Perhaps best known for his series utilizing bottlecaps, El Anatsui stands out in his ability to create flexible sculptures from rigid materials which he tailors for each installation, explaining how he “saw the bottle caps as relating to the history of Africa” going on to explain the symbolism in bringing together the history of the African and European continents.
« Art doesn’t grow in a vacuum…When you leave your normal domicile and travel, a lot of times your feeling for your original home grows stronger; the distance can make you reach new levels of empathy or feeling for it, so having a distance from any usual terrain provided an influx of ideas.»
El Anatsui
Within El Anatsui's bottle tops and other recycling materials a
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Perhaps best known for his series utilizing bottlecaps, El Anatsui stands out in his ability to create flexible sculptures from rigid materials which he tailors for each installation, explaining how he “saw the bottle caps as relating to the history of Africa” going on to explain the symbolism in bringing together the history of the African and European continents.
« Art doesn’t grow in a vacuum…When you leave your normal domicile and travel, a lot of times your feeling for your original home grows stronger; the distance can make you reach new levels of empathy or feeling for it, so having a distance from any usual terrain provided an influx of ideas.»
El Anatsui
Within El Anatsui's bottle tops and other recycling materials are used to explore the history of global consumerism, including the trading of enslaved people. His skill in using
abstraction combined with traditional African techniques has led to a distinctive style throughout his pieces, such as the famed Bottle top series, making them easily identifiable.
The rich, earthy colors El Anatsui uses in his work, including the copper wire used to connect the various components, are reminiscent of the colors one would find wandering around the continent, such as is displayed in his works Razzle Dazzle and Between Heaven and Earth.
(Artist Website).
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