Wangechi Mutu (Kenyan, b. 1972)

In a practice that spans painting, sculpture, collage, film, and installation, Wangechi Mutu explores the violence and misrepresentations that afflict contemporary women—Black women, in particular. The effects of globalization and consumerism are also frequent themes. Contorted feminine forms, which seem simultaneously futuristic and primordial, appear throughout Mutu’s mythical bronzes and bricolages of paint, ink, magazine cutouts, and found materials. Mutu received her MFA from Yale University and has exhibited in New York, Berlin, London, Tokyo, Miami, and Chicago. She participated in the 2019 Whitney Biennial and created the inaugural commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fifth Avenue façade. Her work belongs in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Saatchi Gallery.