Growing up in Nairobi Wangechi Mutu didn’t quite have in mind the destiny that awaited her – to be an award-winning artist of international repute using her innate Africanness to share our heritage across the world. As the second-born child amongst four siblings with a teacher and nurse as parents, Wangechi’s life was reminiscent of many children growing up in the Nairobi of the 1970s. As the nation enjoyed the newness of independence, educated Africans holding public sector jobs brought esteem and stability to their immediate and extended families. For her primary school, her parents enrolled her at Loreto Convent Msongari, where her PCEA upbringing found a new way of celebrating faith. The strict Irish nuns of Msongari had one area where they truly embraced creativity and that was in the weekly Masses where African songs and dance were a mainstay of the service. It was completely different from the staid services of her protestant Sunday church and seeded the idea that there were many ways to experience a common path.

For Wangechi art had been part of her school curriculum but art of a repetitive kind. Drawing was equated to art and most lessons rotated around capturing still life’s of furniture or fruit. As much as the lack of variety frustrated her, she would come to appreciate in time the fundamental skills in drawing that were necessary to any artist. As her years in high school came to a close, a mentor of hers recommended she apply to study an International Baccalaureate at the United World Colleges, an international school system that focused on developing dynamic globally. Her application was successful and she was awarded a scholarship to study at the Wales branch where she spent the last two years before university immersed in a multicultural environment, learning amongst students from across Africa and the globe. Of note was the idea that came from the school to embrace all types of careers as worthy. Her time at UWC was a turning point and by the time she concluded and came home, she was sure she wanted to pursue a future in Fine Art. She spent months scouting for and applying to good art schools that would give her financial aid and after several applications landed a scholarship from the Parsons Schools of Design in New York. With this in hand, she confronted her parents with her choice and she had only one request – that they support her with a ticket to America to allow her to pursue her dream. Being a second born perhaps worked in her favour as her parents were not as strict with her choice of career, which wasn’t quite the same for her older sister and Supported her wild and crazy dream.

Within a short while of arriving in America, she realized that her choice of school was not quite correct as it focused more on design whereas she had been eager to delve into the world of fine arts. Frustrated, after a year she decided to drop out and search for an alternative that met her needs. Tenacious to a fault, Wangechi struggled to find a Plan B determined to not have to return home in disgrace with no degree in hand. She eventually learned about Cooper Union – a tuition-free Art School in the same neighborhood as Parsons. With her strong portfolio, she was accepted and was truly on her way. At Cooper, she engaged with myriad artists, playwrights, creatives who introduced her to different forms of expression and drew her into exciting spaces where norms were continually challenged. Wangechi thrived in her new world, it was like coming home and finding that what you wanted to be truly had no boxes.

Wangechi’s work embraces several different genres – ranging from film to multimedia installations, to ceramic and bronze cast sculptures. Her work explores her history as a Kenyan African woman who grew up in the legacy period of colonialism and at the heart of many of her works the female form is central. Post-graduation, Wangechi began developing a wide and varied body of artwork. Her first recognition came in 2007 with The Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Award in New York, while in 2010 she was recognized as the Deutsche Guggenheim Artist of the Year, in 2013 she received the Blackstar Film Festival Audience Award for Favorite Experimental Film, and as recently as 2018 was an Artist Honoree, African Art Awards Dinner, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African Art, Washington D.C. Her ability to cross-cross different genres of art and garner so many awards is a testament to her brilliance and drive to not be pigeonholed.

In 2019 Wangechi reached new heights when she was commissioned to create a new installation for New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, popularly known as The Met. As the fourth largest art museum in the world and America’s biggest, The Met holds a place of immense esteem in the art world. Using her history and heritage Wangechi created four new sculptures titles “The New Ones, will free us” to adorn the entranceway of the museum for a year. The four sculptures modelled around the tradition of women from different African communities will remain as sentinels to the almost 7 million visitors that visit the museum each year. In her words “I chose to stick with the subject of the female body as a platform for what we feel about ourselves as humans”.

As the first artist to be commissioned for the Met’s façade which had lain empty for 117 years, the unveiling of the massive sculptures in September 2019 was indeed a breakthrough moment for our Kenyan artist. Through her work she has brought our African selves onto a global stage, to be witnessed and celebrated in the fullness of their being. For her dedication to her craft, her tenacity and for shining a light on the scope of the Kenyan spirit in 2019 we celebrate Wangechi Mutu.

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