Penda Diakité
Penda Diakité (born 1992) is a Malian-American visual artist known for her mixed-media collages and film work. Born in Portland, Oregon, she grew up between the United States and Mali, West Africa. Diakité's work explores black female identity, often tying in historical West African culture and traditions. Background and education. Diakité was born in 1992 in Portland, Oregon to artists Baba Wagué Diakité (ceramicist and author) and Ronna Neuenschwander (sculptor). She grew up between the United States and Mali, West Africa where she spent much of her time in her parents’ art studio creating alongside  them and learning West African history and traditional Malian arts such as bogolanfini"." At age 11 she published her first children’s book, "I Lost My Tooth In Africa" with Scholastic Press which was later featured on Reading Rainbow. Her storytelling quickly merged into film and she spent her adolescent years studying and creating film under her Oregon-based mentor, documentary filmmaker William Donker. She later studied film and video at California Institute of the Arts (2010-2014) and received a Bachelor in Fine Arts with a minor in Cultural Studies.   Diakité moved to Los Angeles in 2016, establishing her  career in the Arts. In 2018 Diakité had her first major art show, 'Made in America', at the Substrate Gallery in Los Angeles. Career. Diakité is best known for her mixed-media collage work, often studies of female figures made from compositing images depicting African history, popular media’s portrayal of black people, race and gender constructs. She has also produced documentary and experimental works in film and video which exhibited in festivals throughout the world. Her film works center around the same themes of West African history, race and gender constructs.