Through a variety of media including painting collage, sculpture, performance and most recently video, Wangechi Mutu explores questions of self-image, gender constructs, cultural trauma and environmental destruction. With her characteristic hybrid, morphed and organic forms, she describes inherent and shared alienations. She proposes the idea of identity as performative and absolutely necessary in order to withstand social constructs and loss, as well as to rewrite the rules that bind our imagination. In Mutu’s worlds, the body is a contested space and a testing ground for the reimagining of our relationship with man-made forces and the natural world. Her visual language is further enriched by experimentation with unexpected materials, some imbued with cultural significations, like Kenyan tea and volcanic red soil, gems and seeds. Mutu’s work presents a visceral and compelling discourse with dominant modes of representation.
(For more information visit, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, here)
Title: Eleven secrets. Date: 2015. Materials: Collage on vinyl. Dimensions: 30 1/2 x 36 in. Credit: Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.
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