxonomy but as something glamorous, generative and unbound, operating through resonance rather than strict definition’. Like Simumba’s own identity and creative focus, she hopes this work explores the complex evolution and fluidity of the transfeminised image.

Tahliah Simumba: A Star That Burns Forever Is A Star That Burns In Me, Friday 5–Sunday 21 June; in conversation with Gray Wielebinski, Saturday 6 June; both events at Strange Field, Glasgow.

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