“Wangechi Mutu features gorgeously grotesque creatures that range from amusingly freakish to macabre. Using ink and collage on Mylar or paper, she combines humans, animals, and machines in seamless and commanding compositions full of small moments of discovery and random elements that may betray only an oblique relation to the overall image.”
While I don’t enjoy this art style, this is a unique way to use collage. She uses multiple images and combines them to create a hybrid matriarch figure. It’s grotesque but in a way that makes the viewer try to find where it ends or starts. What features are used for this project and why can’t I look away? It’s about the figure’s identity, culture, sexuality, and their beliefs.
“Mutu’s work is informed by important social and cultural issues, but leaves the ugly truths for the surrounding discourse, even though there are hints in the works, such as stereotypical depictions of “exotic” Africans. There are layers of meaning but never heavy-handed didacticism.”
Mutu challenges stereotypical sexualization and exoticized artworks of African and African American women. A picture that is meant to be sexual is obliterated and replaced by something else, whether it's animals, color, or plants. Her goal is to combine African and European art, showing that both are equally important and to show the world the beauty of her heritage.
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