Wangechi Mutu's Dynamic Art Practice

ramatiart
Jan 18, 2017
2 min read

Speaking of contemporary African Masters, Wangechi Mutu is the definition of a contemporary African wonder; exploring subjects of gender, race, and personal identity of women, she gives us another perspective of things as they are. Wangechi Mutu was born on June 25, 1972 in Nairobi Kenya, she currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Mutu's childhoon and early education was in Nairobi at Loreto Convent Msongari from 1978 to 1989 after which she moved in 1991 to the United World College of the Atlantic, Wales. In the 1990's she moved to The New School for Social Research and Parsons School of Art and Design in New York where she earned a BFA and she then pursued her master's degree in sculpture from Yale University in 2000. Mutu makes use of various mediums, juxtaposing these elements into spectacular works of art. Her creative process includes; videos, complex collages, performance, and sculptures. In one word Afrofuturism, she communicates stories through her art, in her spectacular collage works; her works are in distinct, recognisable by her recurring imagery of snake like figures and women with distorted or masked faces.

In 2013, Wangechi made her 1st animation video, "The End of Eating Everything (co- released by MOCAtv on Youtube). It was one among a handful of works she made for her exhibition in 2013 WANGECHI MUTU: A Fantastic Journey. The exhibition which was organised by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University went on from October 11 2013 - March 9 2014 and she explored through her works the flaws of globalisation, societal structures, sexualization of the black woman, personal identity etc. In her 8-minute video, Wangechi portrays a creature led by hunger to its own detriment and destruction, a strange sick flying creature with a female head that flew around a bleak, dark, polluted and dirty sky looking for what to devour. Wangechi Mutu is an inspiration to the contemporary art world and has been able to earn her reputation as an international African contemporary artist.