El Anatsui

El Anatsui is best known for creating striking, large-scale sculptures using discarded materials to explore the relationship between waste, the environment and the impact of living on the post-colonial continent of Africa.

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.

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).