saw some neato art (when I should be plugging data)
EDIT:: yooo, I just found my new art crush
"Kenyan-born, Brooklyn-based artist
Wangechi Mutu’s collages ebb and flow with beauty and horror. She cobbles together images of monstrous temptresses from sources as disparate as original paintings, found objects, wildlife photography, and even porn. These seductive yet tortured characters, according to the artist, are meant to illuminate the ugly effects the legacy of colonialism has had on society’s view of black, female bodies in particular. Her women hide in fields and swamps, seeming to flee from an unwelcoming civilization.
“Many people ask me, ‘how do you do these pretty things and mix them with the violence?’. Because it is how they are. And for many people it just perhaps costs too much to look at reality,” said Mutu in a 2014 interview with
Mail & Guardian. In hybridizing images of women with plants, animals, and machines, she critiques the ways that black women have been simultaneously vilified and sexualized throughout history as well as in contemporary popular culture. Take a look at her recent collages as well as a video she collaborated on with singer Santigold."
another, different artist
"The Amazons of Dahomey were an all-female military regiment founded in the 16th century in the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Republic of Benin). By the end of the 19th century, they comprised a third of the nation’s army and were thought to be more valuable on the battle field than their male counterparts. French artist
YZ, whose portrait-based work frequently taps into civil rights themes, recently paid homage to these female warriors with her public art series in Senegal, “Amazon.” Painted on the sides of houses in a Senegalese village, the monochromatic portraits symbolize a story of female strength often left untold."