Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu’s diverse practice reflects on sexuality, femininity, ecology, and politics, underscoring the symbiotic connections that shape our shared fate. She first gained recognition for paintings and collages that confronted the violence and misrepresentation faced by women, particularly Black women, in the contemporary world.

More recently, Mutu has subverted cultural preconceptions of the female body, proposing intricate worlds populated by powerful, hybridised female figures. Her work engages in a unique form of myth-making, weaving fact with fiction to forge new symbolic characterisations distinct from classical history or popular culture.

Working between New York and Nairobi, Mutu has exhibited extensively in international forums, with her work held in major museum collections worldwide. In 2025, she made history as the first living female artist to exhibit at Rome’s Galleria Borghese with her acclaimed *Black Soil Poems*.