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Nairobe-born artist Wangechi Mutu talks to us about her portrayal of women’s bodies as powerful, everchanging and vulnerable

Wangechi Mutu on what drives her artistic vision.

Wangechi Mutu is a Nairobi-born, New York-based artist who was trained as both a sculptor and anthropologist. Her work consists of an assemblage of materials – often bridging the gap between compiled objects and materials with an array of painted surfaces and textures.

Her work “This You Call Civilization?” is on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the first solo exhibition of her socially charged artwork at a major North American museum.The exhibit encompasses 16 key works by the artist, including 12 large-scale collage-based works. The collages create distorted and fantastical representations of the female form.

Says AGO Curator of Contemporary Art David Moos: “Wangechi Mutu’s work boldly explores the contradictions of female and cultural identity, drawing the viewer into conversations about beauty, consumerism, colonialism,race and gender. Her representations of the human form are disturbing and transfixing, at once utterly complex and strikingly direct.”

Taking a political and cultural stance with every piece she creates, I had the pleasure of chatting with Mutu about her artistic process.


Born in Nairobi and currently living in New York – how would you define your artistic vision?

I’m passionate about what I do because it’s an incredible task or gift to be an artist, a creator, a thinker, an idea sorcerer. My belief is that artists assist in mediating and communicating on behalf of the larger community. Since that is such an enormous and profound role, I take it seriously and enjoy every nuance allowed to me as a result.

You have observed: “Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body.” How does this statement weave its way into your artistic creations?

Women’s bodies are powerful, everchanging, vulnerable and under constant scrutiny. In times when societies (and men in particular) are at a loss for words or the means to distribute certain assumptions and beliefs, women become the scroll on which the “unwritable” is scratched.

How would you define your treatment of “human form” — as your work ranges the gamut from erotic to disturbing and everything in between?

The body is many, many little particles; elements held together by the forces of physics in a manner evolved over time. I pick and pry these particles apart to highlight certain theories and ideas using materials that have often the exact same particles and elements within them.

You have said, “Camouflage and mutation are big themes in my work, but the idea I’m most enamored with is the notion that transformation can help us to transcend our predicament.We all wear costumes when we set out for battle.” What do you view as your artistic mask?

That seems like an oxymoron… artistic and mask. My artistic process is my most naked moment. It is the state I feel most susceptible and yet powerful.

Tell us a little bit about “Chorus Girls.” What does this artistic vision signify?

I was in a good mood when I made “Chorus Girls” and all the work from “Little Touched.” It was funny for me to sit and invent an alternate set of “girls” standing in a row kicking and thrashing all over the place in perfect disharmony. Finally the understudy gets to be on stage and show how high she can kick,an alternate to the traditional pattern we see in chorus lines.

Your work has been described as both ancient and futuristic. How would you describe your creative process?

Those seem like two separate questions. Do you mean is my work a description of the future and the past? My work is very present and I hope, as such, that I have some insight to share. Then you ask, how does one describe my creative process? It’s like a massive constant absorption of experience, information, memories, matter, detritus that climaxes in a controlled release of luscious, deviant, regurgitated forms and tales.

How has your work changed and progressed, based on geographical location?

I go somewhere, I feel lost, experience loneliness, inevitably homesickness. I come up with some ideas to keep me company. I lose some of my disorientation in exchange for self-consciousness. I ponder over my new, other roles. I dwell on that and multitudes of things related, and come up with more ideas. Then I stay or I go somewhere else.

What are you currently working on?

Like Chinua Achebe said when he was interviewed recently, I’m working on, “This interview here.”