Today I photographed Wangechi Mutu at her studio in Brooklyn. She does these amazing paintings and collages. I really love her pieces. You canÔÇÖt just glance at them; there are so many layers to them, so casual viewing is not allowed. Considering how violent and somewhat shocking her pieces are she was very soft spoken and kind to work with. Her space is a floor in a brownstone she owns. I photographed her as part of my artistÔÇÖs series. For several years, I have been randomly taking portraits of artists. The project started for me when I photographed, Kim Heirston, for Vanity Fair. She is an art consultant. She made some connections for me and we began collaborating together on who to take pictures of. But lately I have been building on the series by having the artists recommend other artists.
I have always enjoyed meeting the artists and seeing how they work. We always see art on nice clean white walls in a gallery but this grounds it more for me. Plus I get to find out more on their creative process. Talking about the different things that inspire them to make their art is inspiring to me.