A-Z: Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu (born 22 June 1972 in Nairobi, Kenya) is an artist and sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Mutu is considered by many to be one of the most important contemporary African artists of recent years, and her work has achieved much global acclaim.^[1]While Mutu employs a variety of mediums including video, installation, and sculpture, she is best known for her large-scale collages on pieces of Mylar.^[7] Mutu's works often make the female body central, and confront the viewer with "plant-like or animal-like elements and intertwined abstract patterns"^[8] that merge the organic and the surreal with human forms. These hybrid creatures have bodies made of a combination of machine, animal, human and monster parts. Mutu constructs these warrior-like females out of magazine cutouts, sculpted and painted surfaces, and found materials.The sources her collage images range from a variety of media, including commercial fashion and lifestyle pornography, and automobile and motorcycle magazines.