Wangechi Mutu A’96

Wangechi Mutu, Art 1996, is an artist who works with paint and multimedia collage to address gender and ethnicity. A native of Kenya and based in New York, Mutu’s artwork explores the experience of transporting oneself from one culture to another, often juxtaposing American and Kenyan standards of beauty and the roles of women.

After graduating from Cooper Union she attended the Yale School of Art on a sculpture fellowship, receiving her MFA in 2000. In New York City Mutu is represented by Sikkema Jenkins, where she had her first solo show in 2006. Her work has exhibited nationally and internationally, at the Brooklyn Museum, the Tate Modern, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Australia, and the International Center of Photography, among others.

Wangechi Mutu received the CU 2006 President’s Citation and was inducted into the Cooper Union Hall of Fame in 2009.