Kenyan-born, New York-based Wangechi Mutu has trained as both a sculptor and anthropologist. Her work explores the contradictions of female and cultural identity and makes reference to colonial history, contemporary African politics and the international fashion industry. Drawing from the aesthetics of traditional crafts, science fiction and funkadelia, Mutu’s works document the contemporary myth making of endangered cultural heritage.
Wangechi Mutu's work has often seemed to bear the gaze of a perpetual outsider, simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by the discovery of another fresh outrage in the lands in which she travels. Much of Mutu's work to date has been concerned with the myriad forms of violence and misrepresentation visited upon women, especially black women, in the contemporary world
Her upbringing proved to be a modern and urban one at different phases of her life. Mutu wasoften baffled by the Western tendency to perceive Africa in terms of its traditionalculture. Being that she was born and raised in the urban portion of Africa she was unable to relate to the “western generalization of the motherland
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