Wangechi Mutu
Wangechi Mutu is a collage artist who was born in Nairobi, Kenya. She studied at the New School for Social Research, Parsons, Cooper Union, and Yale.
Many of her collages are made from images cut from fashion magazines, National Geographic, and books about African art.
Most of her pieces reference colonial history and African politics, as well as womanhood and female sexuality. Her images tend to feel beautiful and simultaneous grotesque. Most, if not all of her collages, carry political themes.
"Mutu uses materials which make reference to African identity and political strife: her dazzling black glitter is an abyss of western desire, which allude to the illegal diamond trade and its consequences of oppression and war. From corruption and violence, Mutu creates a glamorous beauty; her figures empowered by their survivalist adjustment to atrocity, made immune and ‘improved’ by horror and being victims."
Her process is almost surgical. She uses many medical illustrations, most of which deal with childbearing or female anatomy, cuts them apart, and brings them back together in mutated compositions.
No comments:
Post a Comment