Wangechi Quotes & Sayings

Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body. — Wangechi Mutu

I have this amateur side attraction to, and interest in, the sciences and biology and physics and evolution. Paleontology is of interest to me. I'm interested in the way these fields have helped us understand how we are human and why we are human. I'm also from the area that is considered to be the cradle of mankind. — Wangechi Mutu

I'm an environmentalist; I recycle. — Kyrsten Sinema

the sea is made of blood — Charles Bukowski

A lot of my work reflects the incredible influence that America has had on contemporary African culture. Some of it's insidious, some of it's innocuous, some of it's invisible. It's there. — Wangechi Mutu

The fatigue I've gathered year after year and stored inside now heaves a muted cry of helplessness. Nothing but fatigue, rounding my shoulders, heavier than ever on this late autumn day with a useless sun, a world of unforgiving disasters. So many struggles and tragedies, so much sorrow and egotism in this dark, in this rotting century of hate. — Emil Dorian

I'm not a policy maker. I'm not even a very great activist. My main thing is to make things that speak for the culture that I live in. — Wangechi Mutu

Fishing's relaxing, man. Most relaxing thing in my life. It's therapy for me. I don't think about business ... sports. All I think about is catching the next fish. — Deion Sanders

I was interested in cross-pollinating the two. I thought there was something lovely in the little vignette forms. I wanted to explore that. — Sandra Cisneros

In most cases I start off with a sketch. But I'm also thinking about real images: out of National Geographic, out of fashion magazines, out of The Economist, out of Time. I'm making a sketch, but I'm using the existing images that have been put out in the world. — Wangechi Mutu

You used to call me Augustus. — John Green

I hope my kids see imagination has power to change everything. — Wangechi Mutu

Her sample drawings were clipped, rather subordinately, to her photograph. All of them were arresting. One of them was unforgettable. The unforgettable one was done in florid wash colors, with a caption that read: 'Forgive Them Their Trespasses.' It showed three small boys fishing in an odd-looking body of water, one of their jackets draped over a 'No Fishing!' sign. The tallest boy, in the foreground of the picture, appeared to have rickets in one leg and elephantiasis in the other--an effect, it was clear, that Miss Kramer had deliberately used to show that the boy was standing with his feet slightly apart. — J.D. Salinger

Everything is deeply affected by the dominant culture. Consumerism is huge in the US. This is by far the wealthiest [nation], but also the biggest consumer in the world. Which means that a lot of things get used, a lot of things get wasted, and a lot of things get churned out in ways that are wasteful. — Wangechi Mutu

Kenya is rapidly developing its industry and manufacturing, and its cultural identity as a new country. We had a humongous history pre-British, and when we were colonized and violently reshuffled, we had to decide who we were again. We couldn't rest on the stories and the cultures of our great-grandparents. — Wangechi Mutu

We became Homo sapiens not that long ago, from the scientific perspective, and we've retained a lot of our beast nature. We've done all these amazing things in terms of our knowledge base and technology, and now we're flying around and using the internet. But we're still very animalistic. So, I think about hierarchies. I think about evolution. I think about how we stack up, how we sit on top of each other. How we pray that we know what we're up to. — Wangechi Mutu

Your problem, Nagrant,' he declared, 'is that your education was unconnected with the practical reality of life. You grew up believing that rules are more important than all the facts you could ever uncover, and that the slightest disobedience is deadly. — Andreas Eschbach

In Wangechi Mutu's mother tongue, Kikuyu, there is no word for "artist." The closest term is something like "magician" or "a person who uses objects and imbues them with meaning and power, — Sarah Thornton

In the crowded tension of the days that followed he never spoke to them, except of their work. They felt, entering the office in the morning, that they had no private lives, no significance and no reality save the overwhelming reality of the broad sheets of paper on their tables. The place seemed cold and soulless like a factory, until they looked at him; then they thought that it was not a factory, but a furnace fed on their bodies, his own first. — Ayn Rand

Every business, like a painting, operates according to its own rules. There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once. — Richard Branson

And luckily, for whatever reason, I've found people who are interested in living with and owning and existing around the DNA of my mind, which is my visual work. I've found collectors who are willing to put money down to live with my work. So I can't criticize the whole mechanism. But I can criticize it as an artist, in spite of the fact that I benefit from it. And there are problems with it. — Wangechi Mutu

The goodness of life is the gratitude of existence. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Always acknowledge your position in the food chain ... They eat because you grow the food. — Wangechi Mutu

What is Africa, anyway? Even I don't know what Africa is, entirely. But I know that it's not some of these simplified sound bites you hear in America. — Wangechi Mutu

A fish does not swim it is SWUM. A bird does not FLY it is flown. — Viktor Schauberger

Some families happen at birth, some are created by choice. But the best are forged in love. — Louise Behiel