Art and Gender Intersect

Do we think about gender when looking at art when the two are married into a space? Is the gender of the artist considered when examining a work or are we oblivious to the artist's gender? Does gender matter when observing art? What does intersect mean when art and gender intersect? Miriam Webster's dictionary defines intersect as to meet or cross at a point. Another definition is to share a common area. Is there a shared common area or space in art between gender and the artwork? How do we react to works where the space is shared by gender and the work itself? Wangechi Mutu is an artist that fuses gender and art seamlessly. Mutu tells a story of culture, history, identity through collages that combine female body parts and a variety of media. Tape, cut paper, pages from a variety of texts are used to communicate the challenges of womanhood.

When first seeing the work of Wangechi Mutu I found myself wide-eyed and amazed. Her work "The End of Eating Everything" reminds me of being transported to a fantasy world where normal is unusual and the unusual becomes normal. Mutu's work is much like Textures by jazz composer Herbie Hancock's. The spirit is moved by the underlying rhythms overlapped by shapes and patterns. Wangechi Mutu's work is important because she explores the trials of culture, heritage, politics, femininity, and and identity. Mutu is explores identity of self. These are subjects I was inspired to study in her work after seeing some of her collages. Mutu incorporates images from different sources to create lenses into the world and it's issues. Her work opens doors to a level of thinking that i had not explored before. Her work caused me to view how imagery is created and how she utilizes space.