Wangechi mutu forbidden fruit picker
Wangechi mutu forbidden fruit picker
Forbidden fruit bl!
Though she may be best known for her sculptural installations, Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu also makes provocative collages that reimagine the Black female body.
Mutu's complex compositions often merge bodily imagery and photo montage with motifs that comment on race, gender, colonialism, capitalism, and history.
Early in her artistic career, Mutu “developed collage skills as a means of survival” because collage materials were more readily available than paints and other expensive art supplies.
The painting Forbidden Fruit Picker is exemplary of Mutu’s collage work - it is visceral, emotive, and a little haunting.
It is a symbolically charged painting featuring a familiar cast of biblical characters that have been portrayed in art for centuries. The composition depicts a nude female figure, her internal mechanisms exposed, sitting beneath a gnarled tree.
The figure reaches for a dangling piece of fruit while a two-headed snake flicks its bloodied tongue at her extended arm.