Group 9 Women Artist of Today

Women artist of today have began to break away form the traditional binds of art. Stepping outside of the box and giving themselves and their work a name. We choose four women of color whose art has taken the world by storm.  Wangechi Mutu is a perfect example of a current woman artist who refuses the norms of art. Mutu engages in a critical approach to her art using afrofuturism throughout her work as she focuses on the black body. Using elements of the past,present and future to confront the harms of colonialism,racism,sexism and class. Mutu takes her work away from the paper and brings it to life.

(Earth Goddess Vibes)Mutu Gallery

The End of Eating Everything End of Eating Everything

Using recycled materials and pearls,soil and ink to name a few elements to bring her to the audience. Mutu is also known for her animation and performance work. In one of her most known piece “The End of Eating Everything” Mutu collaborates with artist Santigold. Exploring how consumption affects us while a medusa like creator continues to eat everything that is alive around her.

Mutu has been featured in the Guardians, Afropunk, Sundance Film Festival and many other independent venues. While also having her work displayed at major art revenues such as the Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Contemporary art to name a couple. Mutu’s work is easily identifiable and stands out as she takes the female form and cuts pieces and places them on different bodies. Creating an image that is different than what the world expects. Overall Mutu’s work is unique, important and revolutionary.

Nalini Malini
Indian Contemporary artist

Next we meet artist Nalini.Nalini Malani is an Indian contemporary artist. She was born in Karachi, Pakistan in 1964 and currently resides in Ventura, California. Malani has been mostly influenced by the partition of India; it occured in 1947 and it was the separation of Pakistan and India. The aftermath of the partition were the different types of cultures and norms that developed afterwards which made it difficult for Malini's family like other refugees to adjust. This aftermath has had a huge influence in her work as well as current topics of today like identity, and gender and racial inequality. Malani has studied in Paris and she has a Fine arts diploma in Sir Jamshedjee Jeejeebhoy school of art in Bombay, India. Her art is expressed in her beautiful acrylics paintings as well as books, mural, performances, and her most famous shadow/video plays. In her shadow/video plays Nalini reverse paints on Mylar cylinder which are displayed as an exhibition likely in the center of the room. As the the cylinders are spinning in a circular motion, a video plays projecting on the walls and in the background you will hear either voices or music.  Nalini explains that these three layers (music, shadows, video) of art all have different meanings. Nalini has had exhibitions in New York, Scotland, Amsterdam and many more. Her art expression is a unique different way of expressing the many cultural issues still faced today

Kara Walker

Kara Walker is an African American contemporary artist born on November 26, 1969 who explores race, gender, sexuality, and violence. At a very young age, Walker was influenced greatly by her father who was also a painter. She is best known for her cut-paper silhouettes of black figures against a white wall, which addresses the history of African American slavery and racism through violent imagery.

Kara Walker, Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart,1994

In addition to her famous silhouettes, she also produced works of water color, video animations, and large scale sculptors. In the same year Walker graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1994, she unveiled a huge mural that criticized the romantic novel, Gone With the Wind. With solo expeditions in England, Liverpool, San Francisco, and New York, Walker’s career after the unveiling took off and she became the leading voice in racism. Currently, Walker is a Tepper Chair in Visual Arts at the Mason Gross School of the Arts in Rutgers, New Brunswick.

Kara Walker, African’t, 1996

Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander is a Pakistani-American contemporary artist. She was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1969, where she was an apprentice to a miniature painter and was taught the traditional discipline of Indo-Persian miniatures. She received her Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts at National College of Arts Lahore (1991) and later permanently moves to the U.S. where she earns her Master’s degree in Fine Arts at Rhode Island School of Design (1995). She takes many of her inspiration from the traditional techniques of the ancient Persians and Mughals. One of her most infamous pieces The Scroll (1989-1990) received National Acclaim in Pakistan, displaying the life of a Pakistani woman on a grand scale. The importance of this piece in particular is her ability to revive an ancient technique of painting in order to call into question modern day society and culture. She hopes to cast her own relationship with the genre of miniature and aims to change the narrative of stereotypes through her work as well. Sikander has held several both solo and group exhibitions worldwide. She has also led many teaching seminars over the past 20 years and currently works with graduate students internationally engaging with the next generation of young artists.