Full text of "Gallery : the art magazine from Gallery Delta"

The art magazine from Gallen/ Delta

AUb' Z 7 ?fl09
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No 1

Contents

September 1994

2 Artnotes

3 Robert Paul at 110 Livingstone Avenue
by Colette Wiles

6 An Englishman abroad — the artist Robert Paul

by Colin Style

8 Space and place — structure and romanticism in
the work of Robert Paul
by Pip Curling

12 1894-1994 100 years at 110 Livingstone Avenue

13 Gallery Delta at Robert Paul's house
by Derek Huggins

17 To those who helped — thank you

18 Pleasure and privilege
by Peter Jackson

20 Reviews of recent work and forthcoming
exhibitions and events

Cover: Robert Paul, Quarry, 1956, 91 x 76 cm, oil on
canvas. Left above: Robert Paul. Below: Tapfuma Gutsa,
San King, 2.65m, mixed metals.

Publisher: Derek Huggins Editor: Barbara Murray Design
Team: Barbara Murray, Myrtle Mallis & Robert Thompson.
Typesetting: Visa Graphics Origination & printing: A.W.
Bardwell & Co Colour: Colorscan (Pvt) Ltd.

Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not
be reproduced in any manner or form without permission.

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of
the writers themselves and not necessarily those of Gallery
Delta, the publisher or the editor

Subscriptions from Gallery Publications, P.O. Box UA 373,
Union Avenue, Harare. Tel: (14)792135.

Artnotes

Welcome to the lirst issue of Gallery.
This new magazine hopes to fill a gap
which we feel in the visual arts
community of Zimbabwe. There have
been many endeavours over the years to
produce local arts publications. Arts
Rhodesia (\91^),Arts Zimbabwe (\9n),
ZED magazine ( 1 980s), The Artist
( 1 990s) and Smtthem African Art
(1990s) to name a few. But all have gone
out of print on account of finance allied
with lack of readership or lack of
continuity. So why create another?
Despite the problems, the fact remains
that the arts in Zimbabwe, in Africa,
need publications to record, review,
criticise and publicise the activities and
work of creative individuals.

As artists, art lovers, art patrons we are
all aware of the complexity and
ambiguity of images as well as the
diverse responses of viewers. We feel the
pleasure, stimulation and excitement of
"seeing something". We want to
understand what the artist is trying to
express, how our society impinges on
creativity, the effects of art on our
individual and collective consciousness.
Experiences and thoughts have less
impact in isolation We need to
communicate with one another and to
promote the view that art criticism is
"not an exercise of judgement but rather
an act of empathy."

Gallery aims to;

• document Zimbabwe's art history in
the making

• stimulate a wider interest in art

• promote discussion and awareness of
work being produced by Zimbabwe's
talented young artists

• provoke debate and encourage
exchange of opinion by placing art in
its social context

• capture the larger cultural resonance
so that people who don't spend their
lives within the art community can
participate and benefit through
greater understanding and
appreciation

• write with enough passion so that
people will want to go and see for
themselves

• give insight into how artists think
and work, their ideas and techniques

• link Zimbabwe's visual culture with
that of other cultures both regional
and international.

The emphasis oi Gallery will be on
painting, graphics and sculpture plus

some coverage of architecture, design,
jazz, little theatre and poetry. We will
include reviews of events and
exhibitions, news from the local and
regional art scene, interviews with local
and visiting artists, in-depth analysis of
both recent and past work, cntical
appreciation and discussion of a range of
topics of interest to artists, art patrons
and the wider public.

We also intend to open up Zimbabwean
perceptions of the changing international
art scene and to seek its relevance to us.
We have numerous artists visiting
Zimbabwe including recently two
sculptors, one from India and one from
Barbados. Both gave good slide-talks
about their work but at the time there
was no way of reaching the wider public
Gallery will in future issues review such
events Regional topics will be covered
by writers such as Marion Arnold whom
we all remember as one of Zimbabwe's
best art critics, and Tessa Colvin also
well-known locally. From the UK, we
will publish articles by Margaret Garlake
and Keith Murray who are familiar with
both the local and the British art scenes.
Writers from other African countries as
well as from Australia and Canada will
also contribute. We hope to spread the
network as widely as possible.

This first issue has a narrow focus as a
special celebration of the centenary of
Robert Paul's old house, recording its
rebirth as an energetic art centre and
featunng Paul's life and work.
Forthcoming issues will be broader in
scope including such articles as Berry
Bickle's views on art, an in-depth
assessment of the annual 'Heritage'
exhibition and its supposed role in
setting standards, Steve Williams with
art news from Bulawayo, critical
appraisal of paintings by Luis Meque
and Thomas Mukarobgwa (both of whom
are about to be launched onto the
European market while their work goes
largely unrecorded locally), controversial
opinions about our status quo from
recently graduated students, and views
on cultural identity from Trevor Gould, a
conceptual artist and white African now
living in Canada

At present the art scene is in a state of
flux with a new director at the National
Gallery. We have another political
appointment and, while we may query
the suitability of a professor of

linguistics for the post, it is a fait
accompli. If, however. Professor Kahan
can use his political and diplomatic skills
to improve the National Gallery's
standing in government eyes, persuade
them to increase the pathetic budget
(particularly infuriating when we are
constantly subjected to empty rhetoric
about the government's belief in the
importance of culture!) and bring a
larger public into the art gallery, his
appointment may be advantageous. We
shall have to wait and see. Professor
Kahari has the services of an active and
committed Board member in Pip
Curling If he uses her knowledge,
energy and skill there may be the
makings of a good start.

Beginnings are also taking place at the
Goethe Institute and the Alliance
Fran^aise which both have new cultural
directors. Their impact on the local art
scene can be considerable. The Goethe
Institute is already playing an active role
with its promotion of the recent Adda
Geiling exhibition and the commission
of three artists to produce work for
pennanent display within its offices

Gallery is another beginning. Art
publications are by their nature
expensive to produce and limited in
circulation. We are seeking sponsorship
to sustain the publication and improve its
content, quality and circulation in the
succeeding issues to which ue are
already committed. In essence we are
another bunch of optimists hoping to
meet the need that exists. It feels like the
right time Response has been
encouragingly positive with more than
one hundred of you subscribing in faith
— thank you! And also, to all those who
helped in so many different ways in
getting Galleiy together and into print,
many thanks We look forward to your
comments on this first issue and your
contributions to following issues are
actively sought so that we can give voice
to the wide range of opinion on the
visual arts. Please contact me via Gallery
Delta or send letters and articles for
consideration. Gallery is your magazine.
Together we can make it stimulating and
successful.

The Editor D

Spatters of oil paint,
piles of abandoned
sketches and paintings,
Colette Wiles remembers
life with her father

Robert Paul at 110 Livingstone Avenue

Among my strongest memories of life at
1 10 IS the memory of Robert pamting in
tiie early morning light near the comer of
the verandah next to his bedroom and
studio at the west end of the house. There
he would be in his paint-spattered
dressing gown, brush in hand, bent
slightly over the rickety old deal table
which leant against the wall, a study in
concentration as he took a step back to
view the results, his distinguished greying
head tilted slightly in critical appraisal
The morning sun threw good light on his
work, and on the dust and rubbish that
accumulated everywhere - the spatters of
oil paint on the table, empty turps bottles,
abandoned canvases, egg shells (broken
in making the egg tempera he used),
cigarette stubs, the browning edges of
abandoned water colours, many of them
half finished, some barely begun, fonning
a pile beneath the one he was working on
Robert's old wooden easel used to be
propped against one of the brick pillars
and at one time was the favoured perch of
a Lizard Buzzard Returning home with a
friend one night, Robert noticed an
injured bird in the road, picked it up and
brought it back to 110 where it lived

freely and uncaged in that part of the
verandah. It would perch on the easel,
expressing its displeasure, until it
recovered from its wounds and flew away.

Roberts mood when painting was
positive, forward-looking, challenged; a
great contrast to the intervening
despondency when he would not touch a
drawing or painting for weeks, declaring
that he could not stand painting anyway;
that for him it was a compulsion It was a
compulsion that was with him from
childhood: he was aware of light, colour
and texture from his earliest days Two
superbly executed pictures, both snow
scenes, sophisticated and atmospheric,
survive, painted when he was a boy of
about ten

After breakfast at the circular oak table
which was the focus of family life and
which was set in front of the fireplace
between the front door and the kitchen
door, Robert would sit m his comfortable
brown armchair opposite the propped-up
painting He would study the work with a
benign, almost content expression for a
long time, then pick it up, take it back to

Above: Robert Paul, Self Portrait,

oil on canvas.

Right: Snow scene painted

when Robert Paul

was about

1 years of age.

Top: Part of

the front verandah

that was

Robert Paul's studio.

Above: Robert Paul

asleep in the

garden of 110.

the table on the verandah and continue
working on it for three or more hours,
still clad in his dressing gown Sometimes
at a loss as to how to proceed, he would
ask Dreen for her opinion - "...perhaps a
bit of cloud there to fill the space". He
would alter it as suggested and then
mvariably say "Now you've made me
stuff it up!"

At 10.30 a.m. Robert would swear that he
could hear the pub doors opening, stop
working, get dressed and drive up to one
of the clubs to meet fnends in the bar
where he would stay till lunchtime.
Sometimes when work was progressing
well he didn't go to the pub but went
back to his chair, seated with his arms on
the wooden armrests, a gin and tonic in
his right hand, scarcely taking his eyes
away from the painting balanced against
the sofa in front of him.

When his painting moods were with him,
the house was more or less taken over:
the air was redolent with the foul smell of
size being boiled up over a little hot-plate
in the kitchen, the bathroom would have
oil paint everywhere, brushes being
cleaned in the bath, and often the bath
itself filled with paintings undergoing the
water treatment (removal of the unwanted
areas of a painting by the process of
gum-resist). Another smell which
pervaded the house was linseed oil, added
with turps as part of the medium to the oil
paint. The raw linseed oil had to be
purified and Robert used to do this by
pouring the oil onto a saucer and placing
it somewhat precariously atop the
corrugated iron sheets forming the
kitchen roof (now the back verandah) to
bleach in the sun He was very interested
in not only the techniques but also the
materials used in painting and read about
these avidly. He kept a collection of art
books in his 'studio'.

The room which was actually the 'studio'
was a small enclosed area of the
verandah, but it very quickly filled up
with rolls of paper, paintings and artists"
materials As Robert painted, so he
retreated out of the room itself and onto
the verandah, and when that became full,
his bedroom was next! There were
paintings and drawings everywhere, piled
against bedroom walls, under Robert's
bed, even His bedroom was seldom
cleaned He refused to put anything away,
and Dreen refused to sweep and dust until
he had done so, so month after month saw
increasing levels of dust, with papers, odd
sketches, paintings, bits of charcoal,
correspondence, bar receipts, empty
cigarette cartons and general detritus

occupying every surface. When I could
stand it no longer, I would announce my
intention of cleaning out my father's
bedroom, he would complain bitterly at
first, however, once into the spint of it,
Robert would join in the tidying session,
throwing away with great gusto tliose
sketches, drawings and paintings which
he considered to be no good (most of
them); piling them high into the dustbin
situated in the sanitary lane at the back of
the house. I can remember then visiting
the dustbin with my mother, giggling
together as we retrieved some of the
paintings and sketches with comments of
"you never know - Robert may one day
become famous. Let's save these just in
case." And the rescued work would be
stashed away in the loft near the east
bathroom - again gathering dust until
some of them were dug out for the
Retrospective Exhibition in 1976.

Robert's bedroom was probably the room
of greatest character in the house. It is
now a respectable office/gallery, but was
remembered vividly by all who passed
through it - the shambles of dust, unmade
bed, paintings and generally dishevelled
appearance - a complete contrast to
Robert himself, who always looked
immaculate even when he had slept in his
suit, which he did regularly! When 1 had
left home, married and was working in
England my mother sent wonderfully
descriptive and hilarious letters of events
at 110. One letter described a particularly
heavy session at the Sports Club the night
before. Mum wrote "Robert woke up this
morning not only with a strange woman
in his bed, but a strange dog, too! "

Perhaps 1 10 was originally like so many
other Avenue houses - strictly functional,
rather dark and slightly depressing.
However, it was unlike any of the other
houses in that it was large and long, and
the garden was generous in size Until the
late 1940s there were always tenants
occupying various parts of the house and
at one stage the big living room was
halved by a thick enormous curtain to
create more rooms for tenants Dreen
never had any domestic help. When we
lived in the east wing, she would have to
chop wood to feed the old boiler for hot
water to do the washing in the old cast
iron bath with claw feet now standing in
the back courtyard of Gallery Delta. The
old coal stove was used to heat heavy
metal irons for all the ironing.

The family was able to spread out once
we occupied the whole house (apart from
the cottage), but Dreen's workload
doubled; the house was impossible to

keep clean. Everything in it was
second-or-third-hand All the tloor boards
were warped, which meant that the
carpets were cleaner, but barer, over the
upward curving edges of the boards and
since sweeping seemed to produce more
rather than less dust, this was kept to a
minimum! Dreen did all the washing up
outside on a concrete surface which she
built herself adjacent to a low garden wall
made entirely of gin, brandy and vodka
bottles! Observing this, a fnend of the
family once commented that the kitchen
garden was pure Tennessee Williams!
Dreen was adept at adhoc improvements,
removing iron roof sheets to let more light
into the living room and getting water to
the kitchen by a hose pipe fed through the
window from the bathroom boiler Robert
insisted on three cooked meals a day
which she always provided. And then
there were many hours spent working in
the garden. One day Dreen and I decided
to build a small pool, which is still there,
to cool off after the heavy digging
sessions. Yet she still had plenty of energy
for tennis and was always ready to join in
any parties.

The house itself was not an ideal one for
entertaining and indeed it was never used
for that in the accepted formal sense
People would just pop in and stay for
hours They sat around the circular oak
dmmg table in the middle of the living
room drinking and talking till it graduated
into an impromptu, full-blooded party At
these sessions there would be much
laughter and witty conversation, although
later it might degenerate to more
argumentative levels. If the visitors were
fellow artists, the talk would often be
about art - Dad would talk eloquently for
hours about techniques, materials and so
on, and indeed, 1 think it was the only
subject he ever accorded serious lengthy
discussion.

In those days there was very little art
consciousness, anyone who was an artist
was by definition somewhat odd, a misfit
given to Left Bank excesses, a Bohemian
However Robert didn't fit any of these
categories, and his painting was simply
accepted as part of life at 110 As small
children, my brother and I attended David
Livingstone School, just over the road
Perhaps because we realised that our
household was rather unorthodox, not on
account of Robert's artistry, but because
of the individualism and occasional wild
revelry of our parents, we did not invite
friends home very often. One deeply
embarrassing episode was when a
schoolfriend wanted to come home with
me at lunchtime. As we walked across the

road from school, I was already a little
apprehensive about the visit. If my father
had had a few drinks he was quite likely
to say something embarrassing. We
timidly entered the living room and
approached Robert who was in his
armchair, slumped drunkenly and reading
the telephone directory upside-down'
Fortunately, he was too drunk to say
anything disparaging... but 1 shall never
forget my friend's utter wide-eyed
amazement at this odd apparition She
came from a very upright household, and
had probably never seen anyone drunk in
her entire life.

Over the years the garden at 1 10 became
more and more overgrown Robert's only
interest in the garden was painting it A
friend recalls; "Robert once went with his
brother on a painting tour in England.
They would stop, then go on a bit further,
and then over the hill which looked more
interesting, and then a bit further still,
imtil they had covered four counties in
this way without painting anything And
then Robert got back to Africa and found
everything he ever wanted m his own
back garden! "

Holidays were a great treat. Early
holidays were spent in Beira In those
days we went by train and Rhodesia
Railways moved mighty slowly! When it
reached Macheke, the train stopped and
everyone got out, including the driver,
and headed straight into the nearby hotel
pub Travelling by train was a hot, thirsty
business. Robert was very interested in
the Portuguese architecture in Beira and
sketched the houses with their balustraded
gardens along the roads He loved Nyanga
and spent many holidays there with the
family, and also with Paul just fishing and
painting The kaleidoscopic colours of
Nyanga fascinated him and he particularly
loved the deep rust colours of some of the
dirt roads there Because he was away
from the stresses of work, his moods on
holiday were generally tranquil, and he
was able to paint and sketch to his heart's
content But he was unpredictable
Sometimes on returning home to 110, he
would be depressed and moody and not
paint again for days.

1 10 Livingstone Avenue was a house of
great character, given it by the colourful
personalities living there What would
Robert say if he could see it today?
Something dry, witty, otT-hand, coarse

maybe. 'Tt was Dreen's ing house

anyway." But deep inside would be a
swelling pnde in and gratitude for the
acknowledged tnbute to him and his life's
work CD

Above: Dreen

fixing the chimney

at 110 Livingstone Avenue.

Below: Robert Paul

at a party (1977?).

Robert Paul, The Montclair, 1979

Colin Style looks at the

Interconnections in the life,

character and work of the

artist Robert Paul (1906 - 1980)

An Englishman Abroad

My first acquaintance with, arguably, Southern Africa's greatest
artist was when I was about ten years old My family's old home
in then Rhodesia stood, and still stands, on the crown of a hill
overlooking Harare in the distance with an orchard, fields and the
Mukuvisi River in between. Robert Paul was standing on the lip of
the hill in front of the house executing a water colour of the view.
Three or four of us children wandered up and stood around
breathing chewing gum on and staring at his efforts He was not at
all put out. In fact, he was rather pleased and chatted to us
unselfconsciously as he painted I remember him remarking that
he was painting the sky brown to reflect the fields - it seemed a
rather strange and wonderful comment and I must confess that we
tapped our foreheads derisively.

Robert Fowler Paul was bom on 1 2 March 1 906 in Sutton, Surrey.
He began painting at the age of eight, winning a Daily Express
competition for young artists. Only towards the end of his life did
more honours come his way He went to school at Monkton Combe
near Bath and on leaving took up a series of dreary clencal jobs ui
London Mercifully for his sanity, he did not stick them for long
and, in 1927, he joined the British South Africa Police as a rookie
trooper and went out to then Rhodesia.

His talents were recognised in the Police. He was employed as a
cartographer to sketch from horseback and he spent some years
roaming and charting the Save Valley and other remote comers of
the country. Few artists can have been so saturated with landscape

in learning tlieir trade. Later, he joined the pay corps in the army,
retiring in 1951 as a pensionable 'twenty year man'. He then
painted more or less happily until the end of his life He died in
1 980, at the age of seventy four.

Although he was a most dedicated artist, he did have a nihilistic
tendency to lose interest when a canvas was completed Frequently
pictures would be dumped in the wind and the rain or left m the
outside shed to the attentions of the white ants. Fortunately, his
wife Dreen and daughter Colette early on took an interest in their
safe-keeping and tucked pictures away in a dry, insect-free spot in
the eaves.

He had a long range correspondence and friendship dating from
the 1920s, with John Piper who was a major influence and
introduced him to modem art and the teclmique of gum resist which
became a significant part of his painting method.

Robert Paul was almost purely a landscape painter. Not only in
subject but by evacuating all animal and human life from his
scenes. This absence serves both aesthetic effect and meaning and
message. Nothing must detract from the arrangement of pure
masses. The absence is to obtain intensity of focus and
concentration and a mood of pure gravitas without any lapse into
unbecoming detail. There is no compromise with the total artistic
achievement of arranging the absolute essence of what he sees and
wants to see. For all the sarcastic humour and work full of
celebrations of colour, he is not a sunny artist. It was remarked of
him 'the visions roll out of him'. This was allied to a subjective
feeling that the visions have never quite communicated. For all
their colour and beauty, his landscapes can reflect a feeling of
barren alienation. In a picture like Inyanga 1 966 it is not a question
so muchof 'light breaking where no sun shines' butof not lighting
up where it should. The laws of nature have ceased to operate.
Although the skies are full of light the mass of the landscape
remains dark Ambiguously, the artist suggests both the infusion
of light from genesis starting to spread through creation, and the
afterglow with light withdrawing the vital spark. In another
landscape, also prosaically called Inyanga 1950, the composition
is of opposing blocks of colour. They all meet at the foothills at
one neutral point where all energy is nullified. He also varied speed
of execution to express his vision. Sometimes cold and monolithic,
sometimes like vibrant masses of lava, he experimented again and
again with the same landscapes.

He was possessed of a remarkable artistic memory sharpened by
the years of exact cartographical work. He told one of his mentors.
Professor Brian Bradshaw, of a scene he remembered, from fifty
years before, of an English landscape. Paul described it in minute
detail, down to the dew on the grass.

His type of style and vision was moulded by the Nyanga mountains
in the eastern highlands of the country. He was a unique interpreter
of the sparsely populated landscape with its magnificent views of
rock masses, mountains and waterfalls The austere scenery with
its combination of bright sunlight, yet high rainfall and frequent
mists, was artistically rewarding yet exacting It suited him well
Other more commercial landscape artists in the country exploited
what has been called the 'msasa and piccanin' vein of Zimbabwean
art. Bright, soft and sentimental pictures that prominently feature
the msasa tree which produces a not of seasonal red and autumnal
coloured leaves. Robert Paul however, would have none of it.

As his health began to fail in the late seventies, and the escalating
war in Zimbabwe cut him off more and more from Nyanga, his
work, paradoxically, began to both diminish and to grow. Canvases

were left unfinished and unsigned. He was abdicating even as he
painted on The reversion to an earlier style expressed itself in
jagged strokework exploding from the ground like 'dragons' teeth.
It was completely different from the study and modelling of broad
masses of rocks, hills, and savannah as expressions of creation
maturing or decaying Yet, the eye and vision is manifestly the
same. It is a tour de force of communication to alter style and
remain so distinctly himself He was always his own man.

A further, more subtle difference expressed in a work like The
Montclair, dated 1979, puts jagged, churning brush-strokes up-
front in the immediate foreground Hitherto he always tended to
maintain an objective focus by keeping the foreground neutral and
devoid of artistic excitement. Prone to hypochondria and a dread
of death all his life, he was coming to terms with finality in his
own way Actually, The Montclair, which is a hotel in Nyanga, had
been attacked by guerrillas that year, who burst into the
dining-room and shot down guests. Although the picture is called
by the name of a hotel, no hotel buildings are visible in the erupting
landscape. It is painted in a furious, shorthand idiom.

Paul took away buildings as well as human and animal life from
his landscapes. However, he developed urban houses and buildings
as a separate subject with great success. His studies of these are
also emptied offeatures that could reduce concentration -no folksy
touches of children playing on corners. Again there is this
uncompromising gravitas. Reticence and economy are important
methods of artistic message. What is left out can be as important
as what is put in

Many, if not most, of his house and building studies are of the
colonial style of the turn of tlie century. A number of the buildings
have since been demolished. They often carry an air of listlessness.
Paul's houses appear empty not only at the moment of record, but
convey the curious impression, even as they are solidly
constructed, of having been abandoned for decades. Within the
pleasing, naturalistic presentation of a building, he switches blocks
of light and shade and selects minimal lines to capture the essential
emotive and aesthetic aspects of colonial rococo

Although Robert Paul passed his life in a remote, unimportant
country, largely unregarded as an artist as he painted picture after
picture of Nyanga landscapes, he did have his mentors. Frank
McEwen was appointed director of the then Rhodesia National
Gallery in the 1960s At a cocktail party, McEwen remarked to an
uncle of mine, an old friend of the artist, that Robert Paul was one
of the finest artists in Africa. Many years later the Gallery
appointed Professor Brian Bradshaw as Director. He held
essentially the same opinion as Frank McEwen. In 1976, under his
impetus, the National Gallery arranged an exhibition of two
hundred of Robert Paul's works - his wife and daughter's loving
care was starting to pay off. Then, in 1980, the year he died, the
National Gallery of South Africa gave him an exhibition at their
gallery in Pretoria It was the first time a Zimbabwean artist was
so honoured

However, the ball has really only started to roll in the thirteen years
since his death. A few years before he died, you could pick up a
decent Robert Paul for a couple of hundred dollars In 1991,
paintings from the exliibition to commemorate Robert Paul on the
opening of new Gallery Delta at his old house, were changing
hands at Z$ 10,000 and this was considered conservative pricing
It is evident that distinction is allied to popular appeal The stage
could be set for this important artist to achieve international
recognition. It would be a return from exile of an Englishman
abroad LH

Those who know the vastness

of the African landscape understand that it is indefinable in human

terms. Man is puny by comparison with this land.

It is better for him not to intrude.

By excluding the figure, which would act as a measure of
scale, Paul is never forced to define those forms which are
monumental and those which are diminutive.

For Paul even the smallest rock or sprig of grass had
its own grandeur.

Robert Paul, Rocks at Inyanga (II), 1969, 86 x 53 cm, oil / tempera on canvas

Space and

Place

Structure and romanticism in

the paintings of Robert Paul

discussed by Pip Curiing

Robert Paul, The Pool, 1976, 77 x 64 cm, oil on canvas

Robert Paul came to Africa in 1927 from an England which was,
for him, narrow, populous and restrictive Although he had no
formal training there as a painter, he brought with him, as did many
early colonisers,' the English tradition of reverence for the
landscape as a subject for paintmg. Paul left Britain at a time when
the people of that country were experiencing a reaction against the
city and a desire to get back to nature in its untamed state Even
the suburbs, which were designed and built to get people out of
the city, were themselves eroding the countryside [Spalding 1 986:
70) Robert Paul took a bolder step than the suburban dweller who
bought a country cottage as a weekend retreat; he left for Africa

Paul's interpretation of the African landscape suggests a
dislocation between his love of its space and grandeur and an inner
feeling of alienation in a hostile environment.' Many of his mature
landscape paintings in Zimbabwe were of the underpopulated
areas of the Nyanga mountains or the bleak, baobab-inhabited
planes of the lowveld His deliberate avoidance of the human
element in these paintings could, on one level, be that of the
archetypal European coloniser who ignores the existence of the
indigenous people but could equally be expressive of the soul of
an Englishman coming into contact with the spintual munificence
of a land unsullied by industnal excrescence and waste The
former theory might be more politically fashionable in the present
day but the latter is more likely to be the truth '

A close examination of the paintings of Robert Paul dispels the
popularly held belief that he was an intuitive artist, driven to make
art at the whim of his muse." There is every evidence, in his work,
that Paul was an intellectual painter who, although he responded
emotively to the landscape, finely tuned his response with formal
pictorial structures.

Robert Paul understood the laws of two-dimensional composition
and he used them. His familianty with the norms, conventions and
inventions of twentieth century painting probably came through
his conversations and correspondence with John Piper and Ivon
Hitchens and from his own reading and study of art works '
Hitchens, whose painting seems closer to Paul than that of Piper
with whom Paul had the longer acquaintance, was a member of
the Seven and Five Society. This group published a manifesto
when it held its first exhibition in which they stated, "The object
... is merely to express what (the artists) feel in terms that shall be
intelligible, and not to demonstrate a theory nor attack a tradition."
ISpalding 1986: 63| Norbet Lynton says of Hitchens' landscape
paintings, "Between the scene and the painting lie several steps
of transformation" [1993: 54] This is also true of Paul who
constructed his work by underpainting, layering, scumbling and
glazing; working in his studio, to distil the essence of the
landscape from sketches he had made on site.' In the years
following his visit to England in 1948, Paul made a series of

Robert Paul, Summit of Inyangani, 1967, 122 x 91 cm, oil /tempera on hardboard

abstract-figurative compositions based on the landscape, buildings
and street scenes {Landscape 1958) He said in an interview with
Colin Black for Illustrated Life Rhodesia, "I had my abstract
period without success." [Black: 31] His dismissal of what he calls
his 'abstract period' should not be interpreted as a rejection of
structured picture making per se but is probably an indication that
the distanced formalism of the genre was, for him, insufficient
Krom the late 1 950s he pursued a more figurative rendering of the
landscape but the pictorial disciplines learned dunng his 'abstract
period" remained. He must have been aware, even before he
attempted abstraction, that Piper had already abandoned it Piper's
own experience of the usefulness of the fomialism of abstraction
may have persuaded Paul to follow that path

"Bv 1938 the looming war made the clear hut
closed world of abstract art untenable for me...
The abstract practice taught me a lot that I would
not have learned without it..."

[Ingrams & Piper 1983: 22]

Piper spent the summer of 1 946 in Snowdonia, Wales He returned
to Nortli Wales the following year. For Piper the Welsh mountains

were intensely dramatic and sensational:

' 'Each rock had a positive personality: for the first
time I saw the bones and the structure... of the
mountains." [Ingrams & Piper: 1983 105)

In 1948 Paul spent several months in the company of John Piper.
Piper's previous involvement m abstraction and his enthusiasm for
his recent discovery of the bleak and uninhabited landscape of
Wales was surely the impetus which drove Paul to the path he was
to follow after his return from Britain.

Summit of Inyangani 1967,' (also known as Inyangani) is a good
example of the period when Paul had found his subject, the rugged
landscape, and was most comfortable with his mixed media
technique of gum and oil resist 'The composition of tins painting,
as with many of Paul's works, is tightly organised according to the
'golden section'. An implied vertical left of centre begins on the
peak of the background mountain, cuts through a gap in the ochre
foliage below it, continues through the centre of the dark
amorphous mass (which is tlie focal point of the composition) and
ends at Uie protuberance of tlie pale foreground rock. This vertical

'Robert Paul's Old House' 1 10 Livingstone Avenue / Ninth Street,

Greenwood Park, Harare, Zimbabwe.

(P. O. Box UA 373, Union Avenue) Tel: 792135

1 Ike Centenary v^eie lb ration
oi iiy IL^iTiingsfoiie Avenuie

Robert Paul 110 Livingstone Avenue 1978

with an exhibition of

Paintings, Drawings and

Graphics by

Robert Paul & John Piper

and the launch of 'Gallery' the new arts

magazine
on Tuesday the 20th of September, 1994 at

5.30 p.m.

gallery delta

Robert Paul

Paul and Piper: together, even the names have
harmony and it is interesting to draw a parallel
of the lives of these two English painters.

They were both born in Surrey in England —
Robert Fowler Paul three years after John
Piper, in 1906. Both were involved in art at an
early age. In Paul's case, his love of painting
and his talent was evident when he was 10
years, when the Royal Academician, W.O.
Wiley, expressed interest in his work and ad-
vised his parents to ensure that he never took
lessons. It seemed that both their fathers were
strict Victorians; Robert could never do any-
thing to please his, while Piper's father would
not let him study art. In later years there was
a remarkable resemblance: both were tall, trim and erect, and both had long, aristocratic
features. Piper rather more gaunt than Paul. Each married twice Both were to draw and
paint buildings and landscape. Both were to gain recognition as artists in different
arenas — Piper in Britain and Paul in Africa — and finally, they were friends who
maintained contact over a period of fifty years.

In the 1920's Paul's painting and drawing was of a conventional kind — he described
his work at that time as of an academic nature, and he did not become aware of the
contemporaries until he met Ivon Hitchens and John Piper who introduced him to the
works of Picasso and Georges Braquc, and this he claimed had some influence on his
own work. Paul met Piper through a mutual friend. Miles Marshall, who attended the
same public school as Paul: Monkton Combe, near Bath in Somerset. Marshall had met
Piper in the General Strike in May, 1926, when Piper was driving an East Surrey
omnibus of which he was the conductor!

In 1927, a year after Piper entered the Richmond School of Art, Paul emigrated to
Southern Rhodesia, having enlisted in the British South Africa Police as a trooper; here
the lives of the two men diverged sharply. Rhodesia in those days was cut off from
Europe in terms of artistic trends and it seems that Paul's main contact with what was
happening in the art world was with his friend, Marshall.

In the early 193()'s Marshall started to write to Paul about painting. After Paul's death,
Marshall said: "We used to cover many sheets of the thinnest available Air mail paper
in small writing about form, colour, composition and aesthetics What on earth we
found to say that covered so much good clean paper, 1 am at loss to explain! 1 think
Piper and Robert probably first met in the early 1930's when he was in England on

John Piper

John Egerton Christmas Piper was one of the most distinguished British artists of his
generation. In a tribute to Piper, Martin Gayford described him as being in some ways
among the most English of 20th century painters. "Indeed", he wrote, "he shares with
one or two contemporaries — Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, Eric Ravilious — the
distinction of having revealed to the rest of us new aspects of our familiar surround-
ings."

John Piper was bom in Epsom in 1903 and as a schoolboy at Epsom College he was
interested in topographic drawing which is so marked in his later work. He used to
accompany his father on rural expeditions from an early age and at the age of 10 he
was tracing stained-glass windows in parish churches. But his father, a solicitor,
refused to let him study art and it was not until 1926 that he entered the Richmond
School of Art and later the Royal College of Art.

In 1953 he was invited to join the Seven and Five, a group of painters and sculptors
which included the elite of the English Modem Movement: Ben Nicholson, Henry
Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Ivon Hitchens. In the mid Thirties Piper was one of the
"most determinedly radical and abstract painters in Britain; indeed, after Ben Nichol-
son he ranks as the most distinguished abstract painters of the period." But he felt that
abstraction was not for him. "Such things", he wrote to Paul Nash in 1943, "are
disciplines which open a road to one's heart, but they are not the heart itself."

He separated from the group to pursue his own path and he returned before the war to
landscape subjects, particulariy on the South Coast and in Wales, but made them from
collages of torn papers. By the early Forties his work had developed "an intense,
elegiac romanticism which puts one in mind of Evelyn Wanch's Brideshead Revisited,

leave. John's recollection of his first meeting with Robert was not as a fellow artist,
but as a beer-drinking pal of mine. He recalls a trip to Chanctonbur>' Ring on the Susse.x
Downs which the three of us made, but it was not a sketching party, just a walk to
encourage our thirsts for Sussex ale."

At that time Piper's work was exploratory and immature and it was later that Paul's
interest in his work increased. He was also much attracted to the French modernist
Pierre Bonnard and to Patrick Heron, but feeling that he was out of touch with current
talents in Britain, he tried to be himself. Professor Brian Bradshaw was to say towards
the end of the 1970's when Director of the National Gallery of Rhodesia: "Robert Paul
is his own man."

Paul did many sketches and drawings while he was with the services in Rhodesia but
he did not have much time for painting, and was not then the prolific painter he became
after his retirement in 1951. He then had thirty years to complete his work — of
buildings, the Transkei Coast and the Inyanga Downs.

Paul shared Piper's enthusiasm for buildings and was fascinated by the old commercial
and domestic buildings in Rhodesia and Mozambique. He lived and painted at 110
Livingstone Avenue, an early colonial house, for 43 years, where both his and a few of
John Piper's paintings hung. At one time Paul was commissioned by Syfrets to produce
a portfolio of paintings of the old buildings in the then Salisbury. Many of them have
since been demolished.

A major development in art-awareness in Rhodesia came with the building of the
National Gallery in Salisbury in the late 1950's. The first director, Frank McEwen, said
of the 'Quarry', painted by Paul and donated to the gallery- before it was opened: "This
work gives me tremendous encouragement for the potential of art in Rhodesia." A local
critic at the time complained that there was too little recognition for painters here and
another stated that Paul "could hold his own in any international competition" and "all
pictures show profound accomplishment in draughtsmanship, composition and tone
values and are quiet outstanding. " Today, the National Gallery has thirty and more Paul
paintings in its Permanent Collection.

In 1965 Paul's work was exhibited at the Commonwealth Festival of Arts, London and
in 1976 Paul's work was honoured by the National Gallery of Rhodesia in the first
one-man retrospective exhibition ever to be held there. Paul was a shy, diffident man
and when he viewed the extraordinary variety of his paintings assembled at the Gallery,
he said "I was amazed when I saw them there. They looked so nice."

Robert Paul was an exceptionally generous man and gave away many of his canvases
to his friends and colleagues. In 1980, the year of his death, a selection of his works
were exhibited in South Africa, and since his death, his work has been represented in
Germany, at Gallery Delta, Harare and in 1982 his paintings appeared at last with those
of the painters he had admired from five thousand miles away: Piper, Ivon Hitchens
and others at the British Council supported exhibition of Neo Romantic Art at the
National Gallery, Harare. He would have been so proud. I

Robert Paul

SL Swithins, Market Square 1971 Manica Road (Working dmwmgi (c. msi

Haddon Hall (Fragment)

Prince Edward School Chaps\ '

John Piper

Back Garden, Malmsbury 21.3.57

Church (Silk Screen 1/95)

Church — "To Robert witli best wishes"

1940-s

Windsor Castle

1940's

written at this time. Storm clouds lower over the baroque piles of Seaton Delaval and
Sir Osbert Sitwell's Renishaw Hall. So overcast were the skies above his watercolour
of Windsor Castle as to lead George VI to make the hesitant comment on inspecting
them: "You've been very unlucky with the weather, Mr. Piper" In 1940 Piper was
appointed an official War Artist with the special brief of recording bomb damage.

Piper's work in the 1950's is less well-known in Britain, partly because he exhibited
them in America, and some of the best painting are in American collections. Over the
last thirty years or so he painted a profusion of vigorous landscapes in oil and gouache
of Venice and of French Romanesque churches, but mostly of landscape and architec-
ture throughout Britain.

Piper's distinguished friends and collaborators included the poet John Betjeman,
Osbert Lancaster, Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten; John Piper designed most of
Britten's operas and his wife Myfanwy wrote a number of his libretti. Ten years ago
Piper's work was shown at the Tate Gallery in London, in celebration of his eightieth
birthday and the e.xhibition presented an extraordinary illustration of Britain from the
1930's to 1984. Some of this work was sent to Harare and displayed at the National
Gallery in an exhibition entitled "John Piper and English Neo Romanticism" along
with works by other well-known British Artists and Zimbabwe's own Neo Romantic
artist, Robert Paul.

John Piper is well known for many excellent and distinctive works produced during
his very active life: the Shell Guides, on which he collaborated with John Betjeman;
the book illustrations; the designs for ballet, theatre and opera; the prints, aquatints and
paintings; the stained glass, notably in both Coventry and Liverpool Cathedrals; the
designs for tapestry and vestments; the ceramics and photographs. But perhaps Piper
will be most remembered for his famous re-interpretation of the English tradition of
Constable and Turner: the romantic watercolour paintings of the British countryside,
houses and churches.

He died in 1992 aged 89. Henry Thorold, in his obituary on Piper, wrote: "John was
not only a most distinguished painter: he was also the most generous of friends and the
most modest of men." I

Acknowledgements to Anthony West and Martin Gayford.

Robert Paul

Mount Inyangani

Inyungsi

Transkei Coast (c. 1950's)

Inyanga (197S)

gallery delta M

'Robert Paul's Old I loiisc' 1 1 Livingstone Avenue / Ninth Street,

Greenwood Park, 1 hirare, Zimbabwe.

(P. O. Box UA 373, Union Avenue) Tel: 792 135

divides the landscape format at the golden mean.' Diagonals which
lead the eye to the focal point are those of the large green hill shape
on the right, the massed vegetation on the left, the rocks in the
centre of the composition and the scratches of light coloured grass
in the bottom left-hand comer.

Spatial illusion is rendered through the alternating horizontal
bands of light and dark in the overlapping rocks and plants in the
foreground. Deep space is effected, usmg the High Renaissance
technique of 'sfumato' in the far distant hills '° The middle ground
is missing, apart from a small smudge of lighter colour
immediately above the central rocks, at the foot of the large hill.
More important than spatial illusion, is the spatial ambiguity
evident in this painting. Deep space is suggested and then it is
wilfully negated in order to assert both the flatness of the picture
plane and a confrontation with the landscape. Flattening of
illusionistic space and the acknowledgement of the reality of the
picture plane is central to twentieth century modernism." The
raised honzon in Summit of Inyangani suggests an elevated eye
level which the close-up view of the rocks contradicts One is able
to look across at the distant hills and down at the nearby rocks —
a multiple viewpoint which, in keeping with modernist theories,
denies the deep space of a single point perspective. The ambivalent
viewpoint is also significant to the interpretation of the painting
The higher eye level which sweeps into the distance perceives an
arcadian dream — access to which is denied by lowering the gaze
to become aware of the forbidding rocks in the foreground. Thus
the viewer, an intruder in the landscape, is barred from intimacy
with its splendour.

In other landscape paintings, such as Inyanga Valley 1 970, where
Paul does not create a foreground barrier, the distant rocks and hills
are themselves aggressively menacing. The elimination of bold
foreground shapes in this painting is compensated by the emphasis
on those of the background. There is little other than bare earth in
the foreground but the strongly defined, heavily outlined
background granite hills move forward onto the picture plane.

Colour in Summit of Inyangani, although not so in all of Paul's
work, is literal, subdued and unromanticised. Grey rocks, darkened
green hillside masses and ochre grass are the familiar colours of
the winter Nyanga landscape.'' Texture in the rocks and the
foreground scrub is created by the use of the gum resist technique
Paul learned from John Piper. (Johnson: 60) Sombre colours and
rugged textures are fundamental to the visual language with which
Paul communicates the hostility of the land. Rocks and bushes are
so near they can be touched but they are so granular, spiky and raw
that one is rebuffed from coming too close. Simultaneously soft
mists and wann light bathe and blur the harshness of the land The
essence of Robert Paul's painting is ambiguity. In his work,
illusionism exists but is made subservient to pictorial needs. The
relationship between the scene and the observer is uncertain. Paul's
landscape is enigmatic, as is much of Africa to the European
sensibility. It calls to the spirit, but rebuffs complacency. Marion
Arnold says,

■ 'The physical environment . . . and the accessibility
of the natural world has made a deep impact on
most Europeans living in Southern Africa... the
spectacular earth and rock formations and wild
growth patterns of grass and trees have intruded on
the apprehension of the visible world of many
inhabitants. •■[Arnold 1981/1982: 47)

Robert Paul may have used the pictorial constructs of European
painting but he opened his heart to the African chimera whose
manifestation he facilitated in the guise of paint, colour and form.

Notes

i. Among the first of these were Thomas Baines and Alice Balfour. There has
been no coherent 'movement' of painting in Zimbabwe to match that of stone
sculpture. If any single aspect links many painters in the country it is that of
the landscape.

2. During his time with the British South Africa Police Paul was given the task
of charting and mapping the Gweru-Masvingo area. He travelled and
sketched on horseback patrols, usually of six-weeks duration.

3. Two other notable painters have also looked to Nyanga. Thomas Muka-
robgwa. who comes from the area, locates all his paintings there. Kingsley
Sambo, whose favourite retreat was Nyanga, said "It is exciting, you know,
that landscape... it's terrific." Many of the lesser landscape painters in
Zimbabwe have rendered the Nyanga landscape but they have sweetened it
with saccharine colours and soft outlines.

4. Brian Bradshaw's poetic interpretation of Paul's paintings claims that, "The
structures of their formation are not systematic as in grammar. They are too
deep for that. Too earnest. Too sensitised. They are cataclysmic." 1 1978: 28]

5. Paul first met Piper in the 1930s. In 1948 Paul visited England where he spent
time with Piper and Hitchens and returned to Africa with several of Piper's
paintings. (Johnson: 33| Contemporary English painting of the first half of
the twentieth century was influenced, through the critical encouragement of
Clive Bell and Roger Fry, by the formal innovations of modernism as devised
by the French Post-Impressionist painters, particularly Paul Cezanne.

6. Johnson notes that Paul would sketch while his son fished the Nyanga rivers.

7. The author acknowledges that the correct current spelling is 'Nyangani' but
chooses to use the spelling in the original title given to the work.

8. Paul used combinations of oil and egg tempera as well as gum resist which
he learned from John Piper. [Johnson: 60] In using gum resist as a technique
water soluble gum is applied to the canvas and covered with water-resistant
paint When the canvas is washed or 'hosed down' the gum dissolves and
lifts the paint surface covering it. This creates a particular texture according
to the way the gum was applied.

9. The 'golden section' or golden mean was the name given in the nineteenth
century to the proportion derived when a line is so divided that the whole of
the line is to the greater section what the greater is to the less It is often
claimed that the golden mean is aesthetically superior to all other proportions
as it fulfils the criteria of unity in variety. [Osborne 1970: 488]

10. Sfumato is the achievement of "smooth and imperceptible transitions
between areas of colour like smoke dissolving in the air." [Osborne 1970:
1061)

11. Paul Cezanne formulated a concept of multiple view points and the
unification of the front and back planes of the landscape through the device
he called 'passage'. This linked foreground and background into a unified,
flattened, two-dimensional planar structure. Cezanne's pictorial means are
present in Robert Paul's work indicating that Paul was conversant with the
theories of modernism. It is quite possible that, through his association with
English artists in 1948 Paul became aware of Cezanne's contribution to
modernism and had a knowledge of the pictorial devices used by Cezanne.

12. Most of Robert Paul's figurative landscapes were painted after 1965 when
economic sanctions by the West were imposed on Rhodesia following the
Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Sanctions resulted in a scarcity of
imported paints and pigments. The colours in Paul's work suggest that he
utilised the more common 'earth' pigments. These would have been
available as they are the basic pigments of commercial and industrial paints.

Bibliography

Arnold, Marion, 1981/82. Four Zimbabwean Painters. Arts Zimbabwe. No. 2.

Black, Colin, 1970. Profile: Robert Paul - Hose that Canvas Down! Illustrated
Life Rhodesia 9th April.

Bradshaw. Brian, 1978. Robert Paul Arts Rhodesia. No. 1.

Ingrams, Richard & Piper. John. 1983. John Piper in England & Wales.
L^ondon: Chatto & Windus. The Hogarth Press.

Johnson. Christopher. 1985. The Life and Work of Robert Paul. South Africa:
Unpublished extended essay for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. Rhodes
University.

Lynton. Norbet, 1993. Landscape as Experience and Vision. Towards a New
Landscape. London: Bernard Jacobson Limited.

Osborne, Harold, (ed.) 1970. The Oxford Companion to Art. London: The
Oxford University Press.

Spalding, Frances, 1986. British Art Since 1900. London: Thames and Hudson.

1894 — 1994
100 years at 110 Livingstone Avenue

1 894 Stand 1951 of Salisbury Township Lands granted to Edward Vigne by Deed of Grant no. 826 of

1 9th May

1 900 Transferred to George Andrew Tucker for 700

1901 Transferred to Leonard Charles Wigg. Plans for alterations to link the existing buildings with a
corrugated iron roof and timber supported verandah drawn up

1902 Transferred to James Ffolliott Darling
1907 Transferred to Robert Warner

1912 Transferred to Transvaal and Rhodesia Estates Ltd

1922 Transferred to Alfred Roland Cooke

1928 ( 14th February )Transferred to Ethel Mary Cooper

1928 (9th November) Transferred to Marie Louise Hawkings

1 933 Occupied by Dreen Hawkings, daughter of Marie Louise

1 937 Robert Paul moved in on his marriage to Dreen Hawkings

1953 Transferred to Dreen Paul

1980 Robert Paul died

1 98 1 Dreen Paul died. House offered by Colette Wiles to Derek Huggins
1983 Inhented by Colette Wiles and Paul Paul

1991 Offered to Gallery Delta. Application for Change of Use to gallery purposes granted,

renovations carried out and Gallery Delta inauguration
1 994 Centenary of 1 10 Livingstone Avenue

^^€^(J5 J(^

Luis Meque, 110 Livingstone Avenue, 1994, 29 x 21 cm, brush and ink

From Manica Road

...to Livingstone Avenue

Robert Paul, 110 Livingstone Avenue, 1978, pen and Ink

Notes on the transformation tal<en
from letters by Derel< Muggins

Gallery Delta at Robert Paul's House

1st May 1991

...It was early in the year - mid January - when I received the
notification to vacate the space at Strachan's Building by the end
of February. Happy New Year. My initial reaction, even although
I had suspected it would come sooner or later, was of
disappointment, anger and resentment. Having worked so hard and
long to keep the gallery alive... And the thought of moving all the
paraphernalia, even if one found a space to go to, seemed all too
much. I thought about... leaving for Europe on walk-about... but
it seemed sensible to keep the gallery alive, if possible, in another
space providing that space was as good if not better than the one I
had had for sixteen years. And so I sought an extension of the
deadline until April end, sought legal advice as to my rights as a
tenant if it came to a fight and began to look around for another
space. But that did not come... The law here being sympathetic to
sitting tenants there was always the possibility of sitting tight,
accepting an eviction order and appealing which might take up to
one year to resolve. I wrestled with that one but it gave me more
peace of mind to resign myself to getting out rather than
procrastinating. And once I had made that decision to go, new
space or no, things began to open... and more latterly, the offer of
Robert Paul's old house at 1 10 Livingstone Avenue as a gallery...
The old house dates to 1 894, a settler's house rather than colonial,
with a simple line - more like an old farm house and bam - and is
rustic and now very dilapidated 1 used to visit Robert Paul there.
He would be sitting just inside the front door drinking his gin and
water, or vodka and water, or cane and water, and chain smoking,
stubbing out the ends in a tin lid. "Have a dnnk," he would say
And when I declined with the explanation that ten o'clock in the
morning was too early he would be disgusted with me. A
distinguished looking man with a fine face, quick mind and biting
wit... Colette, Robert Paul's daughter, first offered me the house
about ten years ago as a base for the Foundation. Recently, she had

offered it again. When I went there for another look and sat in the
lounge and thought about Robert Paul I got a tingle up the spme.
The place can make a good gallery - it is an L shape - and is very
walk through, having length and interesting areas... a big
restoration and conservation job to do. There is the historical
aspect - one of the few very early settlers' homes that still survive
unaltered - and the art connection Further, that Colette and her
brotherPaul, want to preserve it and turn it over to a useful function
in deference to their father and their childhood there. And we have
the basis of an agreement - the sharing of a concept - to restore and
turn the old house into a gallery.

19th June 1991

...we begin to work in the garden 1 have always wanted to wield
a machete in the jungle. Spent the last two days hacking away at a
giant bougainvillaea creeper which has gone wild over the last fifty
years or more. . . It will be a wonderful gallery in the end. Does one
ever stop fixing? I am excited by the challenge and know I can fix
it. It has got a very good feeling for me

20th June 1991

...The upshot of it all is that 1 am in with a chance for another space
and a unique one at that. . . Much depends on how quickly I can get
the front part of the house operational as a gallery so to make a
start and have something to sell... I am akeady attached to the
place and it lakes on warmth and friendliness more so every time
I go there Maybe old Robert doesn't think I'm stupid after all. We
shall of course have a room for his work as a little museum and
shall call it Gallery Delta at Robert Paul's House.

4th July 1994

...The garden - about half an acre - had not been touched for
years... we have been cleaning out the rubbish pit, sifting the

Top: The side verandah

Paul's old studio.

Above: The front verandah at an

early stage of reconstruction.

Below: the building team.

compost of plastics and bottles, taking out poor tree specimens, building
rockeries and clearing a parking lot. We begin, after three weeks, to find we
have some semblance of future order... Another week around the outside
should have us feeling more comfortable and then I will begin inside There
is a lot of work to do But the ideas start to come. There is an interesting
area at the side with a wonderful old tree with great gnarled roots and where
I think I shall establish a miniature theatre... And there is another enclosed
area at the back - rather like the yard of a farmhouse - where we could have
a patio and serve tea... So little by little there is some progress.

23rd September 1991

...A little over a month ago we moved into the house and began to fix the
inside front. Chased out plaster in two rooms - the oldest "railway carriage'
part - and replastered. Filled in some doorways, opened others. Repaired
window frames and sills Floor boards repaired. Then turned to the front
verandah and took the tin roof off to restore wood beams etc. At the moment
they are still off while we wait for a friend to make timber columns as per
the original plan Presently moving French windows to restore the onginal
look to the front of the house... It is a big job, bigger than I anticipated and
consequently taking longer than I had thought but we make progress...
perhaps by November I can put in the first show.

28th December 1991

...more busy than ever with the restoration and repair work... There was
the need to get a show in and open before the end of the year... It was a big
job overall... but somehow we pulled everything together by the 3rd
December when we opened with paintings and drawings by Robert Paul. I
thanked a lot of people at the opening for their encouragement and support
and in no small measure Charles and Antonio, the carpenter and his plasterer
mate, and their aides, who had worked so wonderfully well. It was a splendid
opening. A large and good natured crowd who put a seal of approval on
all... The gallery is a success. It... works well for the display of art... we
are in and operating... people say they are amazed, after the loss of our other
old and quaint space, that we have been able to come up with another as
good and better. The house has a very gentle and pleasant feeling to it... A
strange year and a busy one in transition and striving patiently all the time
to create somethmg new and good from the old... If I had had a million I
could not necessarily have come up with this place or anything like it... It
is better than I could ever have envisioned...

12th March 1992

...things become better organised and slip into a steady rhythm of
exhibitions and restoration... work is concentrated at the rear of the
premises... This part of the building was almost derelict, disused and had
been badly vandalised by squatters who came over the back wall for shelter
and tore up the floorboards and pulled out the windows to bum I walk
around the house a dozen or more times a day to keep an eye on the progress
of my small team of workers... They have done a very good and steady
job... they seem able to fix everything little by little. Every day, every
week, every month we progress and it will be done... When I started I did
not know the end of it, nor even the middle, nor even the morrow but money
has come on line as necessary and donations too, of bricks, guttenng, wood
and other essentials When I think about it, when I sit and look at the front
of the building, I remark to myself that it is better than I envisaged. The
change is remarkable, although the character has not been lost... So far, in
our new space we have mounted five exhibitions: Robert Paul, and the
group Summer Show in December, Young Artists and Bickle/Caponnetto
in February and a Graphics Show this month... If one has a project to work
it becomes a way of life and one worries and thinks less. When the work is
finished it will be a very good, indeed unique space and place. It becomes
that way already

15th March 1992

...It was a scramble to open the gallery by the 3rd December but we had
committed ourselves a month before. Artist friends sneaking a look at our
colossal muddle thought we would never make it... We finished

whitewashing the front walls at 4 p.m. on the day we opened at 5 30 p.m.
so close was tlie call... plans are beanng fruit little by little. Robert Paul is,
I think, happy - the feeling about and in this place is very good and 1 cannot
help (thinking) it is meant to be.

18th March 1992

...In January we moved our repair and restoration operation to the very back
of the stand - repairing walls, toilets, kia - so that it should be done before
we ran out of money and energy Then dunng February, we moved into the
very derelict old kitchen area ( 1 894) with local bnck of that time and dagga
walls which, in places, with the rains and rotten gutters, had turned once
again to soil and mud. More recently, this month, we have been working in
the 1901 extension area at the rear bedroom and now we put in the ceiling
and the roof back on the kitchen area... We are paving a parking area and
path Quite active. The old house, while retaining its rhythm and character,
is smartening up considerably. Already it makes a good and unique gallery
and when we have finished the repairs - opening up the space - a floors,
doors, windows and walls job, we shall have... accessibility all around the
premises. We shall make a better kitchen, open up part of the rear verandah
and build an auditorium at the side for a theatre for 100 audience Already,
the theatncals are showing interest in the proposed intimate 'under the tree
theatre on the other side'. It's a good project, seems right and Robert Paul's
shade hasn't dropped any bricks yet.

23rd May 1992

...On Thursday last I was very happy. We pulled out the wall of the old
kitchen... and what a difference it makes Light of the winter sunshme from
the north now pours through the French window into the mam gallery - the
old drawing room - and one has a much better view of the rear courtyard
which now comes into play We have enclosed a small area of the rear
verandah ourselves and knocked out what passed as a bathroom to create a
new kitchen... The rear courtyard will become a space for the display of
sculpture and the open rear verandah for relaxation. The character remains
but we have lost the ageing, the patina so to speak, but this will recur in
time Often I go to the end of the garden to sit and cast my eyes about the
front of the house, over and along the simple 'railway carriage' verandah,
to the red corrugated iron roof and the stalwart chimneys and across the two
gables... How many times did I sit and wonder, when the verandah was off
and the work there in progress, how it would look?

7th August 1992

...The major structural work has been completed and we begin to titivate -
fascia boards, guttering, painting... We still have to bring on line one third
of the space for exhibition purposes. Then we shall have sufficient space
for changing and permanent collections. In the end we shall have saved what
claims to be the oldest house in Harare - and if not the oldest, the most intact
- which has historical, architectural and artistic background... to be used as
an art and cultural centre... slowly we succeed. Meantime, we run
exhibitions in part of the space to keep ourselves alive.

30th September 1992

...Over the last two weeks the gutters and down pipes have gone on - the
eye lashes - in good time for the rains. More satisfying even, I was able to
give the instruction to Charles, my building team foreman, to "Take down
that wall", meaning the blocking wall in the hall. I had looked forward to
it for a year Many years ago the wide hall, the major axis in the house, had
been blocked, originally with tongue and groove ceiling board in which a
little door had been cut, and subsequently by a red bnck wall and covered
over with board, paper and paint. We uncovered all about a year ago but left
the red brick wall to hide the dereliction behind it In December we knocked
out one brick to provide a peep hole to view Michiel Dolk's installation of
'House in Constniction' in tribute to Malevich, which he put within the
derelict part, and later Rebecca Garrett's 'Dormant Space Waiting to Come
to Life'. The old man, Madala Mozambique, took down the wall which he
called the ant hill, layer by layer, to expose the 'new' renovated space on
the other side. Revelation for all concerned. Suddenly the space came alive.

Top: The back verandah

area before and

Above: after reconstruction.

cross lighting working beautifully, as the two parts of the
'L' were joined again. It was indeed a major
breakthrough. . . We have now brought on luie all the extra
space... Already Helen calls the new big room the
'Cathedral Room'. It is set off by two magnificent tall
double doors and high ceiling, and has a wonderful still
feeling within. Today we commenced marking out the
area to this side of the house which will become the
amphitheatre... Want to excavate the old well also and if
we get water we shall have a garden all year round. . . The
use of the amphitheatre for meetings, lectures, slide
shows, workshops, plays and music should give us an
additional buzz.

1st December 1992

...we hurried to get the guttering on, to batten down the
corrugated iron sheets... and to press on with the building
of the amphitheatre and to dig and line the well before the
onset of the rains... all our effort is presently about the
theatre area which takes form and volume and shape,
sweeping in a semi-circle towards and up to the belambra
tree, the roots of which surround and grow over the
opening to the well We have dug to twelve metres and
more now... in all probability, the well had been the first
job for those pioneer builders - to establish water supply
- and... the yellow clay removed was to become
sun-baked bricks for the onginal kitchen...

31st December 1992

...We finish the year as survivors with a great deal of
consolidation gone before. At 110 Livingstone Avenue

Top: The side of the old house

before reconstruction.

Above: The new theatre area.

Below: A view of the

new gallery at Its present

state of completion.

there is a sense of order... The amphitheatre is nearly finished - just the area
around the tree and some stepping down to complete Crispen and his mates,
Sebastian and Kosta, finished digging out the old well... at seventeen metres
deep on rock bottom amidst rock walls... We let it fill and it did so, gurgling...
within a week and up to about five metres from the top The water runs in, wells
in through the rock It seems to be a good well worthy of two or three metres a
day or four or five hundred gallons a day... We shall cap it soon and mount,
hopefully, an old hand pump of the twenties as a feature, a practical one, in
midst the tree roots and pump to a tank nearby and run it otT to the garden.

21st February 1993

...We worked January and into February to complete the amphitheatre... Took
on the Black Umfolozi, a Ndebele song and dance act from Bulawayo, for the
12th February to test the space and the acoustics... The space is most pleasant
situated under the branches of the belambra, wild syringa and a lightning scarred
msasa... We had some tensions with the Black Umfolozi promotion They were
late to arrive and so we were unable to rig and set and test their lighting the
night before. Then at about 5 o'clock we had a big storm with torrential rain,
the dimmer board fused, and a short circuit in the wiring held us up for half an
hour. We got away with it however, the rain disappearing and the stars
appearing, and good old John Alsford fixing the circuits. In all we played six
nights to good receptive audiences, somehow by the grace of God missing the
heavy showers and storms that knocked about daily...

7th March 1993

...Last week we pulled up the front verandah floor - old bricks covered by a
thin layer of cement - and re-laid it with concrete slab and mortar top with red
oxide surface... we returned to the amphitheatre area where Michiel Dolk, the
installation artist, has been for a week or two, translating his concept of a
geometric design into reality... marking up and beginning to lay mortar
coloured with red, yellow and black oxides, plus white cement. It is
experimental... In building and making new projects reality, there are always
so many options to think and talk about but gradually all comes down to
simplicity and practicality and that which is right, feels right, has integrity and
IS aesthetically pleasmg...

14th June 1993

...At last, 1 have moved into the room I always envisioned as my office. It is
the last little room of the original kitchen block at the rear where it is more quiet
and isolated. It has a fireplace and a big window which gives me ample light
and being north facing gives me winter sunshine and summer shade. I think I
shall be happy there and now that 1 am more or less established do not intend
to move. We have embarked on the last major job - to build a wall along the
front of the property... We shall commence bricklaying tomorrow. At last 1 can
say with some surety another month or two and we shall be finished.

26th August 1993

...built a marvellous wall in 'klinker" brick and set
the sliding gate we had taken from the rear Then
we tidied up - numerous small jobs - about the
amphitheatre and its decoration; woodwork within
the house to maximise convenience - some
shelving in my office... and so it carried on...
seemingly endlessly... and almost finally to make
and hammer home the finials on the apex of all the
three gables In early August, on or about the 7th,
and almost exactly two years after the builders
began, we called it a day with the promise that
Charles and crew come back next year to build a
small store-room and pave the entrance from the
road to the gate and the interleading paths around
the garden... So 1 say 1 have been a long way out
and am at last returning... 1 have a wonderful
gallery in a marvellous old house. . . D

gallery delta

To those who helped — thank you

The restoration project at 1 10 Livingstone Avenue, during the period June 1991 to August 1993, was
made possible by people whose empathy and generosity was such that they voluntarily contributed in
services, money or in kind.

On behalf of Gallery Delta, 1 wish to record, acknowledge and thank publicly all of the followmg:

Colette Wiles

Paul Paul

Mick Pearce

Peter Jackson

Tony Machado

Jenny Farquharson

David Peech

Richard Jack

Hamish Jardine

Neale Morgan

Arthur Azevedo

Margie Robertson

Nick Murgatroyd

Ros Byrne

James Logan

Birgitta Berggren (Sweden)

Tom Blenkinsop

Murray McCartney

Mary Davies

Kay Graham

Dora Cavill

The late George Seirlis

Brenda Fitzgerald

Alan Radford

Joan Stuart

Leora Fintz

Volker Wild (Germany)

Margaret & Tony Weare (England)

Sue McCormick

Joerg Sorgenicht (Papua New Guinea)

Simon Back

Rosemary Trewartha

Fried Lutz

Robert Loder (England)

Dorothea & Charles Johnson (England)

Daryl Nero

Ian White

Michael Curling

James Murray

James Hazlett (England)

Clive Jordan (England)

Juliet Copperi

Jack Bennett

Christian & Eva Schlaga (USA)

Anna Fleming

Helen Lieros

Philippe & Therese Grosclaude (Switzerland)

Caroline Thomycroft

and

the Development Co-operation Office of the Swedish Embassy (SIDA — Mr Bengt Troedsson)
for the grant in aid for the amphitheatre and Michiel Dolk for its design

and

Charles Nyamutemba (Foreman)
Samson Antonio
Francis Jeta
Mario Katamigo

all members of the building team whose workmanship in wresting back a dilapidated and
derelict building to that which it is today was beyond imagination.

To all, heartfelt appreciation and thanks
Derek Huggins

Conservation of our old buildings

entails much more than

just physical renovation

as Peter Jacl<son emphasises

Pleasure & Privilege

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Plan 314 dated 6.01

for additions

to the original house

at 110 Livingstone Avenue

It was late in 1986 when I was first shown 110 Livingstone Avenue The
property was in a very run-down and neglected state with two school
teachers living in it in virtual squatter conditions The house was extremely
shabby, hidden in a wildly overgrown and tangled garden, the front
verandah partK missing and the rest filled in The rear area was derelict and
uninhabitable, but 1 was excited to have found such a relatively intact
example of one of Harare's earliest brick buildings

Despite the poverty of its appearance, the original architectural character of
the house remained intact The 'railway carriage" plan of the 1894 part of
the structure was an excellent example of fnigal architecture from the
earliest years of colonial settlement in Zimbabwe It was not difficult to
imagine this tall, narrow, initially thatched building standing almost alone
in the African bush, lines of sapling Jacarandas bemg the only indication of
Livingstone Avenue, the road itself barely a track, criss-crossed with
lootpaths and cycle tracks Tliere would have been a few other houses going
up around, in the newly pegged suburb of Greenwood Park, but not all of
them being built in brick; many would have been pole and dagga rondavels
I saw it as a fine and beautifully simple early structure, typified by narrow
rooms, the steeply pitched roof without eaves, and the small window
openings, and I longed to be able to restore it!

Why do some of us care so much about the past? Why is it so important to
preserve some of our old buildings rather than more optimally redevelop
the land on which they stand? The brilliant environmental engineer
Buckminster Fuller wrote: "Hope in the future is rooted in the memory of
the past, for without memory there is no history and no knowledge. No
projection of the future can be formed without reference to the past. Past,
present and future, memory and prophecy, are woven together into one
continuous whole. In a clear understanding of the past lies the hope of our
future."

It IS certainly my own belief that the purpose of conservation is not merely
to preserve our towns as museums, but is rather to enhance and develop their
character and identity through considered and meaningful change The
historic elements of our towns and cities form an important part of our
national collective memory. They refiect the recent history of the region,
the period of colonial expansion and domination, the era that created much
of the shape and texture which our urban settlements possess today.

In the mid-seventies, under the local Town Planning Scheme, 110
Livingstone Avenue was zoned for use as residential tlats and its
redevelopment value was thus enhanced considerably in excess of its value
while supporting only a single dwelling An alternative commercial use
therefore seemed a way to be able to support the costs of renovation and
restoration, but in recent years the Department of Works has been actively
resisting commercial pres.sures encroaching into the residential Avenues.

The need to find new premises for Gallery Delta seemed an ideal
opportunity for creative conservation, to try to combine Robert Paufs
ancient hou.se with the needs of a dynamic and experimental art gallery On
behalf of Gallery Delta, Architect Mick Pearce made application in April

Top: Front elevation of

the reconstructed house.

Right: Back elevation.

Below: West elevation showing

the new theatre area.

Bottom: East elevation

showing Robert Paul's

old studio area

of the verandah.

1991 to the City Council for a Change of Use to gallery purposes This was
entirely outside the scope of our rigid Town Planning Scheme, but in the
context of recently proposed Historic Buildings Regulations, as well as the
undisputed historical significance of the building, the Department of Works
responded positively and agreed to publicly advertise the proposed change
tlirough the Special Consent process.

While waiting for Municipal approval, Derek Huggins was extremely
anxious to begin renovations. The former gallery had been forced to vacate
Strachan's Building in March, and was without any other premises
However, without formal planning and building approval, any work carried
out could be at risk. One day, Derek rang to tell me that he couldn't wait
any longer, and that he had already started to do the minimum necessary to
be able to re-open as soon as possible. With only limited funds available,
he planned to carry out essential repairs, minor alterations and basic
redecoration So please would I come and have a look and reassure him that
the work was appropriate and satisfactory. I didn't need asking twice!

Our first task together was to agree the positions and shapes of the new
openings to create a dynamic axis to link the variety of spaces available
within the house Derek agreed to re-locate doors and windows in order to
restore the front elevation to its early appearance. In 1901 , the thatched roof
had been replaced with corrugated iron, which linked the original rooms
with the new rooms built on the eastern side of the house The timber
verandah also added was typical of the upgrading of buildmgs that took
place about the turn of the century, as the town began to discard its early
pole and dagga unage. We were delighted to accept an otTer to replicate the
original verandah, one timber post with its carved tracery having survived.

Derek was rightly concerned however, that there would be insufficient light
for the display of paintings, particularly if we changed the positions of the
old French windows and restored the verandah along the front I believed
that, if the lean-to kitchen along the back were to be opened up, and the rear
verandah similarly restored, this would provide an extra source of light to
counter the shading of the already small window openings along the front.
By now the building had been surveyed, and a set of reconstruction
drawings prepared. It was clear that we were doing far more than just
redecorating, particularly as Friends of Delta were so generous with
donations of cash and materials, including the recreated Oregon pine
verandah posts, bricks and Victorian profiled guttering Sculptor Arthur
Azevedo's distinctive security grilles gave the building a necessary and
magical continuity with the original Gallery Delta

The reconstruction work was carried out, under the supervision of Derek
Huggins, by a small building team led by Charles Nyamutemba The Chief
Building Inspector and his officers were kept fully informed of what we
were doing No objections were received to the planning application for
Special Consent, and a Permit for Public Building (Gallery) Use was
eventually granted on 3rd December 1991, the very day that Gallery Delta
re-opened with a special commemorative exhibition of the works of Robert
Paul. There is a condition in the Planning Permit requiring regular public
access to the house, to which the new use ideally lends itself

The response of the arts community to the new venue was
tremendous and further donations meant that renovation
work could now continue on the derelict back portion of
the property. Funds were provided for the construction
of a 100-person amphitheatre focused on a side verandali
of the house, which anyway required complete
reconstruction. This area naturally lent itself to
development as a small stage, with the former window
openmgs being extended to contain three tall Oregon
pme framed glazed doors which ambiguously serve
either as windows to the gallery within, and as an abstract
backdrop to the stage. Within the amphitheatre was the
former well which Derek was havmg dug out to find
water, and for which we were able to locate a 50-year old
hand pump. It was a very exciting day indeed when the
matchboard partition, which had separated the front and
back halves of the house for many years, was able to be
stripped away. The whole house was immediately
transformed, all of it at last becoming available for a
good vanety of walk-through spaces

The renovations were finally completed in 1992, but
there was still a boundary wall to construct and the
landscaping of the garden to be completed, which work
continued well into 1993 The last exercise will be to
provide a removable roof over the amphitheatre seating,
which must not detract from the character of the house,
but which will enable the stage facility to be used at any
time of the year

What made it such a special experience for myself, was
to watch the building transform under the careful and
patient hands of Derek, Charles and the other builders;
seeing it ever moving closer to the image that I had
formed the very first time I saw the house. It felt a

privilege to assist them realize that traiisfomiation, in what
I considered to be a very important early building, if not
the oldest extant house in the city It has certainly given me
as much pleasure as any building project on which I have
ever been involved, and was profoundly therapeutic!

This project has not only given Gallery Delta a much
needed home and future security, but has saved for Harare,
an excellent example of its earliest urban architecture, and
in such a way as to reasonably guarantee its survival well
into the 21st century It is not a museum, it has had to

change to adapt to its new function, while at the same time
re-establishing its architectural integrity In celebrating its
special association with Robert Paul, the house looks back,
as well as forward to the tuture Very often one can find
young artists painting in the garden, on the verandah or in
the theatre. Far Iroin becoming just a showcase, I 10
Livingstone Avenue has become a vibrant focus for artistic
gro\^1h, a place of questioning, of testing aspirations; of
making visions of the present and the past, for the future.

I think Robert Paul would like that D

Reviews of recent work and
forthcoming exhibitions and events

Women Visual Artists
Exhibition, National
Gaiiery, August 1994

Sixty one paintings, graphics,
ceramics and textiles were selected
by three prominent women artists
for this exiiibition Some works
were distinctly female in context,
women working, weaving, with
children, a few had a political
statement to make such as / am not
the one by Joan Dunstan; others
dealt with the wider human
expenence The 18-25 years
painting award went to Portia
Stocker for Pride

Portia Stocker, Pride

Stocker applies her oil paint thickly
in clearly delineated areas The two
boys, smart in their striped shirts,
stare balefully at the viewer The
larger than life size heads demand
our attention while the hunched
little shoulders, inertly hanging amis
and incomplete bodies convey an
impression of weakness.

The 18-25 sculpture award went to
Semina Mpofu for Female Harp
This IS an evocative work with its
poised stone head piece and single
metal string stretching over the
delicate broken hollow bowl of the
body, culminating in the roughened
metal mbira The supine position
emphasises both sexuality and
vulnerability

Women artists inevitably express
their femaleness and, while
categonsing can be interesting for
sociological or political inference, in
the end what matters is that the
individuals regardless of sex
communicate their experience
convincingly.

Is this 'affinnative action'
exhibition necessary? While white
Zimbabwean women artists have
always exhibited alongside their
male counterparts, traditionally
black women were limited to crafts

Semina Mpofu, Female Harp

and decoration and it is only
recently that they have been able to
express themselves through paint
and sculpture. Judging by this
show, women artists don't need
special treatment. Their work can
certainly be exhibited on equal
terms with male artists.

Pity that the book publishing house
which sponsors the exhibition does
not see fit to publish a decent
catalogue!

Harare Polytechnic Fine
Art Students Past and
Present, National Gallery,
August 1994

This exhibition represented work
from the first intake of fine art
students ( 1 99 1 ) to the present time
Notable was work by Tendai (iumbo
now in her final year Her printed,
tie-dyed, batiked, cut and resewn
textiles and mixed media ceramics

show an experimental approach to
materials and her graphics and
paintings, much energy and self
expression The range of mnovative
ceramics made a welcome change
from the technically perfect bowls
or traditional style pots commonly
exliihited

Works by Prominent
Contemporary Artists in
Zimbabwe, Gaiiery Deita,
Juiy 1994

Tapfuma Gutsa exhibited San King
(see contents page) created from
mixed metals Also on this
exhibition was Richard Jack's work
Sharing, a successful combination
of three simple elements: an
anchoring block of polished wood,
an energetic zigzag of rough
textured steel which engages the eye
in vertical, horizontal and diagonal
movement, and a smoothly carved
stone fruit/seed pod mjikmg its
offering

Young Artists of Promise,
Gaiiery Deita, August 1994

This exhibition showed a range of
work in strongly individualistic
modes of expression by twelve
young artists Cnspen Matekenya
brings movement, humour and
energy to wood in his treatment of
always very human and personal
subjects such as Bathing the Child
or The Musician, The Dancers.

Helen Lleros, Trit>al Land

Twelve of Zimbabwe's well-known
artists exhibited including Helen
Lieros who is exploring the
complexities of her dual
inheritance, the Greek and the
Zimbabwean In Tribal Land she
incorporates fragments of
newspapers sent from Athens for her
late father, intermeshing them with
her vigorous expression of African
colour and myth.

Crispen Matekenya, The
Musician, The Dancers

Forthcoming exhibitions
and events (provisional)

The Heritage Exhibition opens at
the National Gallery in November
With their new policy of including
both foreign and local selectors, the
National Gallery is hoping to rescue
the standard of the exhibition which
had led to so much public cnticisim
in the last few years According to
comments at the Forum meeting, the
selection has been rigorous this year
and the selectors have agreed to a
'walkabout' when they will defend
their choices in discussion with
artists and the public.

The Goethe Institute has

commissioned Adda Geiling, Luis
Meque and Richard Jack to do three
large canvases for their new offices
at 162 Harare Street. The theme of
the works is 'the city'.

ZIm Sculpture (Pachlpamwe)
Workshop is being held at
Tapfuma Gutsa's place at Shurugwe
in September/October. Artists from
Zimbabwe and abroad will include
Vote Thebe and Nicholas
Mukomberanvva There will be an
Open Day For details contact
Taylor Nkomo at the National
Gallery.

Pero Rajkovic will be exhibiting
at Gallery Delta in October
Rajkovic, a Yugoslavian painter
visiting Zimbabwe from war
devastated Belgrade, says he seeks
to express in his art something
beyond the horrific present, to oft'er
hope

Sylvia Bews-Wrlght, a Canadian
painter, will be showing work at
Gallery Delta in November. The
exhibition "Partitions" will be
mainly acrylics with strong political
content

Berry Sickle and possibly Fatima
Fernandez will exhibit at Gallerv
Delta in November Recently
returned from the Biennale in Cuba
and from a period of painting in
Mozambique, Beny should have
some interesting work to show

Richard Jack, Sharing

Betrayal by Harold Pinter wil
performed at Gallery Delta in
October, produced by Graham
Cnitchley

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-» The art magazine from Gallery Delta

No 2

Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe

Gallery Delta, the publisher and the editor gratefully acknowledge
the following sponsors who have contributed to the production
of this issue of Gallery magazine:

ARCHITECTS ,ackson

MOORE

PARTNERSHIP kurebgaseka

WILSON

APEX CORPORATION OF ZIMBABWE LIMITED

MEIKLES HOTEL

CODE

THE CANADIAN ORGANIZATION FOR
DEVELOPMENT THROUGH EDUCATION

Delta Corporation Limited

allery

Contents

December 1994

2 Artnotes

3 ZimSculpture Pachipamwe Workshop, Shurugwe,
September/October 1994

by Derek Huggins

7 Questions of inheritance

— comments and criticism from viewers at the National
Gallery Heritage Exhibition 1994

13 Beyond the frame?

— an interview with installation artist Michiel Dolk

18 Sketches from the fringe

— Stephen Williams writes from Bulawayo

20 Reviews of recent work and forthcoming exhibitions
and events

Cover: Michiel Dolk, Cabo Delgado (detail), 1994, marble

Collection: Murray McCartney. Photo: Danielle Deudney
Left: Harry Mutasa, Elephant in Quicksand, 1994, 30cm, metal

Publisher: Derek Huggins. Editor: Barbara Murray. Design Team: Barbara
Murray & Myrtle Mallis. DTP: Myrtle Mallis. Origination & printing: A.W.
Bardwell & Co. Colour: Colourscan (Pvt) Ltd.

Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not be repro-
duced in any manner or form without permission.

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the writers
themselves and not necessarily those of Gallery Delta, the publisher or the
editor.

Subscriptions from Gallery Publications, P.O. Box UA 373,

Union Avenue, Harare. Tel: (14)792135.

Artnotes

"/ am really glad to hear that
something is going ahead in
Zimbabwe on the art scene. What
has worried me terribly is the lack
ofcnticaiity and engagement with
issues — continuous praise has
done no one any good at all and
now that SA is back in the world
the competition for 'Africanness' is
going to he tough. "

Marion Arnold writing from Cape Town
highlights our need for criticism, interpre-
tation and discussion which are essential to
the growth of challenging art. That
continuous praise is good for no one is
evident in the proliferation of mediocre and
derivative work. Some incisive criticism is
needed.

Criticism can be positive and constructive,
a contnbution to development and change,
a good teacher. Artists produce their work
to be seen, to communicate. They want
and need response. If the response is not
all positive it may help them to look and
think again. Comment can open viewers
and artists to new possibilities, alternative
perspectives.

Without a local art school to create an
atmosphere of rational discussion and
examination of art, criticism has come to
be seen in Zimbabwe as personal and
negative. Another correspondent says:

"Writing about contemporary
art in this small community is
a can of worms. "

Well let's open the can so the worms can
eat away some of the dead wood in our art
to make way for new growth. To extend
the metaphor, most plants benefit from a
little judicious pruning.

Equally worth considering in Marion's
letter is the suggestion that nothing has
been happening on the art scene in
Zimbabwe. This is far from true as the
articles in this issue indicate, but we need
to make ourselves seen and heard both
inside and outside the country. Recent
visitors have been impressed with some of
the work they've seen and artists are being
invited to exhibit overseas.

In November, Tapfuma Gutsa, Luis Meque
and Keston Beaton travelled to Germany as
guests of the Gallerie Munsterland in
Emsdetten who will host an exhibition

entitled 'Genesis' next year. The curators
came to Zimbabwe on the Shona sculpture
trail and were depressed with what they
found. However at Gallery Delta they were
shown what Zimbabwean artists are capable
of creating. Gallene Munsterland aim to
facilitate interaction and to this end three
German artists will come to Zimbabwe
eariy in 1995. All six artists will then work
towards the exhibition in September 1995.
The necessity to explain their work and
articulate their concerns to the more critical
German audience will be beneficial for
Zimbabwe's three representatives and
hopefully have spin-offs for the local scene.

Seven local artists, Gerry Dixon, Cnspen
Maiakenya, Luis Meque, Stephen Williams,
Richard Jack, Anderson Mukomberanwa
and Bernard Takawira, will have work in an
exhibition of art from southern Africa
entitled 'SANAAAfrica'. This exhibition,
organised by the Norwegian Museum of
Contemporary Art, will tour Norway from
February 1995 for 12 months.

Sue McCormick recently brought Zimba-
bwean art to international notice when she
won 2nd prize in the Gualdo Tadino
(Perugia) 34th International Exhibition of
Ceramic Art for her wall piece entitled
'Solidarity'. Constructed of clay tiles of
varied size and prominence, the piece
depicts three female figures and a pot, with
beads and copper wire as added elements.
Some parts of the surface are burnished
while the background is subtly coloured
using brushwork with slips and oxides. The
prestigious and lucrative first prize of
Z$25,O0O draws work from many countries
which this year included Norway, Russia,
Lithuania, Switzerland, Greece, Japan and
Italy among others. Congratulations, Sue!

But while our artists may get recognition
abroad, the local scene is more problematic.
Culture is not a profit making enterprise. It
needs support and sponsorship. Some local
companies continue to play an important
role through their generous funding of art.
In October two major companies in Harare
requested paintings and sculpture to show at
the opening of their new office buildings.
Events such as these bring art to the
attention of many who do not visit galleries
and offer them something new and stimulat-
ing. Sadly some companies as yet do not
support local culture as was evidenced in a
recent visit to the headquarters of one of the
biggest conglomerates. Enshrined in a
beautiful frame behind the reception desk

was a piece of commercially printed fabric
matching the fabric covering their chairs
and sofas! This lack of interest or pride in
Zimbabwean culture projects a negative
impression to the many visitors who pass
through their offices. As one person at the
Heritage Exhibition commented:

"When you talk about what could
have been done, you have to ask
yourself if you have contributed as
much as you can. "

However, thanks to support from many
quarters, things are buzzing. New direc-
tions were in evidence at the Zimsculpture
Pachipamwe Workshop (see page 3) and if
not a show of excellent work, the Heritage
Exhibition (see page 7), does demonstrate
the range of potential in Zimbabwe. The
majority of exhibiting artists are untrained,
and much talent is not achieving what it
could. We need that art school! Both the
President and the Director of the National
Gallery mentioned it in passing in their
speeches at the Heritage opening. Too
much has been said and too little done but
hopefully, with a new Director, the project
can be made reality.

While we wait for the Zimbabwe School of
Art, the Harare Polytechnic is looking for
full or part time lecturers in Fine Art to join
their effort to develop art in Zimbabwe. If
you are interested please write enclosing a
CV to the Principal, Attention: Head of
Department, Printing and Graphic Arts,
Harare Polytechnic, Box CY 407, Cause-
way, Harare.

Michiel Dolk on page 13 shares thought-
provoking perspectives on the conventions
of painting and sculpture, challenging artists
to consider contemporary art concerns.
More deliberate questioning and examina-
tion of ideas is necessary if Zimbabwe's art
is to establish a living rather than a petrified
tradition. Too much emphasis is put on
preserving culture, maintaining traditions,
making more art for the Heritage cupboard,
rather than on exploring alternative
possibilities and investigating new concepts,
"making decisive breaks into the new".

The Editor

^T^r^

Shurugwe

September/October 1994
By Derek Muggins

"Shona sculpture... it is a dying movement. I
think that with John (Takawira) and
Ndandarika and other people, the movement
went." So asserts the black skinned, lank
haired Tapfuma Gutsa. sitting bare chested on
the terrace of the Shurugwe Motel.

We have driven the two hundred plus miles
from Harare via Gweru to Shurugwe. on wide
tar roads, under a mildly grey sky which hints
at rain though it seems too early to hope for an
end the dry season. Traversing the undulating
scrub bush lands south of Chivu, there are
vultures, some thirty or forty, gathered on the
lip of a donga. The vultures rise lazily and
glide away to circle and wait. There is a
carcase, a full grown warthog; all that remains
is the head and hooves. The flies are thick and
noisy and the maggots stirring. Going on,
tribes of vervet monkeys cross the road and
birds of prey wheel above.

Heralded by a conical hill, the name of which
nobody seems to know, with msasa and pine
trees covering its slopes, the small town of
Shurugwe comes into sight. More old than
new, more closed and empty than open and
occupied, Shurugwe displays its deserted,
verandah-ed streets.

The now-named Shurugwe Motel, situated in
the lea of the hill with no name, was if I am not
mistaken, a tea garden in the early 60s where
Trevor Southey, a young painter, lived. Two of
his works are in the Permanent Collection of
the National Gallery. He became a mormon,
perhaps understandably, and went to Utah.
Selukwe, its anglicised colonial name, lost a
painter and its only call, so far, to the art
history of the country.

Arriving at the motel we espy the form of
Gerry Dixon, dressed in track trousers,
colourful caftan and imitation guerrilla bush
hat, and we know we have homed in on the
workshop. We have a lemon drink and slake
our thirst while Gerry talks. "Amazing
workshop. Worked one week wood, one week
stone, one week painting. Amazing. Gentle.
Quiet. No hype. No talk. Just work. Got into
the stone. So easy to work. Much easier than
wood. Absolute despair yesterday. Today at
peace. Have got enough stimulation out of it to
last me a year. Amazing."

In the dark bar, the ZBC is on the air, pumping
out pop music. We move off to see Gerry's

«^

'■■.-■-<»_

work patch in the middle of a disused, mini-
ature golf course amongst msasa trees. He has
chosen Hole number three as his green. Here
we look at his found objects in wood, Buffalo
Horns and Tuning Fork, the latter too heavy by
far for one to lift. "Tapfuma's place is up the
hill through that hole in the fence. Some of the
others are working on the terraces, others, the
painters and the welders, on a farm ten miles
away."

We climb the hill. A Dixon stone sculpture
along the path is reminiscent of a Grecian
warrior's face and helmet with trimmed plume.
There is a vertical snake on the neck. It is an
impressive piece.

Govane Ferreira, the Mozambican wood carver
from Maputo who exhibited at the National
Gallery a few years ago, is working the stone
alongside Rashid Jogee. Rashid, pale under his
colouful woollen hat, is chipping gently,
patiently, resolutely at a big rock with purple
intrusions that is lumpy and undramatic in
form. Uncovering that which is hidden, and
almost as though he has no wish to discover or
look or take out that which is within, so gently
does he chip. It is as though he is fondling it.
He is happy to see us. "I hadn't heard.
Thought the workshop was off. Had a brilliant
scene in Bulawayo just before I came: Brenda
Fassi in Mpopoma. For me it is a new experi-
ence because it is the first workshop I have
only worked the stone. There is real stability in
It, OK. Painting is so wild... there are so many
ups and downs, you see. It's like a wild
woman. This has been good for me, the
stability. It is patient and steady. I'm develop-
ing the stone from its original form. I feel in
touch with this stone... just developing it... for
ten days... it starts to come. The work becomes
light and easy, OK, and then you sing and talk
together... and you become in touch with the
stone. I've just been preparing it before I really
begin to work on it and then get involved... go
up gently and come down out of it slowly."
Such is Rashid's involvement with his rock,
fond and meek.

As we go on up the hill I remember a stanza

from Omar Khayyam:

For I remember slopping by ihe way

To watch a potter thumping his wet clay:

And with its all-obliterated tongue

It munnur 'd — Gently, Brother gently, pray!

Tapfuma Gutsa Looking around the site where the stone is

ZimSculpture Pachipamwe Workshop

Voti Thebe , a^

dumped, there is, across the track, a severed
aeroplane propeller transformed, by
Tapfuma Gutsa, into a cycladic-like form by
the addition of a wooden head. Nearby
Webster Gutsa cuts into a rock to create a
termite and its labyrinth.

Terraced hillside and more workers. Dias
Machate, from Mozambique, wrestles to
wedge home a block of serpentine in a rough
hewn tree trunk.

On a retaining wall, a line of metal and
mixed media works by Voti Thebe from
Bulawayo, of which Bondage, or perhaps
Captive Woman, is the most impressive.

Further along the terrace, Frances
Richardson from England is investigating
how best to pin wood to stone. The piece on
which she works, a curved stone base on
which she balances a narrow tree trunk, and
the manner in which she endeavours to link
one to the other with the aid of two curved
metal pins is thoughtful and well designed.
She proposes to fix a curvilinear scrap metal
piece to the wood, to create perhaps a figure
with a lyre?

It looks too much like a Tapfuma Gutsa for
my inclination. This is not neutral ground.
For here, as we climb the hill, terrace by
terrace, the Tapfuma Gutsa influence is
strong. Many powerful sculptures stand
along these terraces and around the swim-
ming pool, washed and darkened by the
water from the sprinkler, which are unmis-
takably Outsa's works dating over the last

i#t^

decade. There are some familiar ones: The
Lovers, The Snake, The Crashed Out
Helicopter... works that one imagined had
sold long ago and been housed in Europe
and America, but which have come to rest
on these terraces over the last three or four
years. Unmistakably, this is the site of an art
establishment. How did this happen?
Tapfuma homed, I guessed, on the Shurugwe
chrome mine to investigate the stone sought
after by the sculptors of this land. And
finding it, he found a home nearby atop a
kopje, in sight of the hill with no name, and
with a bar that is the Shurugwe Motel, at the
bottom.

Tapfuma Gutsa

The stone built cottage on top of the hill is
full and alive with paintings and sculptures
— by Stephen Williams, Richard Jack,
Henry Thompson, Berry Bickle, Rashid
Jogee and others — the swops and spoils of
annual workshopping, Pachipamwe style, in
Zimbabwe. Certainly this is an art site in the
midst of the Midlands Province. Incongru-
ous, almost unbelievable, but fact.

Across the hill, the Zambian, Friday Tembo,
and the slight, brown skinned Namibian,
Silverius OUbile, work side by side. Friday
has completed a piece in wood, rather busy
in its form, drilled with countless holes. He
calls it Empty Promise... it depicts a
politician. The Namibian works on stone
but there is no impressive form here.
Perhaps he hasn't worked stone before.

It seems workshop work is experimental,
often unresolved, unfinished, even ill
conceived and incongruous. The accent is
on the experimental, to work new media,
and here, on this hill, the tendency to work
in mixed media is apparent. While this may
be a means to be different, to be contempo-
rary, to break away and to find an alterna-
tive, it is not necessarily an end in itself.
There is a sculpture on one of the terraces, a
female torso in wood which appeals but on
which is fixed a beaten copper head which to
my eye and sensibility is without harmony
or feeling between the materials. It becomes
tawdry and twee... perhaps I am prejudiced
and reminded too much of the copper
souvenirs of a decade or two ago. But
mixed media is a potential direction for
those who experiment and work long enough
to mix the materials well; if it is used in the
search for something different. It seems that
here, amongst the participants of this
workshop, the collective in Africa is dissipat-
ing in the search for the individualistic.

■■"J-? ■■■ Jx^s^

Wood was the traditional medium, and then
came stone with the so-called Shona
sculpture, a contemporary movement
commencing in the late 50s on which the
emphasis, both at home and abroad, has
been for 35 years, and which has become
synonymous with Zimbabwean art. Here
clearly, the revolution against that continues
and the break-away mood is to mix media.
Locally, Naso Callinicos, now in Australia,
and Richard Jack were the first to experi-
ment and work in this manner.

Tapfuma Gutsa told me in 1981: "I am not a
Shona Sculptor. I don't believe in all that
hocus pocus. I want to be a sculptor. I want
to go and study overseas. I want to be
myself." Aided by a British Council grant,
he went to London and studied for three
years at the Guild School where he was
exposed to multi-media. He has since that
time been steadily finding himself and
proving to be the centre of the alternative.
He is strong, outspoken, audacious, passion-
ate, highly imaginative and creative.

Late in the afternoon at the motel, after
lunch of bream, sadza and relish, sitting
under a fir tree where the weavers are
building noisily, Tapfuma joins us and, while
swigging beer from the bottle, begins to talk
in his characteristic staccato manner about
the workshop, the politics:

"The idea of the workshop was problemati-
cal from the beginning. I reacted against the
Pachipamwe workshops of the past where
the sculptors were underprivileged compared
to the painters. The painters got materials
worth hundreds of US dollars and the
sculptors, about five hundred Zim dollars
worth of stone. That wasn't good enough.
But here, by giving enough materials, there
has been a lot of experimentation and the

Tapfuma Gutsa

spirit of the workshop has been good. Calm.
And if, when it all comes out. it is not good
enough then we have failed. We've been
trying to get out of the usual mould, to
break-away, and it's about honesty in the
process. It's a sharing of ideas and it makes
one work hard."

"And Tapfuma. what about the politics? The
infamous meeting at the Kentucky Hotel at
the beginning of the year?"

He laughs. "Yeah, yeah, all of that." He
laughs again. "I decided to call a meeting
and announce my intentions about the
workshop. I had been funded by the Delfina
Trust (London). There was opposition to the
control of the funds. It was like I was trying
to upstage everybody. There was a fight
about the money and the control. It ended in
a fight. Then I didn't know what to do and
nearly abandoned the idea. I came to you
and you said, you will lose reputation and
credibility if you don't do it... if you have
the money, make a plan, fix a location and
date and send out invitations and put the
onus on them to come and take a chance and
have a good time or bad, or not to come and
lose out or not. So I did that... the older
artists promised to give stone but they
didn't. They didn't come even although they
were invited out of courtesy... and the
traditional Pachipamwe donors gave
nothing... I thmk they had bad vibes." He
drinks off some beer from the bottle. "But
there are 25 artists, from here, Namibia,
Zambia, Mozambique, England, Jamaica
and one or two from Germany."

Then the talk moves to the work that is
being done. "What about the ideas behind
the work, Tapfuma? Are the artists talking
about their ideas? Or is it just things put
together?"

Tapfuma Gutsa

'4'!^^

"Intellectually we are not armed. A lot of us
haven't had art education. Stamps (Minister
of Health) talks about Health for All by the
Year 2000. I talk about Art Education for
All by the Year 2000. The problem is that
our education system has no art involve-
ment. Art must be taken to the schools.
Even if there is one artist in a thousand, that
one should be given the chance. We are
children of chance. Our government only
wants to take people overseas for technical
training."

"But you've got that education, Tapfuma.
Did you angle the workshop towards
discussion and ask what artists are putting
down?"

"You know what it was... everybody thought
that we were out to make a coup. No, it
wasn't that. Just wanted to make one leam
from the others."

"But you want to get the artists away from
the Shona sculpture movement?"

"Yes, because it's a dying movement. I
think that with John (Takawira) and
Ndandarika and other people, the movement
went. The problem is that Shona sculpture is
related to Eskimo art... it's an anthropologi-
cal interest. And people can sell. People
work with a gallery and people are encour-
aged to make spiritual references. Some-
body I know, a close friend, making
sculpture... he has a house with solar power
and water piped from the well. It's about the
economic situation. So now the whole
village is making sculptures. Like
Tengenenge... buy one there and you can
find as good on the roadside. It's an
eyesore. I have run far to come here. If
people want me to run further I will fight."
He laughs.

Among his contributions during the three
week run of the workshop, aside from the
organisational aspects, is a worked block of
rough textured stone turning off its vertical
axis, on to which is fitted a metal pipe and a
branch with a trumpet-like loud hailer or
hearing aid.

Another of Tapfuma's works in progress is a
suitcase-sized shape of compacted wire,
straight from the metal salvage yard, to
which he has fixed blocks of wood, reminis-
cent of a transistor radio, the wires of which
are teased upwards to form an aerial.
Another is a rectangular metal frame about
seven foot long on the sides of which are
welded the rudimentary stretchers used in
the mines, a six foot long sheet iron plate
with handles, and on top of the frame
another stretcher with the wrapped form of a
corpse. More an installation piece this... of
the mine cage and mine accident.

.' '.or- ■-.■"-

Keston Beaton

It seems he has gathered his kind to
himself... "I am a leader through my work
but I should not be seen as the centre."

"No, we don't see Tapfuma as the leader of
a movement," says Frances. "We are not
his disciples."

"But inevitably you are seen as a leader,
Tapfuma," we say. There is no further
protest.

At the end of the day, about five miles along
the Gweru road, we turn towards Surprise
Siding. Why Surprise? Nobody seems to
know the reason. Berry Bickle volunteers
that there is a 'shebeen' located there... the
present day surprise at Surprise? We turn
onto a farm and stop at a dilapidated bam to
visit the painters and metal workers.

Here Keston

Beaton has, from found objects, assembled
a mosquilo-likc insect with its own inbuilt
cylinder barrel from a small engine.
Another of his efforts is a wooden head
around which he has wrapped a metal mask
which has more potential. His guitar, in
simple line and form, works well. He says
he has been up and down the back streets of
Shurugwe looking for interesting scrap and
found objects.

Two of Berry Bickle's paintings hang on the

outside wall of the bam; white ground on
which she experiments with calligraphy and
which she calls Tears and Tears, meaning
both to cry and to rent, and on which are
stuck bone-like scrolls of paper and wood.
Inside the bam are her treasure trove
suitcases and trunks. There too, on the wall
behind, are Shikani's icon-like paintings in
ochres and reds. Gone are the suffering
masses, at last. Outside in the yard, a Gutsa
sculpture, in wood hewn from a tree trunk,
of a nude male torso which is strong and
good. No embarrassment here in depicting
the genitals and slivers of wood have been
teased to depict pubic hair.

En route to Harare by night, the questions
arise, are answered in part, dispelled, rise
again. Does the workshop work? That it is
apparently well organised and efficient...

yes. That it has satisfied
the artists... yes. For
most of them it is a
period of time out of
their normal working
environment and
struggle for existence,
where for three weeks
there is a bed, food,
drink, succour without
worry and the opportu-
nity to be with like souls
in the struggle; to gain
■^^0- "^ • strength, encouragement

•>^r^ -.1. and stimulation in the

Berry Bickle artistic quest. But
workshops do not suit all. There are those
solitaries in the quest who must work alone.
And, while workshops afford benefit, solace,
impetus, it is a half measure. An art school
is necessary for Zimbabwe. Surely only the
best is enough for Africa's artists of the
future.

What is the effect of this workshop? The
concentration of a new contemporary
movement and different directions? or the
dissipation of a cultural mishmash that will
be repealed as far afield as Namibia? We

wrestle to answer this. Intemationalism?
Continental drift? Can the resulting work be
seen to be "African' or does this not matter?
"Yes it is African," Berry Bickle had said.
"When I was working at the Delfina Studios,
up against the products of the British art
schools already well set in their trends, they
were positively boring. These people are
much more exciting." 'They are Africans
and if they are honest their work will
inevitably be African," Barbara had said.

To me the message of the workshop seems
clear; Africa is changing. Zimbabwean
sculpture and art are undergoing a change.
This is not a new phenomenon. It has been
going on largely unnoticed for a decade or
more, around a few catalysts... of which
Tapfuma Gutsa is one.

The message that needs to go out to the art
community, its observers, interested parties,
organisations and collectors, here and
abroad, is that the revolt against the estab-
lished in Zimbabwean ait — Shona sculp-
ture — is in progress and that this revolt is
black African inspired and motivated; that it
comes from within.

The workshop itself was African inspired
and organised and comprised predominantly
sculptors with a few painters, predominantly
black with a few whites. 'African' art or Art
in Africa? That is the question.

It is time for the West to review its attitudes;
to move on from the preconceived idea of
Africa as still the 'dark' continent, wild,
exotic, primitive; its art still primitive,
traditional, only ethnic, with luile relevance
to contemporary modernist developmenls.
The change is evident in this workshop, it
will have great difficulty surviving against
the popular, commercial and fashionable, in
which so many operatives have their
interests. But change is here.

On the way home it rains. The dry season is
ending.

Nicholas Mukomberanwa,
Landslide, 50cm x 75cm,
springstone

Inheritors may

simply preserve their legacy,

throw it in the dustbin,

or use it in some constructive way

uestions of inheritance

The Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibition at the National Gallery is the major art event of the year, an indicator of the health
or otherwise of our art scene. One thing the Heritage Exhibition does do is generate a storm of contention, criticism
and opinion on the state of art in Zimbabwe. Below is a selection of comments from many different people express-
ing their individual response to this year's exhibition.

CD
CO

"Painting should blow people 's minds. You should always be
excited about it. During the selection I found that I did
respond to certain pieces like that, and I liad then to sit buck
and think about it and try and dig deep into my thought and
the things I've seen and the things I think are important in
terms of perception and philosophy... and say to the others this
is why this sculpture or painting is so very important... to open
new vistas. People who like art will find that a painting is an
important happening to them... and that is what we were
looking for here. I want to feel something happening. "

"People say that there were 3000 pieces but you only chose
220... it's like they think we were waiting with machetes! It
doesn 't work like that. We chose work for people to look at. "

" Eurocentrism is the driving force behind most art production
in Zimbabwe today. Because of overseas and local dealers
who export huge numbers of mediocre works and the incresase
in tourism, many artists produce only to sell and we get
copying and mass-production. As selectors we spoke of the
need for artists to investigate mythology, inner feelings,
spiritual beliefs, social concerns in order to create from within
themselves rather titan for external, commercial reasons. "

"Each single piece was examined on its own merit, an
enormous task, and many pieces were revisited many times.
We tried as a panel to look for common elements m groupings
of works after we liad winnowed out many pieces. Having
discussed and examined these common elements at length, we

eventually selected what we considered to be the best
e.xamplars. "

"As selectors we adopted a 'lean and mean ' approach,
focussing on the calibre oftlie work and rejecting large
quantities of batiks and second-rate stone work. To be
accepted must be seen as an honour to aspire to, something
that transcends prize money or the assurance of going into
someone's collection or attracting better prices. "

"The judging was very fair The local judges are people
who understand better what is liappening in Zimbabwean
culture. "

"I thought the exhibition was much better than previous
years, much better than last year, even the catalogue. The
standard of the pieces last year was much lower, painting
and sculpture. They did a good job of the selection. "

"I do not doubt for a minute that the selectors did all they
could with the work submitted to them and as far as I can
gather the general consensus is that this year 's Annual is the
best one we have had for some years. Most of the work is up
to 'standard'. No risks taken; no offence given; nothing that
will set \our teeth on edge. But why should artists be
expected to take risks? After all, not only is the Annual the
most prestigious event of the year but awards and monies
are involved! So there you are - another year, another show.
How many of these works will you remember five years from
now? Time is the ultimate selector "

• ■■«■

"Our culture is full of contradic-
tions and variety and the art reflects
this... all the different points of view
and different ways of looking at
things. "

"It's like a church bazaar., some-
thing for everyone. "

"Good things are squeezed in
betiveen a lol of bad stuff. "

"The exhibition is good because this
year I can see different works. It 's
not the same as before. If you go
round, put your eyes on it. you can 't
see Mother and child. Mother and
child. Spirit of this. Spirit of that.
You see different titles. Last year
things were too much but this year
the exhibition is perfect. I think the
judges did a very good job. "

"/ ihmk the exhibition this year is
good. Before when artists worked
together they were copying... so now
if you look at the sculptures here
they are all different. It was nice to
call the Zimbabwean judges
because the jurists from outside the
countiy didn 't know what was going
on. Tills year they took the outside
selectors into the shop and they
could see what was there and then
they would say we Itave seen what is
there and there is plenty of such
type of pieces, so they only put on
what was different. "

"/ enjoyed the way the artists
received their prizes. It was good.
It was fun. I thought this is a
special place here not like any-
where else. And the way Rashid
hugged the President.

"I wanted to hug him three times
but I was worried about the
securit}' guard. I asked him very
politely. I said Sir. can I embrace
you?"

"It was good to hear the President
speak of universal things and no
racism after all the rubbish of the
last few weeks. I hope he 's going to
stick to that and not go back. It
was nice when he spoke from his
heart, when he said that he liked art
because it helped him get away
from all the political worries,
before he started on the set speech
that had been written by someone
else with all the verbose sentences
and generalised eulogy. "

"/ was impressed with Professor
Kahari's speech. It was not just the
general platitudes. I respect his
point of view, its very open. You
would have expected him to be
more nationalistic but il was quite
balanced. "

O
C/)

"/ was pretty impressed with the sculpture. After the Ziinsculpture workshop...
I'm so much more aware of sculpture now. Exhibitions produced after work-
shops are much more e.xciting. Although some pieces are unfinished, the end
result is much more exciting. "

"The development in sculpture seems to be heading more and more in the
direction of craftwork. "

"Usually on the Heritage, there is a lot of stone sculpture with no particular
originality. Usually it 's packed with a lot of ugly stone sculpture and this time it 's
really well done. There was a lot of different media. For once the stone is not
the prominent material. "

"The sculpture that was selected was genuine. Influences we accepted but
anything copied or with similarity to the formulated, stylised work in the shop
was out. The new generation are trying to break away and it was disappointing
not to see work by some of the innovative younger artists such as Keston Beaton
and Crispen Malakenya.

"Richard Jack (The Table's Tale j uses the pictorial plain and works on the
contrasts of the materials, the rough and the worked, the stone and the different
woods. The mirror-like Jinish is effective with its use of reflections. "

"Landslide by Nicholas Mukoinheranwa convincingly demonstrates that it is not
decorative incision, but the logic of the cut which matters to stone sculpture. A
thoughtful distribution of planes re-articulates the mass of stone and reveals a
truly manellous exposure of a fault line in the 'head' — which both suggests and
witholds an image of face or bird beak, and which, from one angle completes the
profile of a 'shoulder' behind. If Mukomberanwa has risen to the challenge of
simplifying his work, he hasn 't gone far enough. The smooth trench of the neck

— less a saw cut than a demonstration that the two pieces have not been glued
together — and the carefully chiselled edges — which mute the shape of the rock

— are still too 'finished'. Despite and because of his mastery Mukomberanwa
articulates a dilemma faced by most stone caiiers in Zimbabwe: the desire to
sell IS amplified by fear, fear of letting a rock be what it is, before it is made to
represent something else, stylised and finished as art.

Thomas Mukarombwa 's approach and method could not be more different,
breathing life into stone by gentle subtraction and sensitive modulation of
suifaces, allowing bodies to emerge through the skin of stone. Mukarombwa
remains a compassionate obsener, a dreamer, evoking the pathos of beings
struggling towards consciousness in a world beyond comprehension or control of
will.

Arthur Azevedo is the undisputed master of a now well-established genre. In
both Cow and Crow, he assembles and welds his steel fragments like
brushstrokes, with the same apparent ease and naturalism of his pen and ink
drawings. Yet his convincing demonstration of skill leaves little further to the
imagination.

As distinct from the recycling of scrap, Adam Madebe (Quartet) stages an
expensive transformation of virginal stainless steel into an awkward grouping of
exhaust mufflers, profited no doubt by allusion to church choir and organ pipes.
However the addition of open-mouthed cartoon faces is too much to bear — and
despite their vocal effort, completes a monumental ensemble which is both
pompous and inert.

The liveliest interest in the sculpture section is the scrap metal work. Hariy
Mutasa 's Graduate Acrobat and Elephant in Quicksand isee Contents page) with
its exhaust pipe trunk, are star peiformers. With concise and inventive use of
steel scrap, Martin Mushonga convincingly dissimulates the character of a
Chameleon. Tapiwa Chapo's Pub Dancer awkwardly gesticulates like an ostrich
at a urinal. Its humour shames the elegant crafted piece by Stanford Derere
whose work has become almost too smooth and collectable.

Zimbabwe 's ostrich industry may be in crisis but ostrich breeding is doing a little
too well in the art world! As soon as a rock becomes a bird, a whole fiock of
look-alikes appears. Much of the welded metal on show threatens to follow stone
in another version of the fiying-ducks-ahove-the-manlelpiece syndrome, an
industry with little qualilative claim to art. "

'^'

03
Q.

"Haven 'l I seen that one before ? "

"Painting in Zimbabwe has a long local Iradilion of
unchallenging pleasantness. Loose gestural brushinarks,
muted colour and surface texture veil the inanity of subject
matter without content. There is a creeping fashionable tide
for painting figures without faces. After all it is much easier
to paint a back view tlian it is to tackle the complexities of the
human face. "

(Helen Lieros, Alphabet) "This is an e.xample of collage
really working. The various pieces of paper are jitxtaposed to
create a sense of depth and distance. There is energy and
subtlety in the pen strokes which together with a limited
range of colour, the artist uses to evoke light and shadow and
to express a strong sense of mood. "

(Simon Back, Herder II j "The artist evokes man in the
landscape, as part of the land. He presents the viewer with
ambiguity as the figure turns into the landscape and land-
scape into figure, the head becomes the mountain, and the
cattle walk across his chest and arms, close to his heart. The
blue ties it all together. His line, his brushstroke is free and
full of energy. The size of the canvas itself indicates his

•fl

" 'i

: mw^L^

Simon Back, Herder II,

1994, 180cm X 180cm,

mixed media

confidence m his ability to paint, to communicate his vision,
and his commitment to art. "

"Simon Back, (Herder \> a mature young artist portrays
discrete canvas surfaces; as if shadows could leave stains.
The whitened colour areas of the background make light
palpable. Like closely observed weather the strong forms
invite introspection. The horizontal broken rhythm of the band
flowing from the animal's horns towards the standing figure,
incorporated by the yellow/blue sunlit infusion of the cloud,
flourishes and orchestrates this strikingly simplified composi-
tion. A sense of majestic, other-worldliness is implied in the
painting 's bold aperture that floats amid white space. Both
Herder I and II bear marks of earlier paintings: they still
contain the agitation and gesture within the formal. "

(Rashid Jogee, Lai Mhe Ree ) "Now there was a cat called Al
Halaj, a 13th century Sufi poet, and his nickname was The Red
Falcon. He professed that he had some contact with Allah and
he started to rave about him in the market place, called
himself a friend of Allah, and he wrote lots of religious poetry.
His poetry is very awe inspiring. And then he was in his own
quarters, praying, and the crowd got angry and decided to
executed him. And he was praying and praying and the crowd

CO
Q.

came closer and closer and they cut off his head, and
the head went tumbling down and it was still praying.
And they made him a martyr Then I came across
some Indian music, songs about The Red Falcon, and
I thought. Hey I must do a painting to this music.
The music is fantastic.

(Thakor Patel, Dambudzo Marechera) "A new
departure for Thakor, using words. It's interesting, so
much art overseas uses text as part of the conception,
good to see someone here using it. The design is
good and the idea is interesting. It 's a very crafted
texture, but then the danger of what happens when
you put the brush stroke on top and then making the
next brush stroke fit in.

(Tackson Muvezwa, Apollo II) "The painting is
anonymous. The artist's autodidact manner, sponta-
neous brushstrokes and possible irregularity of
composition do not distract. Unlike many other
works on this exhibition where social scenes of
everyday life prevail, this work poses a myth. On the
surface it illustrates a little more that what the title
says. Has Apollo broken his nose? Does he fly in the
heaven surrounded by birds from Africa? Is this
Apollo a white man 's god or spirit? This painting
cannot be explained by its title or interpreted in any
simple way. It provokes the imagination. Like L'art
brut, this work portrays an eidetic image. It forces
the spectator to look, to communicate a feeling and
discern the meaning of this myth. "

"Two paintings, for me, each in a very different style
from the other, have more to offer than most of the
paintings on the exhibition. They joyously indulge in
self-sufficient colour and they are about life and its
pleasures. The bar-room green, jazz pink, and
electric yellow in Marvellous Mangena 's Inspiration
from a Bass Player, sing the fifties music of the sax,
piano and drums, while sharp-edged plastic pink,
purple and acidic blue thump a mind-numbing
nineties beat in George Churu 's Party Celebratioa
Although Mangena's style is heightened realism and
Churu s is flattened abstraction, both paintings are
well-crafted. What a relief it is to discover them
among the blacks, browns, greys, designer smudges,
wild scumbles, deathly drips and bathos of the more
fashionable pseudo-angst.

(George Churu, Party Celebration) "Of the young
black painters, he is one who has broken away from
the naturalistic, using semi abstract forms enlivened
by symbols of contemporary daily life, numbers,
adverts, modern textiles, to do with urban life now,
more interesting than the traditional scenes, village
scenes, market scenes which could almost be any
century. Perhaps he is pointing in a new direction ? "

"I've got a soft spot for Thomas Mu 's work. Sit
Down and Feel works well e.xceplfor the large figure.
It would be more effective with just the tree and the
.small figure I think they 're sort of wonderful but
ihex are not quite successful as painting yet. It 's like
they're the beginnings of a potentially marvellous
painting. "

(ShepluirdMahufe, Music with Drama) "It's
wonderful. God what potential. He 's really working,
trying out new stuff.

"lam very ambivalent about the realistic painting...
there is nothing of the artist in it. Another realistic
artist could paint exactly the same painting. I am
looking for the artist's own unique vision of the scene
not a reproduction. "

y|>^

Tackson Muvezwa,

ApoWo 11,

1994, 90cm x 178cm, oil

George Churu,

Party Celebration,

1994, 104cni x 66cm, oil

(f)

"Art is a sensor and a possibility to irritate, to disturb, to make people
think about the social scene and to understand themselves. Art could
raise its voice more loudly than we see here. Mugabe said he liked art
because it helped him to forget the political worries. Is that what art is
for., to make politicians feel happy? "

"Much of the art here is on too simple a level. There is no deep thought
about the subject. For example, the painting of the street kids... that's
all it is... just some little children... even with smiling faces. There is no
honest thought about the complexity of their situation or the reality of
their lives... no emotion is expressed... just a pretty picture. It's too
simple. "

"There is so much potential, raw talent and commitment... but it needs
discipline, questioning, criticism, education. The need for an art school
with tough teachers is now becoming desperate. These young artists
must learn to assess their work, to take criticism. Not all the time
praise and awards for work that is mediocre and could be pushed much
further "

"The artists have a role to play. They should support the Zim Heritage.
Maybe Zim Heritage needs a shake up. We need statements, continuity.
Not just one piece and it 's finished and start anotlier Artists need to
think about art. the wider issues, not just the single piece. "

"This exhibition is to protect and develop Zimbabwe 's art heritage; to
identify, encourage and develop those artists who can go on and
develop even further "

"// is very important that art is exposed, criticised, discussed. It is
crucial to our growth. "

c
o

■ ^^^

CD
CO

"Despite the problems which confront us
in this third world country (materials,
presses etc) the artists in the graphics
section have produced works of interest,
translating their themes into fascinating,
images and subjects of importance to
human beings. Although the work is
generally small in scale, and regardless of
whether the sadza spoon or the rolling pin
was used in the process, the exploration of
media was exciting. In many instances
the meanings of symbolism, hidden in
mythology and culture, come to the
surface. The artist discovers, like the
archeologist, a historical inheritance and
translates it into a modem idiom. "

"The ceramics section is very sad... where
are our potters? It's the one medium
which should be flooded with entries. It is
the oldest art form in Zimbabwe, so easy
to get clay and so flexible for expression
but no one is doing anything exciting. We
need some big ceramics, some experimen-
tal work, not just the same old conven-
tional forms. "

"The textiles are very disappointing...
think of the wealth of African textiles but
this has no colour, form, texture... no
excitement. "

■ ^^^

c
E

■D
<

The catalogue is not as bad as the last fuo years but there
IS still too much on the President, the Minister, the Director,
the sponsors, the staff of the gallery etc. This is not the
annual report. The exhibition and the catalogue are about
the art. The art should come first with only a small space
for the other stuff. And they could do with a good designer
for the catalogue. "

"As a collector. I was really disappointed because you had
to pay the full amount if you wanted to buy a piece on the
day, you couldn V even put a deposit. You couldn V put a red
sticker and come back later I wanted to buy a painting and
I didn 't liave enough. I said I could pay half and they said
no you must pay all now. 1 was very upset. This is too
much, it 's a very big discrimination. "

"The problem is that the artists want us to pay them
immediately. We pay the artists the first week of the month.
So we ask you to pay in full amount so that we can pay the
artists. Some purchasers in the past didn 't come to pay up
after eight months or a year So how can we pay the
artists? The day of the opening there is no reserve. After
the opening you can resen'efor up to 24 hours. "

"Some work is badly hung. Look at the way this is
displayed... the light fitting above and the light switch
cutting the frame and the sculpture right in front of it so you
can 't see it alone. And so much of the sculpture jammed
against the wall so you can 't see it from all sides. And the
sculpture on the floor is placed in such a boring way, plonk,
plonk. "

"Is It necessary to have the Heritage every year? Why not
have it every four years so that there is a more dynamic
selection. Or if there are only a few good things, have it
much smaller "

"The Gallery should go back to calling it the Annual. Get rid
of all the Inpc and pomp. If should just be the best of the year
Let history and the future decide what is worth taking note of
and learning from... though maybe by looking at a lot of this
work yoimg artists can see wliat not to do, what to fight
against! "

"Does the award system encourage young artists to be more
innovative, or does it reinforce emulation, leading to stale,
stylised imitation of previous award winners?"

"The Gallery has got to change its image. Zim Heritage has
got to encourage and attract artists, to persuade them to enter
only their best, to keep their best for Zim Heritage. The
gallery has become a bit tired and there is very little for
serious artists, if they go there, they don 'tfind anything of
excitement. For many artists if they liaven V exhibited there it
doesn V matter to them. In the past the artists liave been
alienated from the Gallery, things have got to change. When
you talk about wliat could liave been done, you liave to ask
yourself if you have contributed as much as you can.

"The system of invited artists is suspect... if you are an artist...
wliat criteria is used... if you are not invited... why should you
enter if your work is of top calibre? Who is not invited? Who
is the selected artist? Artists don 't understand wliat the
process is. "

"The Heritage has a terminal illness brought about by too
much hype about too little real commitment to art. Prize
money, when it is spread so thinly over such a large field of
prizewinners effectively negates its incentive: and highly
commended certificates are, frankly, patronising. "

"Winning a prize has no effect on my work but I was very, very
happy. Next year I'tn going to do better than that. "

Marvellous Mangena,
Inspiration from a
Bass Player, 1994,
88cm X 50cm, enamel

Michiel Dolk,

a Dutch/Australian artist

recently exhibited

installation work,

Marbles — Lost for life,

at Gallery Delta.

In this interview with

Barbara Murray,

Michiel talks about

some of the concepts

that inform his work.

Michiel Doll<, Lecterns, 1994, wood and marble

bnd M

BM: Installation art is not something we see much of in Zimbabwe.
Can you define installation art?

BM: Is this the first work that you haven't physically been the
producer of?

MD: It is difficult to generalise and impossible to define installation
in terms of any essential combination of elements because it is an
open-ended series of relationships and media. So you can"t say
installation is this or is not this, because it's a series of working
parameters which often extend between and across different art
forms. Generally it seeks to break down the idea of art as a discrete
and self-sufficient object, by making one aware of the space and
context which objects inhabit. The idea of a perambulatory space is
often important in installation work; the idea of the mobilisation of
the viewer through the space, and of how you can intervene in an
architectural space to create a new awareness, sometimes a self-
conscious awarenesss, of your own relationship to space.

BM: How would you specifically relate these concerns to your
recent exhibition?

MD: My work for the Delta exhibition was different from my usual
site-specific approach in which the work only exists for the duration
of the exhibition and is therefore not saleable or transferable to a
different space or context. Even though this work wasn't really
generated within the space, I did conceive the work in terms of how I
remembered the space and context of Gallery Delta. What is very
important to me is how the objects relate to the architectural frame.
What became important with the Lecterns piece was, since the
gallery is very axial, to use that axis and at the same time empty the
whole space around it, so that the viewer is encouraged to walk
round and explore different aspects of the particular sequence. As an
indivisible sequence of five objects, Lecterns displaces attention
from the singular object in terms of the multiple. And the multiple
relates through sequence to seriality or repetition, which are both
architecural and industrial in character. So the work was conceived
both in terms of the exhibition space and the whole process of its
production, that is, the factory system. The formal, technical
possibilities of what I could do with the marble were very much
constrained by the nature of the industnal production process.

BM: Is the industrial process an important part of the form that the
work takes?

MD: Absolutely, and that presumes, not just a distancing from
manual expression in terms of one's relationship to material, that
trace of the hand, but also a distancing in terms of a division of
labour between the conception or design and the process of its
production, which is in turn subject to a further division of labour.
In this particular work I was involved thoughout the whole process
of production. After selecting, framing and editing the material, this
was just a matter of supervision, ensuring quality control.

MD: No, not at all. In a funny way I have been more directly
involved in the production of this work than with my other work.
These are very much "assisted readymades", to use Duchamp's
terminology, not actual readymades, in that I didn't simply come
across these objects readymade. In many other works I have simply
worked with objects purchased off the supermarket shelves.
In this case 1 had to choose the particular marble, the format, the
cutting... even though the tombstone format is still known to the
stonemasons, the books went out of production some time ago...
uneconomic ...even as art-objects! But both the choice of material
and factory production method wefc as much determined by the fact
that I don't have a studio or tools in Maputo.

BM: Is that separation between the conceiver and the maker

important?

MD: Well, the question is also, who is the maker? Is the maker the
designer? or the one who wields the cutting saw? Or, for that
matter, is it nature? It comes back to this notion of the readymade.
With these assisted readymades, even though I'm taking a generic
type like a tombstone, I am involved in the redesign of that type, and
in the selection of the kind of marble for the making of that object,
as a kind of designer, which is different from a purely conceptual
removal from even the design or look of the object.

BM: Can the artist remove himself from the design of the work?

MD: Well yes through the readymade, where, for instance, you
literally purchase the object off the shelf — a chance encounter, or as
Duchamp would have called it a "rendez-vous" between the artist
and object, where the object is a readymade configuration, which
simply in terms of its placement, through the context of its presenta-
tion, its re - presentation, may acquire the status of art. But I
suppose the problem today is that the readymade has been swal-
lowed by the whole post-modem game of consumption, with the
artist as glorified shopper. 1 hope the marbles have a different
character even if derived from the readymade in two distinct ways:
on the one hand, the readymade character of the image as produced
by nature — a substitute for painting — and, on the other hand, the
readymade character of the object form derived from the tombstone,
book and lectern.

BM: Are you trying to create a particular kind of response?

MD: I'm not trying to provoke any particular viewer response.
Viewers determine their own responses to objects, but you can
manipulate, you can do certain things which differ from other things

frame?

Below:

wiihin a given context. Absence is as significant as presence. If the
gallery's got no paintings on the wall it makes people relate to the
space in a different way. In this case the objects are neither conven-
tional paintings nor sculptures, neither books nor tombstones. There
are all kinds of permutations you can play with to change percep-
tions of what's going on, to create a kind of uncertainty about what it
is you're looking at, so that you can see it in a new way.

BM: Why did you place the one piece, Poslscnpt. on the tloor?

Michiel Dolk,

Postscript,

1994, marble

like computer command lingo, the new bible, "Escape Clear
Window Save" etc.

BM: Are you not drawn to eternal truths?

MD: If there are eternal truths, they are panicular momentary
revelations, they're sort of evanescent, they're glimpses. I must say
1 was drawn to marble and its memorial character, its rhetoric of
permanence. When you look at the grain in the marble it's just like

MD; Having the piece on the floor emphasises the tombstone
quality, but what motivated my decision to leave that piece on the
floor was that the seven books all derive from one slab of marble
with a particular diagonal grain within it which suggested a kind of
aerial view... perhaps a stretch of coastline. So the position of the
viewer in looking down on the work became important. The
diagonal character of the grain naturally relates to the idea of a
comer and a diagonal position on the floor In sequence the grain
also relates to the whole idea of reading from left to right, which
unlike text is of course reversible. Instead of turning the page, you
go from one book to the next. So that determines how the viewer is
led through the work.

BM: Three of the pieces are frontal, even the Lecterns you don't
really walk behind.

MD: Yes, in fact the rear of the Lecterns is only visible if they are
elevated. The rear of that piece is to me a very compelling vantage
point because of the grain which, like an enlarged black and white
photograph, is almost an unacknowledged book cover. 1 thought of
having the rear on view as you entered the gallery so you had to
walk round. But I decided in the end to stick with the front of the
books, so that you're walking in as a reader rather than as someone
being read to.

BM: In your introduction you suggest the reader imagines his own
inscription or text in the books. Why are there no words?

MD: Inscriptions are overcome by the weight of marble. When fixed
rather than imagined or spoken, words become heavy as if loaded
with universal and immutable significance. "In memory of.." - and
in the titles of course I did fall into "homage to so and so" - it's so
funereal and I wanted to avoid the obvious tombstone register... or
for that matter, the biblical. I hate the portentous aura of eternal
truths. The only register of words I think could work is electronic

the way a Chinese calligrapher tries to conjure up a cloud. That to
me is much more interesting than this heavy inscription... "In the
begirming... the Word..."

BM: Where does the marble come from?

MD: Well it's Mozambican marble, mined in Montepuez near
Pemba in Cabo Delgado. That's why I called one of the pieces
Cabo Delgado. partly because that grey sequence in the white frame
very strongly suggested a rocky seascape, and since I'd recently
visited Cabo Delgado itself the northernmost point of Mozambique
which has a lighthouse with the sea crashing on the rocks below, it
seemed to be a suitable title referring both to the location of the
material and also to the landscape of that area. What I like about the
quality of the marble is the extent to which it is like nature represent-
ing itself an illusion of itself You know there's this specious
argument, yet interesting, that the origin of art, of mimesis, is to be
found in nature; camouflage for instance, the chameleon, or even
the lyre-bird imitating the call of other species. It's not a theological
argument, but then neither is it Darwinist.

BM: You bring a lot of deliberate thought and allusions to your
work. What other references are there in these works? Are there any
related to Afnca in particular?

MD: Whether intentional or not, references are a matter of interpre-
tation, potentially endless. These pieces are not African in character
or at least they do not relate to any particular African tradition of
design, but they do exploit the ambiguity found in Afncan cultural
traditions between art, function and ritual, in relation to burial for
instance, refemng to that indivisibility of the aesthetic, sacred and
profane. Another point of reference is a classical tradition, not just
in the choice of material, but formally, in the logic of repetition,
sequence and order. But the question of the exposure of the grain
relates more to Japanese aesthetics, for instance, that beauty lies in

Below: Michiel Dolk,
Cabo Delgado,
1994, marble

the presentation of the truth of the grain, and in that sense, the work
relates to a kind of Japanese garden architecure, to a contemplative
ordering of nature. If you look at Chinese or Japanese calligraphic
painting, the way the image is composed... with an active, interac-
tion of air, water... rocks wrapped in clouds. You can almost
imagine that's how the stone came to be formed. There's something
in this How, and in the sense that the liquid material is, in the
permanency of the marble, stopped, already frozen as image and
gesture. Simply revealing the stone becomes an ironic comment, a
critique of painting.

BM: What do you mean it's a critique of painting?

MD: All my installation work is a continual interrogation of the
problems of making a painting. But it's never a painting. It's about
the impossibility of painting. I mean, why make a painting after all?
For me the very idea of now making a gesture, or anything embody-
ing my own gesture, with paint, on a piece of canvas, is a total
impossibility.

BM: So you take what you find and use that.

MD: Well It's like I find gestures elsewhere. For instance, I did a
whole series of pieces based on fragments of tyres. You know when
tyres become unthreaded, you see the pieces lying on the road.
Some of them are incredibly gestural. The force that tears them
apart is gestural. I collected a whole pile of them when I used to
travel between Sydney and Canberra and then did this gigantic

MD: Some of them looked reptilian, but they resolved themselves as
both landscapes and figures. By shoving them onto the wall you do
end up with an ironic form of landscape painting, in the same way as
these marbles are. I wanted to show the marbles in Zimbabwe
because there's this strong colonial tradition of landscape painting
here, as well as the local tradition in stone. So it's like I'm doing
something in stone which is a displacement from the idea of
sculpture and I'm doing something with the image which is a
displacement from the idea of landscape painting. I don't want to
overdo the cntical function of the marbles, but they cross both
landscape painting and stone sculpture and perhaps question both
because they're noi paintings and they're not sculpture.

BM: What other sort of work have you done?

MD: There are continuous threads through my work, but I'm very
inconsistent, on principle, because I need to re-invent continually
what it is that I'm doing. So it's like avoiding the trap of a signature
style as well. As soon as it becomes too apparent to me that
something is mine, something belonging to me, then I need to deny
it and do something which is not me. Art is a matter of being aware
of possibilities in a given context... what is this space? who is
looking at it? It's like you're trying to place yourself somewhere in
a particular location, a particular culture, a particular environment,
and you try and deal with that, and then what comes out of that
interaction inevitably has you in it. But that's the last thing I think
about rather than "oh here, you'll recognise me. I'm still the same"
which unfortunately I probably am.

mural where I literally used these tyre fragments as readymades,
like brushstrokes, a bit like the grain in the marble. These
brushstrokes weren't made by me, I just discovered and collected
them and then by suspending or letting them fall in a certain way,
used their expressiveness as a material surrogate for painting. It's
incredibly strong, much more forceful than any gesture I could
make.

BM: Did the tyre works also resolve themselves into landscape
forms?

BM: In the introductory sentence of the catalogue you describe
yourself as a "lapsed painter". Is this a primary identification?

MD: It's a sort of ironic self description w hich relates back to the
fact that, directly or indirectly, a lot of my installation work is still
derived from the problematics of painting and of the pictorial, and of
the relationship of the pictorial to the architectural. Painting since
the mid 1 9th century has been dogged by the logic of the industrial,
the logic of industrial replication and repetition through primarily the
advancement of photographic representation, and has foregrounded

the activity of painting itself, that is, of mark making, as its own
domain of legitimate expression. But there were still many other
problems, of the possibilities of art, of the conditions of the pictorial,
or of the limits of painting and of representation, which can be
addressed in forms and media other than painting... other than the
smell of oil on canvas... however intoxicating.

BM: The word lapsed to me implies a return?

MD: Yeah well that's left there, sort of dangling. It's true, to some
extent. To date it's been relatively impossible... well not impossi-
ble... What has interested me is the problematic of the frame. In
terms of the logic of what can happen within the frame of painting,
art seems to have historically exhausted itself as anything other than
a craft, or therapeutic activity. I will never deny the pleasure of
painting, nor its difficulty. But the possibility of innovation, or the
possiblity of generating new ideas or content through what happens
within the frame, seems exhausted, irrecoverable. Of course,
whether you're painting or not, art is, in a sense, playing in the ashes
of history. But then there is that imagined possibility... outside the
conventional freune of painting or sculpture... imagine taking that
frame elsewhere. In that sense, when I talk about landscape
painting, in the tyres for instance, it is about taking that frame with
you, relocating it within and without you, and rather than making a
painting, just finding these surrogates for painting, that re-
problematise the question of what art is. Because you can't ask the
question "what is art" through making a painting anymore. You
have to look at the relationship and the historical character of other
media. You shouldn't take painting as the natural, eternal, immemo-
rial, universal, frame for the unfolding of something called art. If
it's a question of image making, why can't art happen on computer
screens? Why does it have to happen in a medium called painting?

BM: But can computer screens be beautiful? Can they move the
viewer in the same way as a painting?

MD: However much you bang your mouse, computers don't have
the immediate physical, tactile dimension. As information proces-
sors or mediators, they don't have that sort of immediacy. There is a
certain materiality to painting as well, which has its own specificity
and its own history of emotion and meaning, and I don't want to
invalidate that. But it's for my love or respect for painting, that I'm
looking for other boundaries. A lapsed painter does imply a
potential return. So much of it is premised on a particular view of
history, of what precisely has exhausted itself, and what has not
exhausted itself. And you can be locked into a kind of historical
determinism, the historical notion of the avant-garde and the end of
painting. That sense of the end of painting has been continually
posed since the end of the 19th century. But however much we've
modernised since, that endless demand for and absurd privilege of
painting continues.

BM: Probably earUer too. Were there not certain stages of every
period of art where it seemed Uke everything had been done?

MD: Sure you get a certain cyclical process of renewal, not just
cyclical but also of processes, of techniques, ways of imaging,
envisioning, imagining. For nothing is as irreversible as the effect
of the industrial and communication revolutions on what we might
imagine culture to be. I know that since the 60s we've lost that
heroic tradition of the avant-garde, and that adventurous sense of
decisive breaks into the new. However much an irritant, the avant-
garde was also compHcit with the logic of modernisation and
cultural commodification. But given this loss, where today is there
space for the critical function of cultural practices? Only theory in

academia seems to maintain the fiction of critique. It's in this
context that 1 call myself a lapsed painter, implying the possibility of
semi-graceful resignation to the way things are. But whenever I
think myself painting, I always think in terms of a domain which,
other than the making of a good painting, doesn't pose any funda-
mental questions beyond that. It means accepting the given frame
and working within that frame.

BM; When did you stop painting?

MD; Painting is something I've always adopted and rejected. But I
suppose that even while rejecting, my obsession has always been
painting. It's partly an academic obsession, the history of painting.
And then the feeling of whether I could do something within that
history or not. I've never been a painter in the sense of painters are
painters. So I'm not a bom painter. I wasn't sort of, you know, bom
with a brush-tail or paint in my veins... or to quote Duchamp " stupid
as a painter" . I can't even claim a signature for myself within
painting... which I'm very pleased about. Ad Rheinhardt once said
that scupture was something you bumped into when standing back
from a painting. I suppose that in walking back, looking at and
thinking about painting, I bumped into the object and stumbled into
"installation".

Is that part of your need to be inconsistent?

MD: 1 need to have different reference points within the media I'm
working in. So I'm not a marble mason, and why should I be only a
marble mason or only a painter... or a basket weaver or computer
video artist, or whatever. There's that whole thing about media. You
can learn certain skills and use them according to the ideas and
sensations you're able to generate or realise through them. It's
terrible if the social division of labour programs your life in ad-
vance... in a linear narrative with a beginning, middle and end... a
bloody boring life! I know, even for the artist, it is a luxury to refuse
the role of specialist... a threat to career prospects, security and
retirement benefits. But for me, commitment to notions of estrange-
ment and displacement are much more interesting... continually
displacing yourself, re-inventing yourself, in terms of different
situations, media and ideas... discovering your limits and whatever
ruins of identity you call yourself.

Stephen Williams writes about culture and politics in Bulawayo

The dominant topographical feature of Bulawayo is flatness, its landscape
monopolised by a horizon so low and heavens so vast and blue that the city is
sometimes referred to as Skies. By the end of winter, when not a drop of rain has
fallen for up to eight months, Matabeleland is parched, small, stunted thorn scrub
standing black and leafless against a backdrop of dusty earth and still yellow
grass.

The arid natu.e of Bulawayo is particularly striking in comparison to the verdant
surrounds and tall trees of Harare. These trees in turn mirror the ever-increasing
canyonisation of downtown Harare which seems to have new buildings being
erected on every other block. Visitors from the provinces can be under no
illusion that this is where the country's wealth and power are centred.

For political and other reasons, particularly since independence, Bulawayo has
been left relatively undeveloped. The topographical symbolism alluded to above
extends beyond the relative dearth of new buildings to encompass the stagnation
of Bulawayo's once vibrant economic infrastructure and the highest unemploy-
ment figures in the country. TTie drying up of water resources which followed
the epic 1992 drought threatened to turn Bulawayo into a ghost town.

As the country's second city, Bulawayo has historically always reacted against
the hegemony of the capital. The development of Bulawayo as the centre of
industrial expansion in the 40s and 50s brought about the formation of workers
unions by men such as Masoja Ndlovu and Benjamin Burombo. The massive
Railway Strike of 1945 and the General Strike of 1948 gave expression to the
emergence of radical working class politics and signalled a new challenge to the
colonial administration in Salisbury.

Bulawayo's high density western suburbs flow directly on from the city centre
making the one city concept more of a reality than in Harare where townships
were conceived by colonial planners more like bantustans and situated far away
from white residential areas. Long before independence a community services
network was established by the Bulawayo City Council in the former townships
which remains the envy of other councils today. A tour of Pelendaba, Mpopoma,
Makokoba and Mzilikazi confirms the pivotal role that culture commands in the
eyes of the Council. Institutions such as the Mzilikazi Art and Craft Centre and
Bulawayo Home Industries continue to play an invaluable social and cultural
role three decades on, and more recent initiatives are also in evidence. Buhlaluse
is an amalgam of two craft co-operatives formed with assistance from the
Council. The 'Flame Giris' and 'Marigold' comprise 38 women who produce
bead work items in traditional Ndebele and modem idioms in a venture which is
not only culturally regenerative but also provides a living for co-operanls.

Political struggle between ZAPU and ZANU during the early years of independ-
ence found cultural expression in 1985 with the controversy which surrounded
Adam Madebe's welded metal sculpture Looking lo the Future. Earlier that year
a competition had been organised in Bulawayo to encourage local sculptors to
produce public art to replace the colonial statues and monuments removed at
independence but which had never been substituted with anything more in
keeping with the new nation's ideology.

Madebe's imposing five metre nude male form won first prize in the competition
but immediately sparked off a furore with battle lines drawn between traditional-
ist and modernist camps. Inevitably in those heady days, politics was never far
from the surface and when the then Minister of Local Government intervened
and ordered the sculpture removed, opinion quickly shifted with even the
conservative traditionalists' camp coming to the defence of artistic freedom.

At one point during the ongoing tussle the sculpture's offending parts were

vandalised with spray paint
which when cleaned up were
conspicuously shiny in relation
to the rest of the tall rusted
figure. This development
afforded an even greater
sensation in the eyes of the
crowds who came from afar to
peer up at the infamous figure.
Looking to the Future was
eventually removed under cover
of darkness by men from the
Ministry of Public Works and
confined to the store room of the
old Bulawayo Art Gallery.

During those years of
Gukurahundi, Looking to the
Future came to symbolise the
political struggle being waged
between ZAPU and the ZANU
dominated government in
Harare. Never before or since in
the life of this nation has a work
of art caused such an uproar or
been afforded such attention.
People in Bulawayo began to
question the essence of their
culture and to consider issues
such as the limits of artistic
expression and freedom.
Mischievously, at the height of
the controversy, the late Head of
the Bulawayo Art Gallery, Ms
Margery Locke, placed Gillian
Kaufman's life-sized, nude
bronze sculpture of the
Bulawayo bom dancer Gary
Bums on public view in the
centre of the gallery. Word soon
spread that there was another
male nude just across the road
from Looking to the Future.
Attendance figures soared at the
Bulawayo Art Gallery.

Happily in the new spirit of unity
and glasnosl Looking to the
Future is once again on public
display. The sculpture is the
dominant feature in the courtyard
of the new National Gallery
Bulawayo, even if his view of
the future is now somewhat
symbolically distorted by his
enforced gaze down the sanitary
lane which divides the gallery
from the Reserve Bank.

If a litile bemused. Madebe is
largely unaffected by the
notoriety which accompanied
the uproar. As a sign of the
changed times, his status shifted
from infamous to famous when
the highest visual art accolade in
the country, the Presidential
Award of Honour, was conferred
on him at the 1994 Zimbabwe
Heritage Exhibition, for amongst
other things, 'consistent
excellence in the art world'.

For some time now, Madebe has
been working independently of
the Mzilikazi Art and Craft
Centre where Looking to the
Future was conceived and where
Madebe worked as a sculpture
instructor. Madebe has set up a
studio in a warehouse near the
Renkini bus terminal where his
production centres around the
human (although now mostly
female) form. His beautifully
contra postured figures are still
constructed around a modelled
clay armature but Madebe has
moved away from the painstak-
ing process of welding together
the small stamped off-cuts that
charactensed his earlier work in
favour of larger pieces of lighter
sheet metal.

The new National Gallery
Bulawayo is situated in the
magnificently renovated
Edwardian period building
known as Douslin House. The
purpose-built structure affords
far more versatility and dignity
to the displayed art work than
was possible in the old gallery
located in a former municipal
market building. A major
problem attached to the new
gallery is that a lift designed to
transport people in wheelchairs
from the ground to upper floor
was cut at the last minute by the
head office in Harare. The shaft
is there but not the lift. The
upshot is that disabled people
are only able to visit the
downstairs gallery, approxi-
mately one third of the total
gallery space. In a country
where there are many disabled
persons, such a funding cut is a
genuine disgrace. The present
Mayor of Bulawayo, the

outspoken Joshua Malinga, is a
member of the Board of the
National Gallery Bulawayo and
is himself confined to a wheel-
chair. As such he is unable to
tour in a dignified, unaided
manner, an institution for which
he IS a trustee and which
represents one of the brightest
jewels in his city.

The previous Director of the
National Gallery, the late
Professor Cyril Rogers, demon-
strated a real interest in
Bulawayo and it was largely
through his efforts that money
was channeled into the renova-
tion of Douslin House. It is
sadly ironic that the two main
movers behind the project, he
and Margery Locke, never lived
to see It officially opened.
Marge died just days before the
official opening in March 1994.
Bulawayo waits to see what
policies the new Executive
Director m Harare, Professor
George Kahari, will initiate and
what this will mean for the
National Gallery Bulawayo.

It was good to see this year's
Pachipamwe International
Artists' Workshop held in
Shurugwe in September/October
getting some coverage on ZTV
news. The clip was, however,
badly edited and must have
made little sense to the average
viewer. The subsequent news
item about a tame gorilla in a
shopping mall in the USA
(courtesy CNN) received a much
longer and more cohesive time
slot. So much for promoting
indigenisation. What sort of
priorities do ZTV have anyway?

The Visual Artists' Association
of Bulawayo (VAAB) continues
to flourish and has recently
launched a rejuvenated newslet-
ter, Ubuciko! Today VAAB
stands as the only artists'
association in Zimbabwe and is
run by artists for artists.
Membership currently stands at
150 persons drawn from all parts
of the country. VAAB may be
contacted through the National
Gallery Bulawayo or PO Box
2101, Bulawayo.

Adam Madebe

and friends,

c. 1994

Reviews of recent work

Commissions are never easy and the Goethe
Institute added the constraints of size, shape
and inter-relationship of colour when it
asked three artists to create work for a
specific site within their new offices. Using
Gallery Delta as their base, the three artists
met, discussed, painted, criticised, altered,
until each individual artist's conception
worked in relation to the whole. Now the
three vertical canvases, set high up in the
Institute's library provide a thought-
provoking juxtaposition of cultures.

Adda Gelling, a painter from East Germany
currently living in Smbabwe, struggling to
come to terms with the violation she
experienced on her country's absorption by
West Germany, has created a painting filled
with European angst. Buildings and traffic
swirl in a turmoil of speed and technology.
Out of this maelstrom a single male figure
rises through a shroud of red, his injured
flesh exposed, his intense head shadowed.
Above him, a dark, foreboding sky of deep
ultramarine. The imaginary life of man in
the city is portrayed through broad slashes
and drips of paint which here convey
anguish, haste, violence.

Adda Gelling, Richard Jack, Luis Meque, Harare City Life, 1994, oil on canvas

Harare City Life,

The Goethe Institute,
September 1994

The central panel by Richard Jack forms a
complete contrast and reflects the white
Zimbabwean preoccupation with nature.
TTirough his harmonious use of the linking
colours and his careful application of paint,
the artist depicts his view: the city in Africa
where the bush and the panacea of nature are
never far away as opposed to Ceiling's city
in Europe from which man must struggle to
escape. A tree spans Jack's divided canvas:
on the left a jumble of material elements,
geometric forms in bright colours, human
heads, even a giraffe (Mukavisi woodlands
is within the city); on the right, a ploughed
field, abstracted green crop, a wide bottomed
peaceful rock in an open stretchof earth
receding to a naturalistic horizon with blue
sky and sunlight. The paint here is smooth,
controlled, calm. The city is seen in its
material forms, more-or-less harmonised
with nature, an optimistic viewpoint.

The third canvas by Luis Meque takes as its
central motif social interaction - the human
side of city life. Two large figures, talking
together, dressed in cheerful if shabby
clothes, dominate the scene. The buildings
recede into the distance merely a backdrop
for the people whose ordinary lives and
conditions are the important consideration in
this black African viewpoint. Human
contact is stronger than the city's alienating
forces. Drips and broad brush strokes are
used by this artist to convey the poverty but
humanness of street life.

The Goethe Institute, which aims to
encourage cultural exchange, here presents
us with three contrasting cultural views in
these paintings, Harare City Life. As the
Director of the Institute said in his unveiling
speech, "Zimbabwe, torn between a U-adition
which is partly lost and modem western
influence... has to find its own way."
Discussion of the differences and points of
contact between cultures must be radical and
honest if we are to gain insight and under-
standing "from which a new cultural
prospect can emerge". These three canvases
make an interesting starting point. BM

Steve Pratt, Sandro's Gallery,
October 1994

Steve Pratt is not an artist who sits in his
studio and thinks about Africa. Pratt is a
farmer Hving close to the land and passion-
ate about the bush. His painting is moti-
vated by his fervour and his imagination.

Arching is a seductively quiet piece, a male
torso, which through sensitive carving of the
bone structure beneath the black serpentine
skin creates a subtle play of light and
shadow on the smooth surface. Both works
reveal Jack's continuing preoccupation with
youth and beauty in the human body. MM

His training was in Grahamstown where
students were taught to learn from nauire, to
heighten their perceptions and trust their gut
reactions. These influences show in Pratt's
mature work despite his reputation as a
rebel. He works both in acrylics and in oils.

There was a variety of work on display
ranging from small but vibrant landscapes to
large splattered, brooding canvases, notably
his triptych of Sinamatella which captures
the grey bush and the slow dry river which
has carved its path into the sand.

In strong contrast were figure paintings of
surrealist quality. For this observer it was
the small simple landscapes that left a
lasting impression. I was not sure about the
'messages' contained in some of the larger
works, a very difficult thing to do. I wanted
to remove his unexpected figures, poachers
in camouflage in one instance, men chop-
ping down trees in another. They were an
irritant on an otherwise pristine land.
Perversely, therein lies the strength of the
message.

The surreal works were both entertaining
and baffling. As someone who struggles
with colour and tonal contrast, I was
impressed by Pratt's control, variety and
daring. The only thing I would wish for
would be greater spontaneity in his applica-
tion of paint. Loosen up! Wouldn't we all
like to! PMB

Richard Jack, Two directions with
three mediums. Gallery Delta,
October 1994

The juxtaposition of stone, steel, wood, wool
and reeds exposed in 22 sculptures by
Richard Jack brings to our attention the
tensions and harmonies inherent in combina-
tions. Yet the strongest work on this
exhibition was that in only one material,
stone, where the artist has used his chisel to
create contrasts in order to evoke our
response. The power of the large marble
Youth lies in the counterposition of the
slender, sparkling white body against the
rough, brown, uncarved base from which it
rises. The shoulders gracefully echo the
slope and curve of the hip creating move-
ment and energy which is opposed by the
solid heavy base.

Richard Jack, Youth

Pero Rajkovic, Paintings and oil
pastels, Gallery Delta, October
1994

Pero Rajkovic's paintings portray a joyous
surrender to the powers of nature. His
vibrant brushstrokes animate the vegetation
and are related to a dynamic calligraphy, and
in a way employ distortion in order to
intensify the viewer's awareness of pictorial
space. Arcs that seem arbitrary, either
spaning the foreground or sky, launch a
spatial thrust which vibrates the curvature of
the horizon. These works try to obliterate
the wars, famine, disease, which we have
inflicted upon ourselves - and pay tribute to
Mother Earth and her power. HL

Pero Rajkovic, The Gate

forthcoming
exhibitions
and events

Work from the ZimSculpture
(Pachipamwe) Workshop will be
exhibited at the Alliance Francaise from
December 6th to January 6th. A selection of
the innovative sculptures and paintings,
already exhibited at the National Gallery,
Bulawayo. will give Harare viewers a
chance to see new developments, a break
away from the tired old and now largely
commercialised tradition of stone sculpture
in Zimbabwe.

International naive paintings will be
exhibited at Sandro's Gallery from Novem-
ber 30th to December 30th. Work from
England, Denmark, Tanzania and Zimbabwe
will be included.

The Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibition

continues at the National Gallery until the
end of January. A walkabout with the some
of the selectors (Helen Lieros, Tony
Mhonda, Nicholas Mukomberanwa and
Sylvia Bews- Wright) will happen sometime
in January. Go and see it and add to our
collection of opinions!

Nicholas Mukomberanwa's work (1960-
1995) will be exhibited in a one-man
retrospective at the National Gallery in
March. As one of the grand old men of the
stone sculpture tradition in Zimbabwe,
Mukomberanwa has produced work of a
consistently high standard. It should be very
interesting to see a large number of his best
works together and to consider his progres-
sion.

Student work will be on show at Gallery
Delta in January. This exhibition shows
what the forthcoming generation of Zimba-
bwean artists are up to.

Spanish work will be featured in an
exhibition, at Gallery Delta in March, of
paintings by the Spanish Ambassador to
Zimbabwe, inspired by the work of the poet
and playwright, Lorca. The show will be
accompanied by the production of one of
Lorca's plays in the amphitheatre.

^••.

i^i

Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe

Gallery Delta, the publisher and the editor gratefully acknowledge
the following sponsors who have contributed to the production
of this issue of Gallery magazine:

ARCHITECTS ,ackson

MOORE

PARTNERSHIP klrebgaseka

/IPIX COHTOHATION OF ZDaABWE LIMITED

/IPIX COHf
MEIKLES HOTEL

CODE

THE CANADIAN ORGANIZATION FOR
DEVELOPMENT THROUGH EDUCATION

Delta Q>fporalicin Dmited

GOETHE-
INSTITUT

Contents

March 1995

2 Artnotes

3 Beaton, Matekenya, Meque, Sibanda
— Changing directions by Olive Maggs

7 The unspoken tyranny: looking South from Norway

by Murray McCartney

9 Women and the body politic

by Pip Curling

1 3 Art Zimbabwe : Towards an integrative source
by Doreen Sibanda

17 Workshops: Thapong by Stephen Williams
and Pachipamwe by Murray McCartney

20 Reviews of recent work and forthcoming exhibitions
and events

Cover: Crispen Matekenya, //owe a«^ /?/^<'r, 1994,

100cm X 95cm. wood. Photo by Stoffer Ceiling

Left above: Semina Mpofu, Soul Music, 1994, 40cm x 57cm,
stone and metal

Publisher: Derek Muggins. Editor: Barbara Murray, Design & typesetting:
Myrtle Mallis. Origination & printing: A.W. Bardwell & Co. Colour:
Colorscan (Pvt) Ltd.

Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not be reproduced
in any manner or form without permission.

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the writers
themselves and not necessanly those of Gallery Delta, the publisher or the
editor Contributions are welcome and may be published at the discretion of
the editor.

Subscriptions from Gallery Publications, V, Gallery Delta, 1 10 Livingstone
Avenue, RO. Box UA 373, Union Avenue, Harare. Tel: (14)792135.

Artnotes

Johannesburg is exploding with art! —
galleries and public spaces filled with the
work of creative artists from both within and
without South Africa; people going to or
coming from exhibitions, workshops, events,
conferences, being stimulated by new ideas
and sights; communities and individuals
identifying and expressing themselves;
statements being made and refuted; art and
artistic concerns being discussed in the
media on a scale not often experienced in
Africa.

For two months. March and April 95, the
Johannesburg City Council is hosting the
First Johannesburg Biennale under the
direction of Chns Till, previous Director of
our Zimbabwe National Gallery. Chris is
remembered above all for his public
relations, diplomacy, energy and drive,
qualities he will need to manage all the
activities taking place during the Biennale.
One columnist of the Weekly Mail and
Guardian suggested Chris be given a crash
helmet to protect him from further injury.
He already has a broken nose, courtesy of
one committee member!

The intent of this First Johannesburg
Biennale is to generate dynamic exchange
(preferably of an artistic nature!). To this
end, there will be exhibitions from 66
countnes, including Zimbabwe. Community
and individual identities are the central focus
with the diversity of artworks drawn
together through two main themes: 'Volatile
alliances' and 'Decolonising our minds'.
South Africa is seeking its new post-
apartheid artistic identity.

Cautious voices may say it is too soon, but
why wait? Whatever is seen, shown, said,
constitutes a beginning.

Reports say that organisation is chaotic, but
chaos is fertile ground. Order in disorder?
Mixture and flux generate individual
initiative.

The juxtaposition of various cultures and
individuals will, it is hoped, act as a catalyst
for discourse and action. A conference
entitled Bua! Emergent Voices, being held
from the 2nd to the 4th of March, will
discuss topics such as 'Re-defining cultural
identity in Post-Apartheid South Africa',
'Traditions and Modernism in Africa' and
'Re-definition of Afrocentnsm'. The latter
two topics are particularly applicable to us
here in Zimbabwe.

We have had 15 years to consider our
cultural identities. When a 'new' country
comes into existence, it carries with it its

cultural baggage from the past, and, as
reflected in this magazine, Zimbabwe
continues to struggle with the contlicts
between tradition and modernism, with the
issue of women's marginalisation, with the
various effects, good and bad, of the West's
influence on our artists and culture.

Forging an identity is never completed. As
Iris Murdoch puts it:

"...life... has an irritating way of
bumping and limping on, undoing
conversions, casting doubt on
solutions, and generally illustrating
the impossibility of living happily or
virtuously ever after.. I fell loo that I
might take this opportunity to tie up a
few loose ends, only of course loose
ends can never he properly tied, one is
alwaxs producing new ones. Time,
like the sea, unties all knots. Judg-
ments on people are never final, they
emerge from summings up which at
once suggest the need of a reconsid-
eration. Human arrangements are
nothing but loose ends and hazy
reckoning, whatever art may other-
wise pretend in order to console us."

What art can do is capture and express the
knots, the loose ends, the hazy reckonings,
the various stages and insights along the
path of the society and the individual
towards identity.

Young Zimbabwean artists are confronting
traditions and conventions, finding and
sharing their own interpretations of Zimba-
bwe's 'human arrangements' (see pages 3-6
and 20-21). Zimbabwean women are
making their presence felt in art, though
there are more than loose ends to tie up (see
pages 9-12). Black and white Africans are
speaking out against the West's narrow
vision of our identities, forcing them to
reconsider their 'summings up' and 'judg-
ments' (see pages 7-8).

What Zimbabwe's contribution to the
Johannesburg Biennale (see pages 13-16)
does show is that our society is recognising
the richness of diversity, the importance of
open-mindedness and tolerance, and the role
of art in extending our understanding of both
ourselves and of each other

The Biennale presents us with a wide
platform, opportunities to learn, and
hopefully, many Zimbabweans will be able
to go South to benefit from the experience.
We may not have the money and the
resources to stage such a show, but Zimba-
bwe has many creative and energetic

individuals, and a society can only grow
when its individuals do.

Here is a list of some of the exhibitions that
will be part of the Biennale:

Johannesburg Art Gallery Installations : site
specific works within the gallery by
contemporary South African artists
San/Bushman A rt. Past and Present
Taking Liberties — The Body Politic :
preoccupations with the human body
Objects of Defiance/Spaces of Contempla-
tion : women's experiences of the world
Volatile Colonies : a fundamental challenge
to Western aesthetics

SpaceA Dis )place : the physical and ideologi-
cal limits of sculpture
Mamelodi Today, Mamelodi Tomorrow :
celebrating a community through music, art,
dance and performance
Windows, Doors and Bridges : Soweto
murals

Kopano : artists working on the boundaries
of tribal traditions and urbanised westernisa-
tion

FcLx Project : artworks faxed from all over
the world

Jobs, Journeys, Jo 'burg : trekkers, migrants,
borders, dislocation and identity fashioned
through movement

My Area : photographic insights into diverse
people's lives

Beyond Boundaries : a workshop of street
art

Africa Earthed : bridging the contradictions
and divisions in South African ceramics
Katlehong Art Centre : larger than life wire
figures with moving parts
Arches, Murals and Trees : installations in
public spaces

Mobile Art Gallery : a bus running work-
shops at various stops between Newtown
and Soweto

International Print Exchange : dialogues
across cultural and geographic boundaries
by 44 international and South African artists

It is a pity that publicity and information
about the events and exhibitions have not
been fuller and more timely in Zimbabwe.
However for those who cannot take part, in
the next issue of Gallery, we hope to bring
news, views and reviews of the Biennale and
of how Zimbabwe's art scene and our artists
stand by comparison.

The Editor

Art historian, Olive Maggs, considers the work
of four young Zimbabwean artists

Beaton
Matekenya
Meque
Sibanda

Changing

A few years ago, if you had asked anyone to tell you what was happening in the art

world in Zimbabwe the answer would most probably have been about recent work by

'Shona' sculptors. Now, in 1995, we see the beginnings of a new chapter in the story of

Zimbabwean art, inventive and exciting developments in painting by two already

recognised painters, Luis Meque and Fasoni Sibanda, and innovatory use of subject and

materials in sculpture by Keston Beaton and Crispen Matekenya.

All of these artists have exhibited at both Gallery Delta and the National Gallery.

However, when their work appeared together in November 1994 in the Gallery Delta

show entitled 'New Directions', there was no mistaking the strength of this new

generation of Zimbabwean artists. Each one of these artists' work shows a desire for

truth and sincerity, both in the approach to subject and to the materials and medium used.

There is a definite change of mood in this new generation of artists: an expenmental

attitude towards technique and materials; a self-conscious liberation from their cultural

or artistic conventions. Their work shares a dependence on the impact of ordinary

moments taken from everyday life and has a capacity for immense vision.

Let us take a closer look at these four artists who could herald the start of a new phase in

the history of Zimbabwean art.

Crispen Matekenya lives in Karoi and was a BAT
Workshop student in the late 1980s. He has spent some
years since then experimenting in sculpture using mainly
stone and wood. His present work appears in an unusual
wood from the Mutsamvi tree which he works semi-
smooth, leaving a certain amount of scratched
surface. He then covers it with a layer of red
polish, giving an interesting burnished quality.
Colour is used sparingly here and there to
give added life. His subjects are taken from
everyday life: The Hoer. The Sadza Eaters. The
Musician. The Dancers II. The Dugout. They are lively, humor-
ous, vigorous, and each one, hugely entertaining. Matekenya
describes his preference for working in this particular wood as
a desire to search for the subject and the form through the

material. He says:

"Stone is like mealie meal. You can only cook sadza.

When you use wood, you must use your mind. Without

the creativity you cannot make anything."

We can interpret this as an infinitely modernist
attitude to art. Quality in art depends not only on the
raw matenals, but on the imagination with which they are handled. Further, that art may
lie as much in the thought process which it excites as in the appearance of the piece
itself. This is the key to Matakenya's work, the essence of which is a sense of move-
ment, which the artist insists comes from the wood itself, and his ability to recognise
form combined with a sense of fun — his work makes one smile each time one sees the

piece, and that is an achievement!

Crispen Matekenya,
The Musician,
The Dancers II,
1994, approx 150cm
X 150 cm, wood

Art has been the subject of more
experimentation worldwide in the last
twenty years than in almost any other
period. Preconceptions have been
questioned and overturned; new
media, in addition to new materials,
have been pioneered. Keston
Beaton's assemblages of various
readymade objects can either amuse,
for example, Mhira Typewriter, or
shock. Rarely do they create any
aesthetic emotion. Historically they
derive from the readymades of Marcel
Duchamp, the French Dada artist of
the early years of this century and
later, from the well-known assem-
blages of Picasso, using actual objects
and raw scrap materials to make three-dimensional constructions.

Beaton's assemblages relate to this tradition yet his constructions are
not created through revolutionary fervour but seem more motivated
by nostalgia. There is something very comforting about his con-
structions. Benniood Harp, and The King's Harp. The familiar
materials used, such as pieces of scrap iron, steel wire, bolts and
screws, convincingly come to life with a new personality. Although
something of their ongin still remains, they have been transformed,
challenging our understanding of the identity of everyday life.

Keston Beaton,

Mbira Typewriter,

1994, approx 28cm x 20cm,

found materials

Fasoni Sibanda attended the BAT
Workshop in the early 1990s. His work
has appeared in Gallery Delta as well as in
Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibitions 1992,
1993 and 1994; in the latter, he received
the Overall Award for Distinction in
Painting. Sibanda lives and works in
Zengeza, taking his subjects from the
busy, colourful environment of Zengeza
and Seke. His subject matter, centred as it
is on human existence and values, possibly places him unconsciously
following the tradition of those imaginative innovators of modernism
— artists like Seurat, Van Gogh and the young Picasso.

Sibanda sees himself as a witness, an observer of life. His works
include subjects such as Zengeza Market and Consulting the Elders.
However, to interpret his paintings as mere representations of life
would be to only superficially touch the subject. Firewood Gather-
ers is a painting entirely in this mode, a familiar image from
anywhere in the country, but the quiet strength of the processional

Staffer Ceiling

Fasoni Sibanda,

Firewood Gatherers,

1994, 85cm X 99cm,

mixed media (left)

Fasoni Sibanda,
Zengeza Martlet,
1994, 65cm x 47cm,
mixed media (above)

figures and the sense of atmosphere in
this painting suggest something else.
They remind us of Van Gogh's words in
one of his letters to his brother, "all reality
is at the same lime symbolic."

Using thick brushwork and heavily
applied paint throughout his large figure
compositions, Sibanda combines figures
and surroundings, and so applies the same
sentiment to the landscape as to the
figures. His use of colour is uninhibited;
his brushstrokes plainly visible on the
surface. There is a feeling of confidence
and freedom to improvise in his use of
bold colours and forms Although he
would be the first to say he was still
experimenting, Sibanda has already
achieved an impressive style and we
should expect further developments
from this forward looking artist.

Luis Meque is Mozambican by birth and attended the BAT Work-
shop in the late 1980s. Since then his painting career has gone from
strength to strength. He is at present arguably the artist with the
most uniquely recognisable style in Zimbabwe. He has shown his
work in a number of Gallery Delta group shows and in the Zimba-
bwe Heritage Exhibitions of 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993 and 1994,
having obtained the Overall Award for Distinction in Painting in
1993. In 1994, he had solo exhibitions at Gallery Delta and at the
National Gallery which also holds a number of his works in its

Luis Meque,

The Guard, 1994,

69cm X 87cm,

mixed media (left)

Luis Meque,

/ Love You,

1994, 68cm x 85cm,

mixed media (below)

permanent collection. What is it about the
work of this artist that is so special?

Walking into a room of Meque's work is
like walking into a room where everyone is
involved in private conversations. You
intrude into a claustrophobic world of
personal involvement, of subjective
emotionalism. Meque often takes his
subjects from the world of the nightclub,
the beerhall or the street comer. There is no
explicit message, no drama. His figures,
painted in bright colours, emerge out of the
darkness of their background, and are
caught in a timeless, motionless state. This
is further emphasised by the total absence
of background, perspective and detail,
leaving a crude composition with a rugged
and unrefined touch.

Paintings such as Meque's The Guard take a hold of one. They
demand your attention because something intense is taking place.
The detail, however, never becomes clear. Jaggers, the mid-
twentieth century British sculptor said, "Exaggeration and modifica-
tion are the prerogative oflhe creative artist." Meque understands
that one of the most important aspects of an expressionist's .style is
created by using striking outline and form. Subordinate forms, that
might undermine the overall impact, are removed.

Meque also has the ability to choose subjects that one instinctively
feels matter hugely. This may result from a deep emotional

Keston Beaton,

Bentwood Harp,

1994, 87cm x 63cm,

found materials

involvment with the content of his paintings. He has not found it
easy to settle here in Zimbabwe. He says, "Life was loughfor me."
He speaks of problems he has with close relationships, there is a
sense of loneliness, of alienation. . . "/ paint about love." Certainly
we see this as a recurrent theme in works like / Love You and
Girlfriend. Perhaps it is the sense of being apart from the crowd that
has enabled Meque to develop such an individual and expressive
style with immense vision.

Claes Oldenburg said that to give birth to a form is the only act of
man that has any consequence. If this is true, Meque has accom-
plished nothing less than a vision of indigenous people that stays
fixed permanently in the mind, encompassing both the colour and
the culture of the country. When I eventually leave this country, it
will be Luis Meque's vision of Zimbabwe that I will take with me.

Of all the art produced at the present time here in Zimbabwe, the
work of Crispen Matekenya, Keston Beaton, Fasoni Sibanda
and Luis Meque must be some of the most representative of the
new spirit in the country. How is it that these four artists display
a readiness to experiment, consciously searching for a new
language, discarding the conventions of modernism in art here to
date?

Looking for something that they all share in common we

find their training at the BAT Workshop. Meque. Beaton

and Matekenya were at the

workshop in the late 1980s,

Sibanda in the early 199()s. One

of the workshop's early tutors

was Paul Wade from England, a

rebel by temperament, who

brought with him ideas from his art

school training in Britain. At the BAT

Workshop, he created an environment which

•^

encouraged students to experiment with
matenals, introduced them to the work of
modem European artists, and helped them to
extend their subject matter beyond the myths
and legends so popular with 'Shona' sculp-
tors. Wade himself, as a non-Zimbabwean,
was free from the cultural heritage carried
consiously or unconsciously by the students he taught. He was a
liberating as well as an inspirational example to those he taught and
to the foundation and development of the workshop in the midst of
the conformist and conventional nature of Zimbabwean culture.

Such evolution and progression is nothing new to Africa. In 1989,
Frank Willet wrote:

"African art has always been subject to change, and it
appears that this rale has accelerated during the present
century, due to the ever increasing influx of Western ideas and
technology."

Regrettably this has led to many of the old African ways of life being
forgotten. But it has been said that the second half of the twentieth
century is proving to be a penod of artistic renaissance for Afnca.

Beaton, Matekenya, Meque and Sibanda are going through a stage of
varied explorations, excited by the art of other countries, rather as
European artists were stimulated by African and Oceanic art at the
beginning of this century. Surely this cannot be regarded as a
fatalistic situation, but rather as a natural evolution. The art of

Zimbabwe is changing direction. These artists are now
^ being absorbed into the international world of

^^^s<^^^ modern art, which itself owes some of its

j ^^*^^»_^ j^ character to the stimulus of traditional

"^ ^^'i African art. It seems the wheel

has come full circle. What is
important is that, in lime.
these artists can assimilate
the artistic traditions of their
ancestors into their art and that
their work finds patronage more with the
people of Zimbabwe than with visiting
patronage as it is at present.

Crispen Matekenya,

The Dugout, 1994,

102cm X 59cm, wood

Slofff Gelling

The labelling of 'ethnic' art was the focus of a conference
attended and summarised here by Murray McCartney

The unspoken tyranny :
looking South from Norway

"There are two alternating and yet complemen-
tary pulsations in our centurx's involvement
with primitive societies and the idea of the
primitive: a rhetoric of control, in which
demeaning colonialist tropes get modified only
slightly over lime: and a rhetoric of desire,
ultimately more interesting, which implicates
'us ' in the 'them ' we try to conceive as the
Other "

(Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage
Intellects, Modem Lives. Chicago, 1990)

On the face of it, Oslo is an unlikely place in which to
find a debate about the arts of Africa. Norway has no
colonial history, only a modest number of immigrants
from the continent, and a cultural inclination to look
West and East as much as it looks South.

Enter Langton Masunda, from Bulawayo. Masunda
arrived in Oslo six years ago to study economics, and
stayed on; for the past two years he has been running
the Galleri African Heritage, an enterprise which
introduces art from Africa to Norwegians through its
programme of exhibitions, and its changing stock of
paintings and sculpture. The responses have been
mixed. One of the big frustrations for Masunda has
been the continuing public tendency to lump the art of
Africa into a strait-jacket of exotic separate-ness.
Contemporary shows are disregarded unless the work
fits into the ethnic stereotypes which have been
fashioned by European conceit and international
tourism.

In an effort to lift the veil from Norwegian eyes,
Masunda organised, in October last year, an interna-
tional conference, 'Ethnic' An in a Multicultural
World. Speakers from Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania
and the USA, as well as Norv/ay, addressed an
enthusiastic audience of artists, teachers, and curators.

"Art history is peculiar in its function as a
master narrative, not only in that it is fundamen-
tal in its recognition and legitimation of art with
a capital A, but that it seems to be the only
discourse (unlike the discourse of literature or
science) which protects its Western territory so
rigidly that we find hardly any exception to its
Eurocentric rules. "

The words are from Rasheed Araeen, in his catalogue
introduction to The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in
Post-war Britain, an exhibition held in London's

Hay ward Gallery in 1989. They were echoed at the
conference by Norwegian anthropologist. Thomas
Hyland Eriksen, who focused on the myths which the
colonial context sustains, and on the dilemmas of
authenticity which face artists from the non-
hegemonic comers of the globe.

"The power of the colonial view of the world is
greater than that of money; changing that view,
is harder than nationalising the sugar mills. "

Eriksen gave the example of Phillis Wheatley. the
mneteenth century slave poet. Owned in Boston, she
wrote sonnets in the Shakespearean style and no-one
believed that she could have done them herself The
issue went to court, and when she had passed the 'test'
to prove her bona fides, the immediate response was:

"Well, she may have written them, but they
aren 't authentic. Where are the calls for the
wilderness of the forests? She's imitating the
white man! "

So, suggested Eriksen, such artists have to deal with
the culturally specific, so that we can regard it as
unreal and exotic. The 'authentic' is everything that
we are not, or would like to pretend that we are not. It
is linked in turn to the 'myth of primilivism', that
benevolent structuralist fiction built around those
artists whose thought is not domesticated by writing
and education, and who bring an 'original freshness'
to their work. As long as the pnmitive stays primitive,
he's not a threat, and doesn't have to be ranked; he can
be admired from afar, and provide material for dreams.
Harare galleries and dealers, some operating as far
afield as California, are not alone in buttressing the
thesis by their use of 'ethnicity' and 'naivety' as
marketing endorsements.

Concerning the strategic response of contemporary
artists to the dilemma of ethnic pigeon-holing, Eriksen
agreed with the suggestion that they might take a leaf
out of the book of the women's movement, which used
the canon of 'women's art' out of pohtical necessity.
He referred to immigrants in Europe using their status
self-consciously in the early years of assimilation; and
to the Swami people of northern Norway using their
own language as a tactical assertion of national
identity. People who fight colonialism, he argued,
cannot be post-colonial before they have been anti-
colonial. As the Mozambican artist, Luis Meque,
wrote recently;

Hilary Kashiri,
After Work, 1993,
acrylic on paper.

Primitive,

exotic,

an expression of

contemporary

African reality?

"By living in the ghetto I became a painter. I am
black. I feel black. I paint black and my art is
black. "

An instructive parallel to colonial inythologising was
presented by Eugene Metcalf, in his paper on Ameri-
can Outsider art. Outsider art is done by people who
are without the social or cultural power to define what
they do as 'art'. In 1945, French artist Jean Debuffet
discovered a new kind of primitive art. Searching for
forms to free him from the established social and
aesthetic norms, for an art disconnected from civilised
artifice and imposed traditions, Debuffet found, in
Swiss mental hospitals, the raw and seemingly
uncontaminated materials he sought.

Looking beyond aesthetics, it is necessary to review
the way that 'otherness' is used by people to define
and legitimate their own boundaries: the 'other' can
only exist as being codified by the 'insider', and so it
is to the 'insider' that we must look.

Tourism, for example, provides a model for this, in its
establishment of a relationship between insiders and
outsiders. The over-civiliscd and repressive nature of
contemporary northern society, has made the preserva-
tion of other people and places something of a modem
mission. Tounsts use and control people and places,
just as cultural insiders define normality and deviancy.
Both have power Mass tourism and its support
institutions first developed at the turn of this century,
at roughly the same time the modem idea of the
'other' was emerging through the development and
professionalisation of anthropology.

The development of both anthropology and tourism
was prompted, in part, by the emerging belief that the
progress of modemity had come at a terrible cost. One
consequence of this has been the enshrinement of
'wildemess' areas in Africa; another has been the
development of the market for meretricious (often
called 'artistic') souvenirs, those false symbolic
objects which indemnify the tourist for having been
cut off from an authentic experience of the world,
from physical contact with other human beings.
African painting in a European idiom, for instance, has
little place in this universe.

Nor are definitions of 'other' based only on geographi-
cal distance; they also relate to distance in time.
Development, for instance, proceeds from the
pnmiiive to the civilised; cultural advancement stands
in contradistinction to something 'further back in
time'. Insiders do not study these categories, they
speak in terms of them. The 'outsider' and 'primitive'
are epistemological constructs: we think of the
concept, and then impwse it on others.

Metcalf invoked the history of black painting in
America to amplify his thesis. Having more or less
conformed to white aesthetic models at the turn of the
century, it created more powerful and creative images
of blacks in the Harlem Renaissance which coincided
with the urban migration of the 1920s and 30s. The
more recent development of 'new black art' still
defines blacks as outsiders, and allows group self-
definition by those who regard people of colour as
'other'.

This symbolic inversion — in which group member-
ship is defined not by shared characteristics, but by the
unshared characteristics of others — is, Metcalf
argues, 'a tyranny never spoken or discussed" . If
exhibitions such as the Zimbabwe Heritage have made
tentative steps in the direction of opening a debate,
they will make little serious progress until the issue is
tackled in a more intellectually self-conscious way.

Langton Masunda had been moved to convene the
conference by his unresolved feelings of uneasiness: at
the limited knowledge of Africa demonstrated by the
people he meets in Oslo; at the caution of clients when
presented with art which falls outside their stereotyped
views of how African art should look; at the arrogance
and limited vision occasionally shown by those
responsible for organising 'official' exhibitions of
non-European art in Norway. The initiative was
praised by those who lamented the absence of much
post-colonial discourse in Norway. But the country's
generally progressive development policies, and its
freedom from the taints of imperial adventurism, were
not enough to exempt it from the broader charges
which the debate inspired. Thomas Erik.sen quoted
from a press review of Vikram Seth's award-winning
novel, A Suitable Boy. which found it "funny that an
Indian has written such a long book in English " .

Langton Masunda, and the visual arts of the South, are
not alone in their struggle. If the conference came up
with no answers, it was because it was set no ques-
tions. What it did offer to those present, however, was
an outline of the historical and political contexts
within which the labelling of ethnic art takes place. Art
is always pt)litical: what is 'beautiful' always has to do
with who's doing it, and who has power.

Art can
ignore,
support
or fight
society's
stereotypes.
Pip Curling examines
the images of women
created by Zimbabwe's
^ women artists

,;|WQmen
V I *dfe'the

body politic

It is a great pity that it is
necessary for the National
Gallery to host the Longman
Women Visual Artists Exhibi-
tion. The pity is not the
exhibition itself but its implied
stigma of separatism. One
annual acknowledgement of
women artists as specifically
separate from the main body of
artists only further serves to
isolate women as different
from the mainstream of
cultaral expression.

The Longman exhibition has
no particular agenda other than
the gender of the artists. For
the sensitive viewer, however,
many of the works on the
second Longman exhibition,
held in August 1994, carry a
hidden agenda of women's
attitudes towards themselves,
their bodies and their relation-
ship towards society. When a
woman artist makes a work in

which she represents women,
she does so with the burden of
knowledge of the stereotypical
images of women.

Women's bodies are the single
most used and exposed objects
in the media and the visual
arts. Contemporary news
magazine photographs
represent 'third world' women
as Ignorant, poor, uneducated,
tradition-bound, domestic and
victimised. Western women,
whose bodies adorn advertis-
ing campaigns, are displayed
as sensual, overtly aggressive
or submissively passive,
provocative and, above all,
available. What binds all these
images of women together is a
sociological sameness in that
they reflect and represent
men's greed and power. A
Somali woman offering her
empty, sagging breast to her
emaciated child is as much a

sacrificial victim as is her
western counterpart, the
half-starved, etiolated model
whose body spread-eagles the
sleek lines of an expensive
motor car in the pages of a
glossy magazine. Enshrined in
the collective psyche of
humankind is the belief that
women are physical bodies
destined to be little more than
breeding machines. Pregnancy
and childbirth make women's
bodies vulnerable. Marriage
renders them marketable.

One of the favourite subjects
for Zimbabwe stone sculptors
is 'Mermaid' (a dangerous
being who seduces young girls
into rivers and transforms them
into witches), another is 'Shy
Girl' (a pathetic creature who
hides her face from the world).
In the West, the female nude
has a long history of exposure.
Imaged as goddess or idealised

mmr

Colleen Madamombe,

Shy Bride,

1994, serpentine

Danielle Deudney,

The Queens of Infinite Space

(detail), 1994, colour photo

beauty, the nude has been, in
fact, nothing more than a
sexual object to titillate the
desires of men.

It is no surpnse that women
artists either circumvent the
problem of facing their own
bodies by painting landscapes;
or they perpetuate traditional
stereotypes about themselves.
For example, paintings on the
Longman exhibition such as
Wood at Dusk, Summertime,
Winter Afternoon at Home and
Garden Statue are works about
aesthetically pleasing visual
escapism. Not that it is
necessarily a bad thing to want
to escape, nor that the work is
less worthy for being pleasur-
able rather than didactic. If
women artists choose to
turn away and seek what is
pleasant rather than confront
what can be painful, they have
an inalienable right to do so.
Conversely, Luness Mhlope's
paintings, /4 Woman Suffers

and A Woman Carries a
Burden, perpetuate the image
of women as helpless and do
not encourage the woman
viewer to re-image herself as
able to overcome her suffenng
and her burdens. These works
tread old well-worn paths
without taking the initiative to
break new ground.

Some women artists disclose a
personal commitment to
exposing the myths which
have held women captive;
others celebrate the essential
femaleness of women's bodies.
Colleen Madamombe's large
stone sculpture, SIty Bride, is a
restatement of the popular
theme. The bride hides her
face with her hands and
exposes her buttocks. She is
adorned by her hair and her
skirt. Her legs, hidden beneath
the skirt, are truncated and
useless. The skirt is both a
garment and a restnction to
movement. These legs will

never walk; the bride is held
captive in the cage of her own
adornment.

In her triptych. Tlie Queens of
Infinite Spacei 1 ), Danielle
Deudney examines the
possibility of fantasy as a way
of dealing with the plethora of
photographs of women. Her
'Queens' are crowned with
eggshells, roses and glass. But
they are blinded by the same
stuff as their crowns are made
of

The title of Mollier Going to
the Clinic with Three Children
by Cecilia Chitemo is suffi-
ciently informative for there to
be no doubt as to the subject of
the work. Her three children
are all very young. Two are
carried on their mother's back.
This woman is literally a child-
bearer We don't know why
she is going to the clinic. We
wonder if she is going for
family planning advice or if

Cecilia Chitemo,

Mother Going to the Clinic

with Three Children,

1994, textile sculpture

Bulelwa Madekurozva,
Self Portrait, ^994, o\\

this is a routine visit. Are the
children ill? Whatever the
reason for her journey we
know she is a mother and her
strong upright body supports
her children. Her breasts,
although hidden by her blouse,
are nevertheless carefully and
meticulously modelled with an
attention to detail that makes
this work all the more poign-
ant.

The young woman behind her
guitar in Bulelwa
Madekurozva's Self Portiailil)
is enigmatic. Her gaze is
confrontational. The ghost of
her alter-ego stares, wild-eyed,
over her shoulder. This is not
an idealisation of the self It is
an exploration of an individual
into her own psyche.
Madekurozva takes a long,
cool, objective look at herself.
The viewer looks at the artist.
The experience is not voyeunst
so much as unsettling in its
invitation to women to seize

the courage to examine
themselves with the same
unrelenting detachment.

/ am Not the One by Joan
Dunstan (not illustrated) is
about women abandoned by
the fathers of their children.
The unborn child is exposed in
the womb of its mother as its
father disappears off stage.
This work is about the
immutable fact that women
are, literally, left holding the
baby. It is about denial of
responsibility for paternity. Its
statement, like the stark black
and white of the image, is clear
and unequivocal. In Phillipa
Browne's Pregnant in the
Plough (not illustrated), a full
frontal, nude, pregnant, female
figure, is a similarly premedi-
tated, unambiguous comment.

Female Harp (see Caller,- no.
1 page 20) by Semina Mpofu,
on the other hand, suggests an
allegory on women's sexuality.

The musical instrument, lying
supine, is passive and silent
until roused by the hand of
man. (The mbira is the
instrument traditionally played
by men) The female 'body' in
this work IS a rhythmically
curved, smooth piece of stone.
At the base of the body, the
half sphere is a metaphor for
womb that envelops the harp
whose keys hint at pubic hair.
There are many possible
interpretations of Female
Harp. 1 have offered only one,
informed by a particular and
personal bias. When art
proffers ambiguities of
imagery it invites the viewer to
engage in a dialogue to reveal
its possible meaning.

Mary Davies' Giants and the
Lone Woolf is a Western pun
on a name, which the literate
viewer will immediately
associate with the title of
Edward Albee's play. Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Mary Davies,

Giants and the Lone Woolf,

1994, mixed media

Woolf, the token woman, joins
the 'giants' of politics, science
and letters. She is one of the
important role-models for
modem feminists and is most
remembered for her call for
every woman to have "a room
of one's own". Hence the key-
holes in the work are a double
entendre, they remind us of
that room and are also the
means by which a male voyeur
might peep at bodies of
women as they dress and
undress. In the lower half of
the work, the shapes of the
key-holes become the faceless
heads of women whose
identities have been lost by
men's distorted writing of their
history.

Women's bodies have a history
of being dangerous when
exposed in any way. Jewish

law allowed a man to divorce
his wife if she appeared in
public with her hair uncovered.
St Paul told the early Chris-
tians that any woman who
came to church bareheaded
should have her head shaved.
Tenullian, a father of the
Christian church said, in the
third century, "The bloom
of a virgin 's face is responsible
for the fall of angels and ought
to be kept shaded when it has
cast stumbling blocks even as
far as heaven" Buddha
declared the body of a woman
to be "filthy and not a vessel
for the law". At the University
of Zimbabwe, in 1993, male
students attacked a young
woman because her skirt was,
in their estimation, too short
for their idea of decency. Her
exposed legs were offensive to
them.

Women, whose bodies are
exposed to public debate and
control, but whose lives are
hidden in the private domestic-
ity of the home, have learned
to speak furtively about
themselves. Other women
have the power to turn the key
in the locked door so that
women's stones will be seen,
heard and interpreted.
Adnenne Rich says:

"Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go
through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your

Notes

1 Ttiese photograplis were not on the
I-ongman Exhibition They were on the
Ziinbabwe Heritage Exhibition

2 This work was not part of the
l.onpm.'in Exhibition but was exhibited
at the National Gallery's Polytechnic
Students" Show.

"....what we see here is an active demonstration
of the return to Africa
of the African artistic initiative
and Afrocentrism expressed
in a language that can generate interest
for the rest of the world. "

Thakor Patel,
Untitled, 1994,
poster colour

Towards an integrative source;
Art Zimbabwe

Curator, Doreen Sibanda,

writes about the Zimbabwean exhibition

at the Johannesburg Biennale

Last year I was invited to curate an exhibition of Zimbabwean art for the First
Johannesburg Biennale, scheduled to run from the end of February through to
the 30th of April this year. The exhibition is being conceptualised around two
broad and inter-related themes and curators were invited to respond to these
themes in any way they wished. The two themes are 'Volatile alliances' and
'Decolonising our mmds'.

My original intention was to put together a collection of works in which the
artists' images depicted races and cultures other than their own. Such an
emphasis on race would be quite natural in Zimbabwe, where artists from
different races and cultures have co-existed in a potentially volatile state for
many years. My motivation was, more specifically, urged on by recent
indications of some disquiet amongst the races.

Helen Lieros,

Three Aspects of Man (triptych),

1995, pen, ink & wash

To the contrary, what has emerged from my examination of the work being
produced is the fact that most artists are drawing from the same source — that
of the dominant cultural and social reality of Zimbabwe today.

It should be pointed out that artistically the colonial period in Zimbabwe was
marked by few white artists that drew inspiration from Africa, and those that
did, confined their work to broad and rugged landscape and abstract paintings.
At the same time, most of the early black artists strove to imbibe Western
perceptions of what African artists should be, and were content to produce non-
controversial work with a strong portrayal of the tnbesman image.

Since the mid-eighties, there has been a steady and strong move towards a
more integrated perception of the dominant environment, culture and aesthet-
ics, brought about mainly by an increase in communication amongst the artists,
the mushrooming of art training facilities for African artists, and the participa-
tion by cross-sections of artists in practical residential art workshop situations.

Thus, my collection is a representation of recent work by prominent black and
white artists of Zimbabwe, in an attempt to underline their increasingly
innovative handling of materials, their preoccupation with local African
phenomena, and to gauge the extent to which, as a result of several years of a
multi-cultural environment with its acculturative and internationalising effect,
the work is now moving towards a more integrated source — the specific
source of Zimbabwe.

Gone are the works of anger and of urgency that featured prominently in the
years immediately following independence, and although it is still possible to
discern the individual artist's own history, experiences and preferences in the
works, it is clear that all the artists, especially the white artists, are no longer
looking to the n.jtropolitan centres to provide their direction. Instead what we
see here is an active demonstration of the return to Africa of the African artistic
initiative and Afrocentrism expressed in a language that can generate interest
for the rest of the world.

The stone sculptors that have been singled out for inclusion in the exhibition
have surpassed the limitations that the worid-wide success of the Shona
sculpture movement has produced. These mclude Mukomberanwa and Nkomo.
The more innovative and expenmental sculptors are represented by Gutsa,
Muzondo and Jack , who move towards a more personalised and ambiguous
image.

Works by long-standing painters Patel, Mukarobgwa, Curling, Bickle and
Lieros, reveal an interesting selection of ideas from the wealth of African
mythology, cultural idiosyncrasies and material symbols that are finely tuned to
their temperaments and experiences, while the new generation of young African
painters is represented by artists Luis Meque and Fasoni Sibanda, both of
whom engage in a broad handling of contemporary and urban issues.

vii

Berry Bickle,

T for Tears and African Alphabet,

1994, mixed media

Richard Jack,
Listening to the Wind,
1994, serpentine & steel
(below left)

Adam Madebe,
Quartet, 1994, stainless
& mild steel
(below right)

Art Zimbabwe

works to be included in the exhibition at the First Johannesburg Biennale

Berry Bickle, T for Tears, 198cm x 139cm, mixed media Berry Bickle, African Alphabet, 192cm x 137cm,
mixed media Pip Curling, Portrait of Juliana, 91cm x 81cm, oil Pip Curling, Interior, Borrowdale, 202cm

X 107cm, oil Tapfuma Gutsa, Tfie Suitcase, 152cm x 130cm, wood &
steel Richard Jack, Time to Share, 52cm x 50cm, stone, wood, wool,
steel & reeds Richard Jack, Listening to the Wind, 65cm x 31 cm, stone
& steel Helen Lieros, Lobola, 100cm x 87cm, mixed media Helen
Lieros, Black/White Rider, 108cm x 87cm, mixed media Helen Lieros,
N'anga's Dream, 158cm x 124cm, mixed media Helen Lieros, Three
Aspects of Man (triptych), 67cm x 61cm 61cm x 44cm (2), pen, ink &
wash Adam Madebe, Quartet, 197cm x 115cm, stainless steel & mild
steel Luis Meque, Social Life, 109cm x 83cm, mixed media Luis
Meque, Lovers, 109cm x 83cm, mixed media Luis Meque, Violence in

Mukarobgwa,

ij Thomas

the Street, 109cm x 83cm, mixed media Thomas
Receiving the Breath, 112cm x 91.5cm, oil Thomas
We Came Across - Let's We Talk, 112cm x 91.5cm, oil

Mukarobgwa, The Life Figure in the Country, 112cm x
Nicholas Mukomberanwa Watching, approx 46cm x
Joseph Muzondo, Looking Beyond the Year 2000,
serpentine, metal & copper Taylor Nkomo, A Dream,
springstone Thakor Patel, Untitled I, 87cm x 56cm,
Thakor Patel, Untitled II, 87cm x 56cm, poster paint
Untitled III, 64cm x 53cm, poster paint Fasoni Sibanda,
76cm, mixed media Fasoni Sibanda, L/nf/f/ed, 84cm x

I i

l2.^:

9 1 . 5 c m , o i I
20cm, stone
153cm x 37cm,

-, 68cm X 50cm,

8«

poster paint

Thakor Patel,

Kumusha, 99cm x
61cm, mixed media

Stnffer Gelling

K
S
H

Workshops are a problematic but essential part of the
African art scene. Stephen Williams writes about the
Thapong International Artists' Workshop in Botswana.

American sculptor,
Fritz Buenher, at worl<
outside the yellow tent

South African artist,
Sophia Ainslie, talks
about her work
I

Most people north of the Tati know
Mahalapye only as a bend in the Great
North Road or a blur of low dusty build-
ings glimpsed from a moving car or tram
window. But, in terms of art, the town has
recently gained significance as the new
home of the Thapong International Artists'
Workshop.

The formative years of Thapong (1989 -
1991) were in Kanye, a small town in the
south west of the country on the edge of
'the great thirst', the Kalahari Desert.
However, since 1992, the workshop has
been held on an annual basis at the
Kanamo Centre, which nestles several
kilometres off the main road along the
northern bank of the Mhalatswe River, a
river in the true Botswana sense — a broad
expanse of sand which stores its water
below its surface as protection against the
intense heat.

A large yellow marquee has over the years
become the heart of the workshop. Used to
accommodate the painters, and the scene of

unting spiders of the yellow tent

Nharo San artist,
Thame Kaashe,
at Thapong,
1994

many memorable extramural events over
the year, the yellow tent has now become
part of Thapong folklore. Apart from
being intensely hot, the tent acts as a
massive yellow filter which does bizarre
things to the tonalities of the paintings
being created inside it. Reds, yellows and
oranges which appear almost fluourescent
when applied often die when taken outside
into the reality of daylight.

An analogous problem occurs at the
Triangle Workshop in Pine Plains, New
York, where painters work in old wooden
bams which cast a dull brown light over
their paintings.

The condition of light affects the way in
which we see things. In Africa, the sua
bleaches out colour and forms harsh, dark
shadows. The way in which light trans-
forms objects and affects colour has long
fascinated artists. In essence, light was the

subject matter of Impressionist painters
such as Monet who strove to record the
effects of changing light in his series of
Haystacks and Rouen Cathedral. Gauguin
described shadows as the trompe I'oeil of
the sun. What effect then does a brown bam
in the USA or a yellow tent in Africa have
on the development of our contemporary
oeuvre?

Such considerations aside, other day to day
hazards at Thapong mclude persistent
swarms of mosquitoes, huge kamikaze
rhinoceros beetles, scorpions and fleets of
huntmg spiders. Overseas visitors are
particularly fascinated by the latter which,
attracted by the projected light dunng night
slide shows, race across the floor, pincers
aloft, in search of prey amid much shneking
and raising of feet.

Thapong is to Botswana what the
Pachipamwe Workshop is to Zimbabwe, but
there the similanties end. Fundamental
differences exist between the two work-
shops, particulariy in the crucial area of
organisation. Where Pachipamwe is run on
an ad hoc basis. TTiapong is managed by a
standing committee which works collec-
tively with a vision of promoting and
elevating visual art in Botswana. By
contrast, the Zimbabwean workshop
staggers from one year to the next, not only
without a permanent committee, but amidst
much recrimination, politics and finger
pointing. This aspect more than anything
else has served to make the organising of
the Pachipamwe Workshop a nightmare,
with most people who have braved it
swearing never to be involved again.
TTiapong employs a full-time co-ordinator
who is based at the National Museum and
Art Gallery in Gaberone and whose
endeavours are actively supported by that
institution. The pivotal organising functions
of TTiapong are thus firmly rooted within
and controlled by Botswana's art commu-
nity, a factor which has enabled the
workshop to more successfully resist
external manipulation than its Zimbabwean
counterpart.

TTiapong has received recognition in
Botswana for the role that it has played m
enriching visual art culture in the country
and dragging it out of the dark ages. Just
five years ago, Botswana had only a handful
of acknowledged artists while most
foreigners identified Botswana's contempo-
rary matenal culture with the curio produc-
ers who ply their wares along the line of
railway sidings at Shashe. By creating a
forum for dialogue, innovation and inquiry,
Thapong has nurtured a new generation of
young Batswana artists who are ushering in
a fresh view and awareness of contemporary
culture.

... and Murray McCartney offers some alternate
views in his opening address at the Pachipamwe
Zimsculpture Workshop Exhibition at the Alliance
Francaise in Harare

This opening of the Zimsculpture
Pachipamwe Exhibition gives me the
opportunity to raise a number of points
regarding the development of art and culture
here in Zimbabwe, and given the 'independ-
ent' spirit of the Pachipamwe enterprise, the
occasion is a most appropriate one.

When I wrote about last year's Pachipamwe
in the press, I was critical of what I regarded
as an under-representation of women in the
process. The criticism stands. If we are to
call attention, and I think we must, to the
way women are marginalised in other
realms of society — whether in parliament,
churches, corporate boardrooms or commu-
nity associations — I don't think we can
allow exemptions to be claimed by the
culmral sector.

There were criticisms of the 1993
Pachipamwe from other people. ..'yo//j good
fun for the participants... orgy of self-
indulgence... messy left-overs of the
party... " etc. There was, as well, talk of
Pachipamwe pursuing "the worst of
western, modernist e.xclusiveness, rooted in
the concept of art as commodity " and a
question: "Can we afford the indulgence?"

I I

i t

Can we afford the indulgence? We can't not
afford it. I don't think we have a choice. It
is less an indulgence than ifait accompli.

I have suggested that the interests and rights
of a gender analysis know no sectoral
boundaries. I now suggest that the same is
true of the market, and this should give us
equal pause for quiet consideration.

And if the Pachipamwe Workshop —
organised this time by the artists them-
selves, rather that what I called last year, the
"handmaidens' of external initiative — if
the Pachipamwe Workshop is to face the
market and deal with it honestly, then we
must ask it to reflect on one or two impor-
tant points.

Women. None? Few? Many? As organis-
ers? As artists? Remember first of all, that
the market is no respector of persons; it is

too with our sculptures and paintings: they
are dragooned into service as icons ot
exotic-ness, as souvenirs of another reahty.

To me, the Pachipamwe Workshop, and this
Zimsculpture exhibition which it has
created, is one of the few institutional
bastions which can resist and challenge that
construction of reality. And if I have
sounded a few words of caution, it is only
because I would like to see it strengthen its
resolve and effectiveness even further.

Why do I call it a bastion? First, because of
its internationalism; its disregard for either
nation or race. Nine of the twenty-two
participants here are from outside the
country. This is not Zimbabwean sculpture,
not Zimbabwean art.

Second, because it gives practical form to
the notions of collective work and the
community of knowledge; ideas cease to be
private property; we can take inspiration
from each other, as readily as we take it
from ourselves or our surroundings.

Third, because of its unambiguous
motivations. No-one hovered over the
artists and said: I need so many pieces by
such and such a date. No-one urged: I'm
having a show called 'New Directions' and
need something from you urgently. No-one
commissioned any of these items to grace a
new building or satisfy a personal whim.

Keston Beaton,
Plant Form, in
progress at the
Pachipamwe
Workshop, 1994

essentially impersonal. It is unsentimental.
It has more interest in appearances, than in
truth; more concern for turning a coin than
for rewarding integrity. It will control you.
It will not allow you to consider the under-
represented women; or the keen learners
who may wish to break into your closed
circle and study under your wings. It will
take your self-expression, and transform it,
by some species of alchemy, into self-
interest.

And the market has another agenda. As we
know, it is international, and as such it sets
itself in a very particular relationship to art
from the South. What does it want? Not
work which is honestly to be put on a par
with that produced in America, or Denmark,
or England. Not at all. Just as our perform-
ing artists tend to be feted in the North to
the extent that they validate a Northern
notion of what is expected from Africa, so

What you see here, are the results of
irresponsibility in its true sense. It is, if you
like, above and beyond debates, or dictates.
Some may call it license. Some may,
indeed, deride it as indulgence. I prefer to
call it freedom.

I don't think the works are here to be
judged, and I have no intention of judging
them — certainly not in the way that a
competitive exhibition invites judgement.
They are here to show you what happens
when a group of artists get together and
create, away from the usual routines of
daily life, to stimulate both the artists'
imaginations, and the debates and discus-
sions which I have touched on.

I happen to hope that future workshops will
offer us new talents, and new surprises. And
I happen to believe that they can. It is my
challenge to artists, to ensure that they do.

Reviews of recent work

Students' and young artists'
exhibition, Gallery Delta,
January/February 1995

A sinking degree of confidence and
exploration makes itself felt in this exhibi-
tion. The prevailing mood is one of hope.
From this lively spectrum of young artists,
it is possible to single out a
number of painters and «— ■

sculptors who may make a " |

broader impact over the next
few years.

Highlights include Amanda
McKenzie's series of clay
heads, Semina Mpofu's
instrumental figures and a
large delightful surprise in the
garden. Early Bicycle, a metal
sculpture by Richard
Nyakabawo.

Semina Mpofu has a personal
version of amalgamating stone
and metal in her works.
Female Harp and Soul Music
(see Contents page). She pays
tribute to her roots, so-called
'Shona' sculpture, but marries
it to innovation, and adds
grace to whimsical distortion.

The five clay heads. Libera-
tion, Distortion, Transition,
Progression and Existence, by
Amanda McKenzie portray
changes that are affecting the community.

« t

They depict not only mythological, fictious
personalities, but also one's own experi-
ences, and possibly refiect the impatient
restlessness felt by many young artists.

Tendai Gumbo relays a personal cosmology
in her painting. Window and I, as a victim

behind glass, a kind of psycho-symbolic
prison from which the central figure peers
out bleakly in an attempt to escape, or
dangles powerlessly in its shadow. Her
graphic, mixed media monotype. Puppet,
allows us to concentrate on the expressive
potential of surface texture and pictorial
form.

In Anke Bohne's works, the viewer
is hard pressed to determine whether
the images portray angst-ridden,
ironic or autobiographical studies.
By contrast, Dylan Lloyd's draw-
ings/paintings demonstrate the belief
that "drawing is really about
precision, balance and discipline not
just representation ".

The Luis Meque influence, his way
of approaching the subject and
application of paint, is hopefully
disappearing. The young artists on
this exhibition embrace human
experiences of people, their
relationships to things, relationships
to places whether landscape or
cityscape, or portray the moral,
social concerns of this moment and
address the issues of the day. Their
work sings in celebration of colour,
light, form, and the joy of seeing and
discovering through the process of
art. HL

Tendai Gumbo,
Window and I (above)

Richard Nyakabawo,
Early Bicycle (left)

Amanda McKenzie,
Distortion (below)

Anke Bohne,
What I'm Living For

Berry Bickle, Other,

Gallery Delta, November 1994

This exhibition of work by possibly
Zimbabwe's most provocative artist raises
many questions. It is an offer and a
challenge, an invitation and an argument

such as My Mother 's Daughter and Dress-
ing Jennifer, confront the viewer with the
stark garment worn by prisoners. They are
about the stripping away of detail in order to
find the essentials of identity, about
alienation, grief and pain. These works try

Tendai Gumbo,
Ceramic I

■:*-!

d forthcoming

that can be experienced through the
individual's encounter with the art. Berry
Bickle sees her works on paper as prelimi-
naries to the three dimensional work, yet it
is here that those who remember her fine
early paintings and drawmgs find pleasure.
Her sensitive use of line and sparingly
applied colour
in the Ibo » . .

series, capture
places and
impressions ^
with a delicate is
sureness. t

•» •? 7

I I f

■^

Berry Bickle,
My Mother's
Daughter
(details)

Whereas the drawings and paintings such as
Measure of Wind and Washed Up and
Found, are poetic, the three dimensional
works are disturbing. They deal with
concepts of identity and show the artist's
willingness to experiment, to explore, to
search for meanings. They move between
different matenals and mediums, incorpo-
rating raw draughtmanship, slashed
canvases, uneven stitching, wrapped twigs,
embedded tinted nails, porcelain, wood,
metals. The palette is deliberately limited,
with many of the images surrounded by
predominantly white, raw surfaces to create
space. The line is again evident in the use
of slashing, twigs and metals.

Experiences from Mozambique, Cuba and
childhood are evoked through use of
spoons, suitcases, dresses, books. Pieces in
the suitcase series, such as Mission Box and
Case for Angels, contain tension and
humour, continuing earlier investigations
into the psychological baggage that
individuals carry. TTie dresses, in works

to step back from emotion by presenting the
bare facts. In some cases, the impact of the
work is diluted by the addition of distracting
detail.

In contrast to much that we see in Zimba-
bwe, Berry Bickle's work is not readily

accessible. Many
4 . , , * viewers are left

, , puzzled, finding it
* « hard to understand

and decode her
meanings. There
are many ideas,
^ \ % ' contradictions,

indeciferable
details. Perhaps,

3 g_ /?_ ^ in order to

communicate
V more fully, some

of these ideas
need to be
clarified and worked into a more coherent
statement. Berry Bickle's work is important
for our local art scene. It provokes discus-
sion and cuts into our complacent artistic
parochialism. BM

Annual art exhibition, Harare
Polytechnic, November 1994

Despite their small staff and minimal
resources, the Graphic and Fine Art
Department of the Harare Polytechnic (so
far Zimbabwe's only art school, is doing a
good job. This exhibition featured a wide
variety of work by students from all three
years and all disciplines. Individual style
was evident in the third year painting and
ceramics sections, particularly work by
Tendai Gumbo, Amanda McKenzie and
Stephen Rowley. There was some striking
work amongst the first years, including
figure drawings by Dylan Lloyd and Amelia
Marinova. The second year graphic design
section was outstanding, revealing a
combination of fresh ideas and professional
execution. Hopefully the publishers and
advertising companies were there to take
note of promising talent. Only the textiles
were dull. Some experimental work with a
wider range of materials, exploring the
potential they have, seems necessary. The
standard of work from Polytechnic students
overall has risen markedly and augurs well
for Zimbabwe's upcoming generation of
artists. BM

exhibitions
and events

What a load of rubbish! will be on show
at the National Gallery, Harare, at the end of
March. Proposed by the innovative
company who keep our paper, cards and T-
shirts etc. humming with good ideas. Design
Inc. this exhibition of creative recycling
may have some surprises in store for us.

Sylvia Bews-Wright, a Canadian artist
currently living in Zimbabwe, will be
showing mainly acrylics in her show, My
New Found Land, at Gallery Delta during
March. These works celebrate her feelings
for the African environment.

In March/Apnl at Gallery Delta will be an
exhibition in homage to the Spanish poet
and playwright, Lorca. The paintings by
Jesus Carlos Riosalido Gambotti,
symbolise his feelings about and under-
standing of Lorca's various works. A
production of one of the plays and live
Spanish music are planned for the Gallery
Delta amphitheatre.

BAT Workshop Students' Exhibition

at the National Gallery, Harare, in May,
provides an opportunity to spot new talent.
The workshop has produced some of
Zimbabwe's most promising young artists
including Luis Meque, Keston Beaton,
Fasoni Sibanda and Crispen Matekenya.

If you missed the exhibition at the Alliance
Francaise in December, work from the
Zimsculpture (Pachipamwe) Work-
shop will be shown at the National Gallery
in April. With their larger space, it is hoped
that the Gallery will be able to exhibit a
much wider range of the work produced, if
not all of it.

The First Johannesburg Biennale

opens on the 28th February and runs until
the 30th of April. Exhibitions and installa-
tions as well as workshops, community
events and a conference will take place at
various venues throughout the city . For
information on events you can contact the
staff of the Biennale in Johannesburg.
Tel: 27- 11-838 6407 Fax; 27- 1 1 -833 5639.

bardwsd prlntar*

.^■"^^IffT'

■• ^->, J'l

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Th<j art m.jga/ine from Gallery Delta-

Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe

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Contents

June 1995

2 Artnotes

Art about Zimbabwe by Pip Curlin

6 I have a gallery in Africa: the origins of Gallery Delta

by Derek Huggins

10 A gift that was hiding: Job Kekana by Pip Curling

12 Living and working in the mission tradition:
in memoham Job Kekana by Elizabeth Rankin

13 Helen Lieros: an interview with Barbara Murray

19 Letters

20 Reviews of recent work and forthcoming exhibitions
and events

Cover: Helen Lieros, Cataclysm, 1994, 1 12 x 86cm, mixed media.

Photo by Dani Deudney
Left: Zephania Tshuma, No Way To Go, 1986, 75 x 10 x 10cm,

painted wood

Publisher: Derek Huggins. Editor: Barbara Murray. Design & typesetting:
Myrtle Mallis. Origination & printing by AW. Bardwell & Co. Colour by
Colourscan (Pvt) Ltd. Paper; Express from Graphtec Ltd,

Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not be reproduced
in any manner or form without permission.

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the writers
themselves and not necessarily those of Gallery Delta, the publisher or the
editor.

Subscriptions from Gallery Publications, 7^ Gallery Delta, 1 10 Livingstone
Avenue, PO Box UA 373 Union Avenue, Harare. Tel: (14)792135. -i

Art notes

In his last interview, Job Kekana said,
"When you travel between people it makes
your knowledge stronger," and, despite all
the criticism levelled at the Johannesburg
Biennale, it did offer opportunities to "travel
between people". Problems occurred in the
gaps in communication — the viewer's
mability to understand the message or the
artist's inability to convey it successfully?
Much of the work on show was installation
with explanatory text accompanying it to
help the viewer cross those gaps, which in
some cases were more like chasms. For
example, the exhibition Volatile Colonies
included, amongst others, a comer of a room
filled with cardboard boxes, planks, a
painting obscured by plastic wrapping
propped against a wall, paint brushes, glue,
nails, tins (this a work by the renowned
Karakov). Other pieces on this show were a
blank video machine in a room of its own
with wires on the floor, and, a glob of melted
plastic on a marble table.

Capelan's Stepping Out of the White Cube
{A Little Song for Johannesburg) consisted
of two rooms, walls hung with seemingly
random clocks, cotton scarves, scribbled
messages; on the floor, blocks of wood,
builders' rubble, brooms, buckets, cement
bags. While I was looking, a workman came
in and propped up a step-ladder. When I
asked. Is it part of the installation? he
replied, 1 don't know I just borrowed it. So
what about the buckets and brooms?
According to Capelan's writing on the wall,
content in art can arise from: representation,
verbal statement, medium, material, scale,
duration, context, art historical reference,
iconography, formal properties, attitudinal
gestures and biological response. That about
covers anything. I left feeling that a long
esoteric explanation would be needed and
might still fail to arouse a response, intellec-
tual or otherwise.

The French exhibited 'sculptures' by
Bertrand Lavier: a dirty fndge door; an
orange plastic traffic cone; a wire magazine
holder and an aluminium milkcan, each one
a separate work. When Duchamp exhibited
his unnal it was a challenge, but that was 50
years ago! If Lavier had a new message I
certainly missed it.

Untitled by Marcos Benjamin from Brazil
consisted of a wheel of wood, curved and
stuck together leaning against a wall, and
three riveted metal double cones, one
covered in old canvas, one of rusted iron,
one of aluminium. It was simple, quiet, with
pleasing shapes, textures and colours, but its
content, out of context, was unfathomable

One work that appealed to me was a
sculpture from Cuba made out of open
books tied together with sisal to form a
simple, eloquent boat. TTie books' open
pages revealed Cuban literature, science,
geography, poetry, painting, politics, history.
Here the metaphor worked subtly and
evocatively to convey the cultural journey
towards identity.

Much of the work from Africa was conven-
tional by compari,son and the Zimbabwean
curator's choice was sadly static and low
key. However amongst the best was one
wonderful surprise from Africa, a work by
Angolan Antonio Ole entitled Margem de
Zona Limile: the sound of lapping water and
rough men's voices talking quietly in
Portugese; a space constructed of rusted and
patinated corrugated iron, wooden doors,
metal gates; in the centre, a metal boat

Andries Botha, Dromedarls Donderl
... En Ander Dom Dinge, 1994,
approx. 4 X 4 X 2m,
rubber, wattle and metafs

broken in two; one half filled with bricks
and a TV set showing a video of water
flowing beneath a prow; the other half
filled with official papers; a crow perched
on each end; a fishing net. The atmosphere
was extraordinary, invoking a multitude of
impressions and thoughts.

One of the few "beautiful' experiences was
Broom Dream from Reunion; a dark room,
floor covered with thick sand, a broom
leaning against the wall just visible in the
shaft of light from the doorway; enter into
black; at the far end, in the sand, a pink
sandstone; a small circle of light from
above revealing indentations, skull-like,
soft edges, shadows. It was lovely,
evocative, resonant.

The South African work exposed a
preoccupation with violence: cut-off body
parts, knives, human hair, menacing kitchen
implements, blood, thorns and accompany-
ing titles such as It Won 't Hurt. For me,
one of the most successful works was
Dromedaris Bonder! ... En Ander Dom
Dinge by Andries Botha; a huge sculpture,
approximately 12ft high and as long,
encompassing superb craftmanship and
cohesive conception; a powerful mixture of
strength, foolishness and aggression.

Art is an entrance into a world of sensation
and experience; an opportunity to explore
and question new possibilities. The
conceptual First World art made the
expressive Third World art look naive and
simplistic, while the Third Wodd art made
First World art look and and intellectual-
ised. Critics said the Biennale did not
analyse and redefine South African identity,
but each individual needs to make this
attempt, and the Biennale certainly
provided a plethora of visually astonishing
material around which such redefinition
develops.

The Editor

Marcos Benjamin, Untitled, 1995,
approx. 3 X 3 X 3m,
wood, metal and cloth

Burlmra Murray

Enezia Nyazorwe,
A Story About Termites,
1991, 60 X 90cm,
PVA on board

Refusing to succumb to trends in hegemonic Western art,
Pip Curling introduces her selection of work that will represent
Zimbabwe in Grahamstown this year

Art about

imbabwe

One often hears, from the proponents of avant-gardism, a wail that
Zimbabwean art is 'safe' and that Zimbabwean artists should strive
to be 'more experimental'. What is this lemming-like instinct for
self-destruction? A quick flip through some art magazines, accom-
panied by a sequence of desperate intellectual gymnastics to come to
terms with the surfeit of blood and snot, can leave all but the most
committed post-modernist sickened, fatigued and bewildered.

The exhibition, entitled 'Art About Zimbabwe', which will represent
this country at the Standard Bank Festival in Grahamstown from 6 -
16 July 1995, might be perceived by some as 'safe' and 'nice'. It is
an exhibition with a clear narrative content, intentionally unfettered
by contemporary Western aesthetic precepts. It aims to be entertain-
ing as well as informative. As a whole it speaks about a place, its
people and its history. Accordingly works have been selected for
their accessibility to a wider cross-section of the viewing public.
The exhibition is a celebration of the vision and aspirations of the
people of Zimbabwe. Images include those of the banal events of
everyday life as well as humour, tragedy and violence.

There are forty works on the exhibition, each by a different artist.
Diversity of subject matter is reflected as is a variety of media. The
title has a double meaning in that the art tells about the country and it
comes from different geographical areas. A thread is drawn from the
representational paintings of the schoolboys under the tutelage of
Canon Ned Paterson at Cyrene Mission in the 1950s to the continu-
ing prevalence of figurative watercolour painting in Matabeleland.

Tapfuma Gutsa, Nehanda's Defiance,
1981, 84 X 25cm, ebony

Marvellous Mangena,
Mtshongoyo Dancers,
1991, 43 X 79cm,
oil on board

Givas Mashiri, Mufakose
Shopping Centre, 1995,
60 X 77cm, oil on canvas
on board

Phllimon Chipiro,
African Home, 1986,
82 X 88cm, oil on canvas

Early examples of work by the artists of the National Gallery
Workshop School demonstrate the vigour of that genre which is
particular to the northern half of the country. Women's art-making is
represented by their traditional materials of clay and textiles; their
subjects are those particular to themselves. Innovative use of found
materials abounds in sculpture made from wire, tins and rags. Works
such as Zephania Tshuma's No Way To Go, Morris Tendai's The
Trouble With Money and the Tashinga Group'sViolence Against
Women testify to pertinent social issues.

Zimbabwe stone sculptors' work is acknowledged but is situated
within the broader framework. Artists such as Thomas
Mukarombwa and Nicholas Mukomberanwa, who have
achieved international recognition share the stage with
unknown urban painters and anonymous rural sculptors.

Marvellous Mangena has achieved notable success with his
heightened naturalism. Mtshongoyo Dancers marries the past
with the present as the traditional ceremonial dance is performed
in a modem football stadium.

Givas Mashiri is a self-taught painter and sculptor who lives in
Mufakose, a high density suburb of Harare. He owns and runs a tuck-
shop which is also his studio. His painting Mufakose Shopping
Centre is a romanticised view of a place familiar to him. The details
of the shops, the people, the dustbins and the bushes are all given the
same uncompromising attention.

Joram Mariga,

Uncle Holding Baby, 1957,

29 X 20cm, green serpentine

Atalia Nyoni was one of the first tapestry weavers to be trained at
Cold Comfort Farm outside Harare. TTiis tapestry Beer To Fetch Rain
At The Matopos tells of the events she remembers as a child when
beer was brewed and the people danced to call the rain. There is a
large cave in the Matopos Hills near Bulawayo that is a sacred place
and home of the Great Spirit.

Enezia Nyazorwe was a member of the
Weya Training Centre art project near
Macheke. Her painting A Story About
Termites is in the decorative colourful Weya
style of flat images in a crowded shallow
space. It tells a fantasy story of villagers
who try to gather termites to eat but are
fooled by clever dancing dogs.

Joram Mariga was one of the earliest stone
sculptors to be encouraged by Frank
McEwen, the first director of the National
Gallery in Harare. His small sculpture
Uncle Holding Baby shows the uncle
holding the baby awkwardly upside-down
behind his back. It is said to be the way to
drive out the nightmares of a small child.

Nehanda 's Defiance, an early work by
Tapfuma Gutsa, concerns Mbuya Nehanda
who is revered in Zimbabwe as being the
leader of the first war of liberation. She
defied the settler authorities, calling on the
people to rebel.

No Way To Go (see illustration on Contents page) is by Zephania
Tshuma who lives in Matabeleland. His work is well known for its
pithy social comment.

Atalia Nyoni, Beer to Fetch
Rain at the Matopos, 1995,
90 X 80cm, tapestry

This exhibition is a challenge to Africa to assert its own values. As
the Dadaists and their followers challenged the nature of 'art', so too
can their concept of art be challenged by a return to figuration,
narrative and the traditional ways and means of painting and sculp-
ture. There is something infinitely precious to be lost by genuflecting
to the worst gods of contemporary art. We could lose our sense of
identity and our willingness to communicate with each other in terms
we can all understand.

By sp^lalii'equesj

arid dedicated tokelen Lie!

ns, founder, creator?
r Qf Gallery Delta,^
origins of oip
art centres /
inent

5 hojoe.

a GallerylrTlirifca

Recently, on the 17th Apnl 1995, we celebrated 20 years of Gallery
Delta. We marked the event with an exhibition of paintings,
graphics, sculpture, textiles and ceramics, with one work each by
about 35 artists, all of whom we have shown and promoted during
the two decades, many of whom are today's most prominent
contemporary artists in Zimbabwe, and who collectively represent a
much larger body of artists who have come and shown and gone
over the years. It was seen to be, piece by piece, work by work, a
fine exhibition and I remarked on the opening night that while in
every decade there emerge outstanding artists and works of art, we
would have been hard-pressed to have mounted such a broad,
diverse and quality show 20 years ago; and the reason we are able to
do so now is because the creative and artistic pool into which we can
cast our hook has greater depth, more professionals and professional-
ism than ever before. This exhibition was, so far as we have been

able to ascertain from our records, oh^ut tlte, thjr€£.

huwuLredih exhihilian #/j»^ hoj^e.
niiUutletL anjd pjy4^wiot£j(L, \ am often

asked, by the experts and the curious alike who visit and admire the
gallery and the art it contains: How did this happen? How did you
begin? Where do you come from? Who are you? Most often
surprise is expressed at my explanations... if they are able to elicit
them...

The short reply is to simply say that I married an artist. But really, if
I am to be honest, there is no simple answer because there is history
in all men's lives and in this game of chance we play in life there are
the circumstances in which we find ourselves at a given time; there
are opportunities or lack of them; there are the politics and the
personalities; there is history unravelling; there is the art, the artists
and the work they produce; there is the personal involvement and
commitment; I can only tell it as a story in my own way: the way I
have known it to be; and the truth of a long and patient struggle that
has become the way and the purpose of my life.

Salisbury. Rhodesia, in 1967, when Helen Lieros and I came here
from Gwelo. was a different place in a different time, and that
applies as much to its artistic and cultural state as to everything else.
It was to us, however, "the big city'. First Street was still open to
two-way traffic. There still stood the old Palace Theatre with its

strategic cottpK^ll^d sawdust long bar frequented by extraordi-
nary characters. OntScond Street, Old Meikles was fronted by twin
lions, then thi;<;»|ytgMhe door to the Causerie bar. And despite its
slow pace, there jS'ere the pwlitical tensions which we had to suffer
daily: UDl, the split from Britain and economic sanctions were in
their second year; the African nationalist movements were gaining
strength; incidents of sabotage were becoming more frequent and
the coming of an armed conflict began to appear inevitable. Against
this backdrop, however, we were young and anonymous, and in that,
still hopeful of making our lives in the city and making a contribu-
tion: Helen Lieros was an artist and teacher, and I, a detective in the
CID. Helen had been commissioned to paint four large murals in
tiie Greek Orthodox Cathedral and my fate was to walk the gloomy
cMTicSors of Police Central.

Despite the uncertain security situation and our unknown fates that
politicians at home and around the world were deciding, the sun still
shone and the flamboyants still bloomed magnificiently. Soon we
were to become familiar with the art happenings, such as they were
then, and to get to know the artists and personalities of the time.
There was the Rhodes (now the National) Gallery, that fine modem
building which graced old King's Crescent with the palms outside
and the wonderful gardens behind, and which was the realisation of
the plans and dreams of a few wise men who included Brian
O'Connell, Pat Lewis and Athol Evans amongst others, who had
encouraged Sir Stephen and Lady Courtauld to help create it in the
late 50s. The first director of the Rhodes Gallery was Frank
McEwen who had come out of the British Council fold and from
Paris where he had been acquainted with the greats such as Picasso
and Matisse. He had founded, in a very short time, the Central
African Workshop School and 'Shona' sculpture, and championed
both from under the Rhodes Gallery roof. Henry Thompson, the
painter, has talked enthusiastically and with nostalgia, over coffee,
about McEwen and his feats in those early years. But to us, in the
late 60s, and new to town, the Rhodes Gallery seemed to present an
impenetrable ivory tower of which the black-bearded, black-attired
Frank McEwen was king; and the threshold of which one crossed
only with trepidation. Most often the Courtauld Collection of
British and European paintings would be found displayed, and the
Permanent Collection or the National Annual Exhibition... the one
chance in the year for local artists to have work hung on those walls.
Most of the 'Shona' sculpture was exported as exhibitions to Europe
and America.

McEwen, out of a Western art background, was an authority in a
cultural backwater; he was an expert among non-experts and he set
high standards. The Annual Exhibition, during his tenure, was a
prestigious event; it was then an honour to have work accepted,
much more so than with the successor Heritage Exhibition of the
present day. In addition to his promotion of 'Shona' sculpture,
McEwen encouraged and collected a number of painters for the
Permanent Collection — offhand they were Robert Paul, Thomas
Mukarobgwa, Trevor Wood, Kingsley Sambo, Tom Maybank,
Charles Femandes, Robert Hunter-Craig, Tony Wales-Smith, Peter
Birch, Marshall Baron (notably all males) and perhaps included
Josephine O'Farrell and Anne Lowenstein, who were all older
generation and painters of merit. McEwen showed work by some of
these painters at the ICA Gallery in London early in the 60s, but by
the end of the decade there seemed no way through for them... the
West was clearly only interested in the 'Shona' sculpture. Who
could be expected to support paintings either by colonial settler
whites from a sanctioned country in Africa or by blacks who were
painting in a contemporary rather than an ethnic manner, no matter
how good they might be? (This attitude still persists today.) And so
by the end of the 60s, many painters were disillusioned and discour-
aged. Peter Birch opened an art school. Maybank drifted to
Johannesburg and took up brick-laying. Tony Wales-Smith concen-
trated on his architecture. Hunter-Craig emigrated to Majorca and,
later, Trevor Wood to England. Charles Femandes dropped out of
the scene. Thomas Mukarobgwa abandoned his painting for the
more popular stone sculpture. The only 60s painters of merit to
gamely persist in their artistic quests were Marshall Baron until his
untimely demise in 1974, Kingsley Sambo always struggling
financially and getting drunk in desperation until his sudden death in
the late 70s — shot, I heard, by guerrillas — and Robert Paul until
his death in 1980. Perhaps not so strangely, these are the three
painters of the 60s whose work is today most cherished and stands
the test of time.

But I have digressed, and to return to the state of the art: there was
the Rhodes Gallery, the apex, but there was little art organisational
structure beneath the top of this pyramid. There were small volun-
tary art organisations and societies but there were no art schools or
other exhibition galleries to talk about. McEwen had power and he
exercised his power — his love and joy was the 'Shona' sculpture
and he seemed to delight in chastising amateur white painters,
justifiably sometimes, deriding them for their jacaranda and msasa
landscapes. There was the odd cause for glee amongst this amateur
element when, for example, McEwen raved about an abstract
painting and then the artist (I think it was Neil Park), disclosed to the
press that he had turned the canvas on a potter's wheel and poured
the paint on — then McEwen and modem art were dended by the
conservative whites.

In the early 70s, the country headed into the guerrilla war, known
either as an anti-terrorist campaign or the War of Liberation,
depending what colour or what side one was on or forced to be on...
But of course, life went on and so did an. The black sculptors under
the watchful eye of Frank McEwen at Vukutu and the Rhodes
Gallery were still busy; so too were those at Tengenenge where the
erst-while tobacco farmer, Tom Blomefield, had established a
sculpture community in 1965, which McEwen, probably much to his
chagrin, could not control absolutely. But for the painters, black and
white, there was no protective umbrella. McEwen offered only the
Annual. The city was without alternative exhibition spaces. Oh,
there was in existence then the Cape Galleries selling jacaranda and
msasa landscapes. Richard Rennie opened a framing concern and
displayed popular paintings too. Roy Guthne opened a small gallery
which he called African Art Promotions, which was managed by the
Chilean Arturo Lorrondo who had a good eye, and collected and
exhibited works by Kingsley Sambo, and mostly sculpture by
Nicholas Mukomberanwa, the Mteki brothers, Joseph Ndandarika
and a few others. Tom Blomefield took a room at Meikles Hotel for
his Tengenenge sculpture and later moved to a house in Park Street
opposite African Art Promotions. But none of these places were

spaces suitable or available for painting exhibitions of any size. So
bad was this lack of exhibition space that Helen Lieros, in 1968,
went to The Antique Shop in a very old building at the comer of
Third Street and Baker Avenue to hang her first exhibition in the
city; and the next time, in 1 97 1 , again to The Antique Shop which
had moved to Africa House in Stanley Avenue; the only other
altemative was the top floor of the general store, HM Barbour's,
which she used on another occasion in the early 70s. Other painters
likewise sought out other temporary spaces. There was no hope of
entry to the Rhodes Gallery. In about 1972, Eden Simon, a farmer,
made a brave effort, assisted by Leslie McKenzie and Liza
Bakewell, and opened a three or four roomed space called Tara Arts
on the first fioor of Berkely Buildings, where Joseph Muli, the
Kenyan carver and Peter Gladman, the landscape painter shared a
studio. It was a nice space. This solved the problem for a year or
two but unfortunately the venture was beset with financial problems;
there were no backers and it closed quietly. It was back to the
begining and the country was at war.

It seemed apparent to the younger unrecognised artists including
painters and sculptors who were not 'Shona' sculptors, that it was a
dead end. And let me stress that most of the artists who were being
ignored were the whites who were actually in the majority as
painters, most of the blacks having taken exclusively to sculpture;
and this in a country on which criticism was poured for inhibiting the
development of black art. There was a great deal of frustration
caused by the lack of interest shown by McEwen, the Rhodes
Gallery and the press. But there was no antagonism amongst the
painters and the sculptors, black and white, who got along well, with
mutual admiration for each other because there was no personal
competition — they were artistic parallels — but the painters needed
more exposure than they were getting.

At the end of 1972, Helen Lieros and I were instmmental in
organising a group which became known as 'Circle". The founder
members comprised, as
far as I can recall,
Arthur Azevedo,
Babette Fitzgerald,
Pauline Battigelli,
Lesley Honeyman,
Anne Lindsell-Stewart,
Trevor Wood, Manan
Arnold, Janine
Mackenzie, Mercia
Desmond, Helen Lieros
and myself Later Joe
Muli. Bemard
Takawira, Henry
Thompson and a few
others were to join.
The intent was to create
a voice to challenge the
state of the art of the
country, and the press.
Most often we met at

our flat in Burlington House in Fife Avenue where we had some say
amongst ourselves, let off steam and pondered what to do and how
to make a promotion. It was all very amateur but there was a lot of
energy and our meetings were enjoyable. In early 1974 , when the
country was in the gnp of sanctions and armed conflict. Circle was
so bold, under the chairmanship of Ian Honeyman, as to organise a
major exhibition of its members' work at an exhibition hall at the
Salisbury Showgrounds. This event prompted sharp criticism from
Peter Birch, a painter of the 60s and an ex-boxer, who put on his
gloves again and took Circle to task, in the pages of the Sunday
Mail, for their presumptiousness. Not withstanding this however, or
perhaps because of it — any publicity can be useful — the exhibi-
tion, surprisingly, drew a lot of people, some 5000, and it was
successful. It would be interesting to look at that work again, if it

Artists meeting at
Gallery Delta c. 1975

-TV

been » i

were possible, 20 years later... it may not have beeil ^good*^ I
remember... but it was a start. Sylvia Beck, administrator of the
Rhodes Gallery, came to look and purchased work tor the Perma
Collection. We had made a small impact and to some degree
justified our contention that there was ART being made other than
amateur painting and 'Shona' sculpture. But what else could be
done? One isolated exhibition was not going to change the world.
What more was there to do?

/•■, A

I have tried in the foregoing to set the art sceffe as it was then, as it
seemed to me. And now something about myself, if I am to be
absolutely honest, and which 1 seek to be despite all. Concurrent
with the period I have been endeavouring to describe, and perhaps
symptomatic of the immensely difficult times — the war, sanctions,
the politics, which I felt acutely — I underwent deep personal
unhappiness in my own state of being, with who I was in all my
comple\ities and inhibitions, about my work and my life, its seeming
purposelessness, and I knew endless anxiety and despair. 1 consid-
ered ending it all. Let me try to explain. When 1 married an artist 1
discovered how immensely absorbing the artistic quest is and an
empathy with the artists and their difficulties grew gently and
stcadilyover the years Good God, I was married to one whose
creative ability, will and dedication I believed in. Less than that
would have meant a parting of the ways. In my work, 1 was in
despair at encountering constantly what 1 saw and felt to be the
destructive side of life... people in trouble, in difficulties; the
complainants and the accused, black and white; lives in jeopardy or
broken... the policeman's lot. I was with the Homicide Squad and in
addition to the daily round in the city, there were the patrols to the
bush where one carried one's rifle and played at war. Consequently,
I envied the artists their creativity and work which was to me, in the
scale of vocations, somewhere near the top if still beneath the
spiritual one. Mine seemed to be much further down the scale. But
one carried on, keeping up the front, while the inner man was in
dilemma and despair. TTiere was nobody to turn to. I resisted for a
long time the call of a small intuitive voice but in the end, in late
1974, after years of searching and summoning courage, humbled
myself and called on God to forgive me, to help me and guide me.
My cry was heard and I discovered the existence of God. My burden
was lifted and discovering hope and faith I walked in a new, open
and perceptive way and prepared for the promptings and the
opportunity to change my life. When a man has called upon God for
help and he has been helped that man can no longer deny God. And
that is why 1 write these words.

There were two options that 1 had had in mind for a long time: one
was to write — a hankering from the early 20s when I knew we were
all living day to day history in a watershed time and all that was
needed was to write it down — or alternatively to somehow involve

myself in the arts OT i^ afieit CL qXtH^Mrif And

therein lies the story.

And so it was, one day in November 1974, walking along Manica
Road, on an impulse I went along the passage of Strachan's Build-
ings to the courtyard within. It was the first time that I had been
there and I instantly liked its charm and quaintness. I looked over a
stable door and spoke to a person inside who was packing his
belongings. He said in response to my enquiry that the rooms were

available for rent lOlthlil ttJt fliUir OT tu%a

5 had JLeeuretL the ipuee, and i returned to

my office and tendered my resignation that afternoon. I was to leave
my job within two months and to open a gallery soon thereafter.
Outwardly, it was as easy as that, but, having obtained the space and
made the decision to abandon security, the doubts were soon to come
crowding in like a swarm of flies around my head. How could a tiny
gallery that was to promote contemporary painting in the down-town
streets of Salisbury in the middle of a war make sufficient income to

pay its way let alone sustain a family? But the die was cast, the
decision made and, with a small gratuity to use as capital, or MjM-

cumul fW€ftari*ig. Ifie ipuee <fi^
iLie OJL a Qollerg.,

It was an exciting time but a scary one also. The first artist I ever
approached and asked to show with me, other than my wife, was
Arthur Azevedo, a close and dear friend to this day and who still
shows with us. Things were changing rapidly and I learned to do
things intuitively a|id fearlessly — if it feels right, do it. I applied
for a job because tneeded one to sustain the gallery before I ever
opened it such wathe financial prognosis for a private gallery in
those times... but^y reckoning was to do it because I needed
change. And in doing so, to make an early start, to be operational
and experienced ffr political change when it came, because after all,
despite fears to th4 contrary, it might be all right in the end and we
whites might be pirmitted and want to stay. Surprisingly I got the
post I applied for as Chief Executive Officer of the National Arts

Foundation of Rhodesia. Si^ IIM. G^l£JfieJtL

^jolUvii ^elicL en the 1 7 tit

ef- CytfLI'4-L / V 73 and I commenced employment with

the Arts Foundation on the 1st of May.... I did not have one job in the
arts, but two! Both needed to be built up and developed. I ran the
Foundation by day and looked to the gallery by night and weekends.
And so it went on until I left the Foundation in 1988 to make way for
a new director and resorted to the gallery full-time in an effort to
make it pay a modest wage.

In my schemings for a gallery, I deliberated
long for a suitable name and I sought, with
my philhelene affinities, the Greek connec-
tion rather than the African, and for some-
thing that was geometric for the logo. Thus
the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet —
thelta — appealed. The letter is formed by a
triangle which is a perfect shape, three parts

<Jh^

forming one, like the Trinity.

■ the river

running through it and pouring outwards with connotations of
movement and fertility — seemed appropriate also.

So we had a gallery at last, such as it was to begin with, comprising
three small interleading rooms each measuring no more than 13x13
feet, in which we could mount an exhibition of 20 to 30 paintings
and a few sculptures. The rooms were situated along one side of the
inner courtyard which somebody had nostalgically dubbed Little
Chelsea, probably because of the English bay window, with concen-
tric blown circles in the glass, which set it off It was a good place to
keep people captive for an hour or two and they were forced, by its
small size, to be communicative.

After a year or two, the four rooms on 'The Other Side' became
available. Taking them over doubled our space and gave us more
control of the courtyard. And we had a couple of rooms for storage
on the first fioor which was accessible by stairs and the cat-walk
balcony. T^c other rooms around the balcony were occupied by
small businesses — siik-screeners, tailors and cobblers — who
collectively set up a constant din of voices, music, banging and
hammering; the tread and pedal of the Singer sewing machines
caused so much vibration through our ceilings that our lamps always
blew before their scheduled life-times. And a multitude of scraps —
paper and flock — would find its way and gather on the shanty tin

roof, in the gutters and down to the courtyard. But it was active and
colourful and it became the home of the gallery for 16 years.

We opened with a show of graphics. Amongst the works were some
by Philippe Grosclaude and Therese Houyoux of Geneva and it is
poignant for us that the latter will visit Zimbabwe for the first time in
July this year to conduct a one-person show. Such is the strength of
artists' friendships. But why graphics involving foreign artis^ToJ^**"
the first show? Simply, we had a collection which was different and
had standard, and because we wanted to promote the graphic as a
legitimate artistic method... which is indicative of how backward we
were 20 years ago, for while there were engravings by Rembrandt in
the Rhodes Gallery, the buying public which comprised a tiny
percentage of the white population, did not know the graphic nor its
processes, imagining they were off the photo-litho press at the
nearest commercial printers. And in our first year of operations we
persisted with several graphic exhibitions, including a collection of
contemporary Japanese graphics, to encourage artists at home to
examine and practise these methods.

Having only a tiny space in an obscure, hidden venue, and intending
to promote the best of contemporary art, there was no question of
stocking a shop with a few souvenirs and curios and expecting '
visitors to flock in. There was a need to make Gallery Delta as
vibrant and varied as possible... to get known quickly and to build an

interest Q/t£/i in tliE firil tfeor^ tfy^WL

nuumted. 12 eseluMiianjif loliieli
r€dli£jy Lei tlie pxiUem 4j04^ tlie,

fUtlW^ — a show every three or four weeks throughout the

year, about 15 on average, but the number has been known to rise to
as many as 20 events.

I can well remember the first exhibition, where specific works hung
and who bought them. Fried Lutz and the late George Seirlis who
became ardent supporters and collectors were there that night. I was
very nervous and felt guilty that I had prevailed on all our friends
and acquaintances to be there and imagined that they must have
come out of sympathy. This was a feeling I had for a long time but
which gradually turned into an acceptance that people really were
interested and enjoyed attending to look at and collect art, and for
the pleasure of meeting people. Our critics and sceptics said we
were mad and would not last for six months. And so many times
they were very neariy right! We were starting at the least poptifaL
end of the market, and at, as private galleries go, a nominal commil*
sion. We set the figure of 25% to be as kind to the artists as possible,
but which is about half of that charged in Europe and America and
which we have stubbornly maintained despite the fact that we have
never been subsidised like the Rhodes Gallery which also charges
the same commission.

The day to day minding of the gallery was taken over by Helen's
father, Paul Apostolos Lieros, whose oft response to the query May
we come in and look? was. If you have your cheque book with you.
He was to help us until 1980 when at age 80 he died, almost a year
to the day after being mugged along the passage of Strachan's
Buildings on a Saturday afternoon. In the determined struggle he
had overexerted his heart, and so we lost one of our own, or the
gallery claimed one.

Gallery Delta had been established in an endeavour to provide a
venue for the painters and the graphic, textile and ceramic artists,
and those sculptors who were doing other than "Shona" sculpture.
And having made those decisions it was mainly white artists that we
showed because they were the painters and artists in other mediums.

The black artists almost to a man had become carvers and sculptors
of stone. It was in the stone that money and fame promised to be
and was; and it was also a more readily available and less technical
medium on which to work and which did not demand formal art
training for which there were few facilities. And I think in retrospect
that the success of the stone inhibited the development of painting by
blacks, and for about thirty years. _^^

When we came t&Sonsider who was left among the black painters of
the 60s Siere wet^^wpf any merit. Thomas Mukarobgwa was into
stone. Kangsley Saintio was still about and showing at African Art
Promotions. Charles Femandcs 1 managed to find in the ghetto at
Mbare w^ere the inside of his tiny home was painted with murals
and I managed to salvage an old canvas but of the artistic creativity
of Charles there seemed little lo resuscitate Canon Ned Patterson of
Cyrene of the 40s and 50s and subsequently^yarutsetso at Mbare,
had fostered talent but by 1974, of those prodigies, there was no
trace. The Mzilikazi Art and Craft Centre at Bulawayo was stuck in
the tradition of the eariy 60s with slick amateur Western type
representational renderings of the life in the townships and country.
In the first year we showed wood carvings by Joseph Muli and
paintings by John HIatywayo but inevitably our emphasis was with
paintings by whites. We watched for signs of resurgence amongst
the blacks and tried to encourage where we were able. Apart from
some excursions here and there, it was slow to come...

Editor's note: The sequel to this article describing developments at
Gallery Delta and in the local art scene over the 20 years will be
published in a forthcoming issue of Gallery.

(above) Job Kekana in his studio at St Faith's
Mission, Rusape, in January 1995

(opposite) Job Kekana, Young Girl, 1990, wood

Why is it that we do not appreciate what we have until we have lost it?

Job Kekana died on 10 March 1995.

Here, Pip Curling shares her last meeting with him

A gift that was hiding: Job Kokdna

Afromosia, Job Kekana's favourite wood, is rather like he was; fine
grained, true and warm hearted. I last saw Job in early January on a
bleak overcast day in his small studio at St Faith's Mission near
Rusape. The little room was crowded with drawings, books and the
tools of his craft. A wheelchair stood at the door On the shelf
behind the wheelchair was Job's diploma from the John Cass School
of Art in England. Next to the diploma, two photographs, one of the
young Job with Sr Pauline, the Anglican nun who first recognised
his talent, and the other taken at the National Gallery some time in
the 60s. In this photograph, a Rodin sculpture is on a phnth and a
drawing done by Job of the sculpture is displayed on an easel. Job is
in the company of other sculptors of the time. I recognised Sam
Songo and Henry Munyaradzi.

As he reminisced about his life and work. Job kept coming
back to his close and ambiguous association with Sr
Pauline. He met her at the mission where she taught
outside Pietersburg in the Transvaal. Although not an
artist herself, Sr Pauline was the daughter of a
carpenter and had a knowledge and appreciation of
fine wood. She gave Job the materials and tools he
needed and she guided his work. Job recalled that:
"Art in South Africa at that time was a white man 's
job. Africans must make sticks for stirring pots."

It was because of this. Job claimed, that Sr Pauline
exhibited his sculpture under her name as her own work
When the work sold she gave Job "... afrw pennies as
a reward... But, she was taking something from me
while she was giving me something. She gave me a
gift that was hiding in myself... In life the ones
who are clever live on those who are stupid."

In 1944 Sr Pauline was transferred to St Faith's
Mission. She arranged for Job to follow her At that
time black South Africans were not eligible for passports
so Job came to Rhodesia on a travel document with a permit to work
only at St Faith's. Nine years later, disgruntled with the feeling that
Sr Pauline was exploiting him. Job left St Faith's to work independ-
ently in Rusape. He quickly fell foul of the immigration officials
and had to return to the mission or face deportation. Then came a
commission to carve the mace for the Rhodesian parliament and
after that Job was awarded citizenship. "The first thing I did was get
a passport... I went to England and tried for a job sweeping floors
in art schools... I went to see how people carved, how long it took
others to make a carving. You need to measure yourself by other
people."

John Cass School gave Job a place as a full-time student. After
completing a three year diploma he was offered a teaching post at
the school, but Job chose to return to live and work at St Faith's. He
did, however, visit Italy where he marvelled at Michelangelo's
David. He said; "When you travel between people it makes your
knowledge stronger."

Among his many commissions. Job remembered only a few. He
fondly recalled a small bust of a mother and child bought by Ben
Gingell and given to the people of lona, Scotland, in memory of
southern African soldiers who fought in the Second World War His
commitment to art overrode his own religious and political beliefs.
He carved the coat of arms for the post-UDI Rhodesian government
and he made religious works for the Catholic as well as the Anglican
church. Job recalled that the priest at Monte Casino Catholic
Mission, Macheke, "... had everything from Rome removed and
asked me to carve an African crucifi.x and a statue of the Virgin
Mary. During the war the boys broke everything and they took
Mary. After the war was over I made more."

Job was particularly proud of some of his most recent work: the two
busts of Nelson Mandela and the staff he carved for Archbishop
Desmond Tutu. The latter was made in three parts from
orange wood and jointed with copper It symbolises the
Holy Trinity. "Everything you make must mean
something."

Harare residents can see a fine example of Job's work at
the Anglican Cathedral. His is the large crucifix
suspended over the altar Disappointed that his work
had never been acknowledged by the art community in
his adopted country. Job donated two works to the
National Gallery. One is titled Sorcerer and the other.

Abstract. I asked Job how he felt about abstraction. He
replied; "Abstract art, I like it but it is afiinny thing just to

please some imagining of the mind. Art should be for
teaching the children and reminding them of old

traditions."

■■■ ■ ■■■\

I wondered why he had never gone back to South
Africa. He said; "It is better for me to stay here. I
get a lot of work for South Africa because there they
know you better when you are on the edge."

I left Job working on two small standing naked female figures. One
a pregnant woman and the other a mother breast-feeding her baby.
These were commissioned by a British gynaecologist whose father
had once been a teacher at St Faith's.

The church at St Faith's is one of the oldest in the country. Its
crumbling red brick Romanesque structure nestles behind huge gum
trees as old as itself The interior is a bitter disappointment. A piece
of monstrously ugly darkwood Victorian furniture behind the altar
houses reproductions of sentimental nineteenth century holy scenes.
The nave is dominated by a cement cast of what might be St George.
A fishmoth-nibbled Victorian print hangs crookedly beside the north
door Dusty stations of the cross, carved by some of Job's pupils,
lean drunkenly out of sight on the tops of aisle pillars. Nowhere is
there evidence that, for fifty years, there lived and worked at this
mission one of the finest sculptors of religious art in southern Africa.

and...

Elizabeth Rankin, professor of art history

at Wits University who has done extensive research

on wood sculptors of southern Africa,

writes about his work

Living and working in the mission tradition:

in memoriam Job Kekana

At mission schools in South Africa it was customary to offer
woodwork as practical training for boys alongside their school
lessons. But from the 1920s at the Grace Dieu Anglican Mission
near Pietersburg, this took on a special significance. Through the
iniative of Fr Edward Paterson and the dedication of the teacher in
charge of the workshop, Sr Pauline CR, the carpentry school also
encouraged carving skills. This school was to foster the talents of
Job Kekana, bom near Potgietersrus in 1916, whose time there, from
1933 to 1939, shaped the direction of his career and his carving —
and was still evident in his work at the time of his death.

The focus of the carving school was on craft and
manual skills, chiefly relief carving applied to
church furniture made in the carpentry shop.
Students were not expected to develop their own
designs, as members of the order were considered
better fitted to conceive religious imagery
appropriately.

When around 1938 Sr Pauline was called to the
mother house in Grahamstown and later to St Faith's
in Rusape, Rhodesia, Kekana stayed on for a while at
Grace Dieu to assist with training but then decided
to try his fortune in Johannesburg. Job reserva-
tion at the time restricted his opportunities
in carving for furniture manufacture and,
without the resources of the mission, he
had difficulty marketing his work. So in
1944, he took up Sr Pauline's suggestion
that he join her at St Faith's. Kekana
undertook important commissions during
the 1940s including the panels for the
pulpit in St Mary's Cathedral, Johannes-
burg. Such works continued to draw on
established church traditions, so that they
are not recognisable as African carvings
in style or subject matter. When asked
about this, Kekana explained that he
understood Christ as a white person histori
cally and so depicted him thus — unless specifically asked to do
otherwise. For example, he gave African features to his Christ for St
Mary and All Saints in Harare in 1986 at the request of the Ameri-
can priest who commissioned the crucifix. But often Kekana
interpreted lesser religious figures in a more personal way, in terms
of his own experience. Although dressed in dignified Gothic robes,
his Madonnas frequently have tender African features, as do the
babies they bear. A number of these found their way into British
church collections after Kekana's successful exhibitions during his
stay in England in the 1960s.

When he travelled overseas he was able to see important works by
sculptors like Rodin and Michelangelo, and particulariy admired the
English carver, Grinling Gibbons. But for Kekana his most
important experience abroad was the opportunity to attend classes at
] 2 the John Cass College in London, particularly to draw and model

from life. Although Kekana chose to return to Africa in 1964 to set
up a school for carvers in Rusape, his English experiences contin-
ued to inform his teaching and his work.

Life drawing was an important part of classes at his school, and his
own carving benefited from these studies. For example, his half-
length figure of David from the Old Testament was modelled on one
of his own students, 14 year old David Tsungu. The head has a
personal quality and a more convincing naturalism than earlier
carvings, both in underiying structure and in the nuances of
expression. David Saviour is a moving psychological study,
echoing in his African features the same sense of appre-
hension yet steadfast purpose that informed
Michelangelo's monumental image of the young hero.
Kekana included the hands holding the sling and stone
(rather small in scale, probably because of the limitations
of the block of wood) to show the viewer that Goliath has
not yet been slain. David's eyes, their focus defined by a
catchlight left against the dark, carved-out pupils, gaze
beyond us at his adversary. The sense of life that invests
the image is echoed in the carving style, animated by the
marks of the chisel which create a subtle texture, interacting
with the light on the surface.

Kekana's work remained consistent in style and
quality to the end of his long career, both in
religious images and an increasing number of
secular works. Occasionally he carved portraits,
which display his powers of observation and
able characterisation. Many of Kekana's carved
heads represented "African types' which, in the
context of the Afncan art market, may sound
ominously like the ubiquitous cliched images
made for the tourist trade. However, Kekana
avoided stereotypes and these carvings at their
best are not only very fine technically, but
invested with sensitive individuality, like the
beauty and gentle charm of Young Girl, carved
in 1990.

The value of Kekana's carvings has been overiooked because they
displayed neither the lively, sometimes crude, stylisation of
representation that is admired in contemporary rural art. nor the
sophisticated experimentation of urban modernism. But his work
should surely be evaluated in terms of the religious tradition within
which he was working, and for which the accessibility of his art is
so well suited. The sustained high quality of Kekana's carving and
the integrity of his subject mailer deserve a level of recognition that
they have yet to receive either in his adoptive country or the country
of his birth.

(above) Job Kekana,
David Saviour,
c. 1964, afromosia

Helen Lieros, He/en's Horse (detail),
1994, 86 X 61cm, ink and collage on paper

Lieros

Born in Zimbabwe
of Greek parents, Helen
Lieros with her outspoken,
effervescent personality is
one of the most influential
artists working in Zimbabwe.
In this interview with
Barbara Murray, she talks
about her life and work

BIW: You have three major influences in your life, the Greek, the
African and the Swiss. How are they intermeshed in you and
expressed in your work?

HL: I think basically the main emphasis in my life is to be able to
find out who I am and what I am about. Geneva was really about
exploration, to find out what art was. Because from Gweru, what
was art? It was pretty little landscapes and so on, that was really
suffocating as a little girl. So to go to Switzerland and to discover
Braque, to meet him at his last exhibition, to realise what a weird
guy this was. Why was he sticking things on? Being there, I was
forced to paint like a Swiss. Like I put a red, I'll never forget, and
the professor would make me cross-hatch grey over it to kill the red.
And I would try to say, but sir in my country we've got red. We've
got red trees, red earth. Or we've got a very strong blue. Why do I
have to put a grey over this deep blue? And again you had to sort of
go by the wayside because you knew that you had to work to get a
good mark to get through so you could go on to the second year. I
look back on my studies and I feel good in that I learned the roots,
the basic roots, of drawing etc. which I have used right throughout
my whole hfe but I had no identity. I was like another moo cow with
a big stamp on it when I finished. But it was an exploration.

BM: And the Greek influence? You grew up in a very Greek
household, speaking Greek...

HL: Yes. it was the first language that I learnt. And when I was
studying in Switzerland, my parents never had money for me to be
able to come home for my holidays so I went to Greece which gave
me the opportunity to discover my roots. My whole being was on
the old ancient Greece, the civilisation and all the magnificent art,
the Cycladic, the Byzantine.

BM: And then you came back to Africa?

HL: Yes. then I came home and all of a sudden I realised that I came
from a most beautiful country, that I had never really seen. Although
I think it was inside me all the time... wanting to use the brighter
colours... and I battled for 10 years trying to find who, what 1 am, to
identify with the colour and spirit of Africa. When I was in Greece I
had sketched the Greek peasants, the women, with their dooks,
always dressed in black. And when I came home I saw the African
peasants, the tsoro players, the newspaper sellers. The creative
element and the myth came in. The texture, the land, the people,
everything played a very important part in my life. Then the war

came, the sanctions, no materials, and for me I think that '74 was the
time when I really started creating... as late as that... when I explored
and 1 improvised and I got hooked on trying to make materials and
work with the materials that I was alien to.

BM: When you set out to do a work, do you have a subject in mind,
some event, some emotion?

HL: I don't think I know consciously. I think it is very much a
subconscious process.

BM: Is it inspiration?

HL: 1 don't believe in inspiration. 1 think inspiration, if you want to
use that word, only comes when you have worked and worked and
worked. It is the accumulation of the work and the ideas, the
problems that you have been facing. You are in search of that thing
which occupies you. There are things you feel you've got to get out.
And there's times when your mind is blank and then this is when you
start exploring again. I find maybe my colours are becoming boring
and I get all my bits and piecej and I feel that I need to find some-
thing else to work. It's a preliminary search into something new,
something else... whatever is coming. I think that my biggest fear in
my life is to be repetitive. I would rather stop painting entirely
because I feel that you have to explore. I remember an old professor
of mine saying if you have a standstill period rather go one step
backward so that you can go forward. My step backward is to go
back to drawing, back to just sketching and rethinking. I enjoy
working with drawings. I find it's like people who sit down and
write diaries. For me, my diary is all those sketches that I do.
There's no words. It's the images that portray what I feel.

BM: And you sketch what's around you?

HL: No, it's what comes from my heart, my mind, and my soul.
Things that disturb me; things that make me happy.

BM: So you don't look for outside subjects like nature or land-
scape?

HL: They all stand in my mind but very rarely do I work from
nature. I might just do a contour line that has everything that I want.
The organic, the texture is very strong in what I look at. I love the
positive / negative shapes and the textural qualities.

BM: The texture has always been very strong m your work, even in
your graphics... the acid eating, then the layers of paint, papers, the
collage... when did you start doing collage?

HL: '74 / '75 was my collage. It stemmed from all the work which
was unsuccessful which I kept in boxes. I started using my own
pieces within a painting. Also at that time, it makes me laugh now
when I think of it, our paper was in very very small sizes and I
wanted to work large so therefore I went and stuck two pieces of
paper together and then added collage so that it looked like a larger
piece of work. But then I have a psychological hatred, again very
personal, of using other people's images in my painting, like
magazines or photographs, unless I have taken the photograph,
unless I have gone through the process. It has always got to be part
of me. I don't like takmg from anybody else. Sometimes I'm biased
if you want, but I feel it's not ethical and I thmk this is what is
happening in art. This ethical part is being destroyed. There's no
ethics in a lot of things that are happening today.

BM: A lot of people take pieces from around their environment and
put it together and say this is a work of art.

HL: Yes, but we can take Schwitters for example. I just love his
work. Every little piece was his trip by bus, taxi or whatever. And
] 4 ihe way he put it together. So again that was like a personal

collection. And people may have a mania of collecting toothbrushes,
so I mean, what a wonderful painting you can make of it — a piece
of art from toothbrushes because it's part of you. Also there have
been artists that have used other artists' work. Like Picasso, who
literally copied Manet's Dejeuner sur I'herbe , but what came out of
that? What did Picasso do from that? It was something totally
different. He'd used the composition, that I think is wonderful
because at the same time he was paying tribute to a master. That I
understand. But I'm saying I feel there is a deadline to anything you
do. And my deadline is to use personal, preferably my own, pieces
for collage.

BM: You mention Picasso going back and looking at Manet. Have
there been any artists that have made a very strong impression on
you, that have been influencial, used as a jumping off point?

HL: One person who had a great influence over me in my youth was
Kokoschka. I loved Kokoschka's feeling in his work and somehow I
think I related him to Africa, though it had nothing to do with Africa.
Another artist who had a very strong infiuence on my work when I
first came back home was Daumier; the political thiiigs, the black
and white, the people, and again maybe at that time I was very
attached to the peasants, the people, and the society and the political
possibilities. Daumier and Kokoschka were at that time the strong-
est influences in my work.

BM: It is mteresting that you chose Kokoschka because his work
has a strong sense of inner turmoil, and to me, much of your work is
expressive of storms, violence, turmoil.

HL: Maybe that's the Greek part of me coming out. Probably the
drama. I feel that the biggest thing in my life is to try and be an
individual and try and identify who I really am. It is a battle in my
life, in my work, this identity. Am I Greek? Am I African? And yet
there is a link in the superstitions of the Greek and of the African.
The relationship is very similar in many, many ways. And to be
accepted as a Greek or as a white African... I feel this has been
really my biggest fight. I go to Greece and I enjoy it but I don't
think I'm part of that. And in Switzerland... I find a peace there. I
find a tranquil quality that I've always enjoyed immensely, and
maybe recapturing my youth. But because I'm very sort of aggres-
sive or... I always feel I need the opposite to calm the situation and
give it a good balance. But I think my work is based on this fight
between who and what I am.

BM: Your work is not concerned with material reality, is it rather an
imaginative psychological reconstruction ?

HL: Possibly, yes. Human forms have always been a prominent
feature in my work, whether symbolic or figurative, losing their
everyday appearance and individuality and assuming a degree of
anonymity and stylisation of shape. Their origins come from my
love of the Byzantine stylisation and spirituality and even further
back and beyond, the Cycladic, and linking forward to the African
stylisation. The simplicity of form. I have analysed the anatomy,
the character, and then it's a breakaway to minimalise and just to use
the bare essentials of what is the human figure, what he represents.
Symbolism. I think the symbolic quality has a large part in my
work,., the symbolism of what the human being is or what he
represents, and what the painting is about.

BM: What have been the major themes in your work?

HL: I think ii was the earth, Ihe discovery of Africa, the stratas, the
land lormalion was very strong. Mysticism, ritual, the strong
symbolic force of form and shape, always with a human element,
occur again and again. Man taking over in the space and becoming
the patriarch, the ruler. That again, lor me, had a lot to do with the
war. So much killing. Brother killing brother. The whole turbu-
lence. And ihc bird came into that. It was not the bird of peace, for

which we were all hoping, but it became hke a war bird. Then after
independence, it was the rise of the jongwe. Again the bird, the
cock, the symbol of the party that had won. And there was peace.

Then everything was around my sister, her illness. There were two
or three years when my work was based on the two sisters. It was
very much against the doctors, a hatred, a bitterness that her life
couldn't be saved. She, for me, was the most precious thing in my
life. The two of us were very close. It became very expressionistic,
although the media somehow, oil on paper, was quite soft, but the
work was violent.

Helen Lieros, Icon, 1994,
61 X 43cm, ink on paper

And then after that was the search for my identity
which 1 think has carried on till now. Who am I?
Images from Greek sculpture... torsos appeared, always
enclosed in glass cases as if in a museum with promi-
nent figures, African forms outside. The Artist Viewed
Through a Glass Case.

BM: Which of your recent paintings do you feel are

successful?

HL: One of the good paintings 1 find is my Lobola.
There is a wedding, a woman, black and white.

BM: What were you thinking of when you painted
Lobolal

HL: After my mother died that's the book closed. My
parents' whole life history had been so beautiful and so
tragic and traumatic. My father came to Africa because
he was shipwrecked in Cape Town. He was one of the
survivors and he was waiting for a boat to come and
pick him up. He was in the merchant navy. And
somebody said why don't you come up to Rhodesia
and visit the country while you wait for your boat. And
he came here and he just went crazy about this country.
He was always searching to find a country where he
wasn't an alien. My father travelled all over the world,
so he was not a Greek, more a cosmopolitan in that
sense. And that's how he came to Africa. So what I
did, subconsciously, was like a diary. All the work that
I've done through this whole year has been a diary.
With the Greeks as with the Africans, you have a
dowry and you get married. The dowry in Greek is
proika. In Shona it's lobola. So that figure represents
the bride, the woman who came. But it also represents
Africa, the lobola, so there is an interlink thoughout all
the work, an intermingling. Just before my Mom died
she wanted to go to Greece, for the Easter, and I saw
again the symbolism of the goat and the fast. The goat
to me is a very precious thing because in Gweru there
was always the goat around. So there is the African
goat and the Greek goat. All my work is interlinked
between Greece and Africa, where there is such a similarity, and it is
virtually based on all that has happened. So it's a diary of my land
that I was bom in, that 1 love, and what I have inherited from my
parents.

BM: Ritual, sacrifice, tradition, the goat, all play a large part in both
African and Greek myth. What you identify with in the African
culmre are those same elements that appear in the Greek culture... a
kind of universal symbolism?

HL: Exactly.

BM: Myth could be described as "the soul's need for placing itself
in the vast scheme of things." Why do you emphasise myth when
you talk about art?

(opposite) Helen Lleros, The Red String,
1991, 118 X 128cm, mixed media

(below) Helen Lleros, Heterogeneous (detail of
triptych), 1995, 102 x 92 x 36cm, glypto mixed media

ML: Because myth is something that is left behind
somehow nowadays. The machine, science, technology,
the rational and intellectual have taken over. But for the
human, myth is very important. It has always intrigued
me. Africa is for me a land in which the myth is so strong
and yet we don't seem to look at it. It seems to be
becoming irrelevant. And myth is the so-called 'exotic'
element that the European is trying to find again... the
spirits. In reality, it is the myth that counts so much.
Aesop's fables and the symbolism, that intrigues me. In
the ancient Greek theatre, it's the human spirit turned into
drama.

BM: You recently went down to mount the Zimbabwe
exhibition at the Joburg Biennale. How did the work from
Europe, USA etc, on the Biennale strike you?

HL: I didn't see any paintings! There was technology,
photo montages, photographs. There was really no
painting, the manipulation of the paint, the power of
putting those brush strokes on... there was none of that.
So maybe painting is out, in a sense, out of fashion or
whatever. Things that excited me were the Angolan
artists, the Benin artists, the Hungarians with their
sensitive work. Most of the work that I really responded
to was sculpture or installation. There was no painting
about which I could say, God that was fantastic! Like
when you go to Europe and you go to an exhibition of
maybe even an unknown artist, you go in there and it
knocks you back, as a painting.

BM: Does that make you feel that you want to try other
mediums?

HL; Ah, I'm a painter. I mean I've always tried other
mediums. I've loved etching. I've worked with relief. I
love paper. I've been recycling, making paper and I'm
going back here, in a way, to the creation of my Lucky
Bean Tree where I moulded the paper in relief forms and
embossed it. This has been going on for ten years, in my
studio. Before I was doing these moulds and I had never
been able to put them together. Now I've gone back
again, making more of these moulds, and I just hope that
something will come out of this.

BM; In a general sense, I would say that much of the
work on the Biennale wasn't very concerned with colour.

HL; No, there was very little colour.

BM: And that's an important element of your work.

HL; Oh, very! I mean colour is the light of life. I
respond to colour so strongly. It has so much to do with
my whole world, the reaction. I mean there could be a
black painting but how much of that black is black and
how many other colours do you use to make that black? It
could be a blue black, red black, mauve black, green
black, grey black. It's not just black. It's what you put
into it to try and get that black. And 1 think my preoccu-
pation with colour is far too strong to just push it on the
side. When I came home to Africa it was the colours that
influenced me more than anything. As I began to re-
Identify myself with the African environment so my
painting became broader and my colour stronger, sym-
bolic of the felt experience. Colour for me has become an
emotional translation of visual material. 1 use pure
saturated colours in rich harmonies of warm and cold hues
related to the heat and light of Africa, trying to radiate
their force and vibrance. And texture is integrated with
colour. Who knows, maybe colour and painting might

come back. Most of the work, even in Germany when I went, was
installation and again very colourless as well. But there were
paintings. There were the masters. And I feel what is probably
happening is that the masters did such wonderful work that we
cannot even touch them. Because we will never be Picassos... there
arenomorePicassos... no more Matisses. So basically, psychologi-
cally, I think everybody is trying to find another dimension and
colour is not important to them. Overseas mechanical things are
important, the gadgets, the videos, the lasers, this kind of thing. I am
not interested in the computers and the gadgets.

BM: So you have no desire to use a computer then?

HL: Never! But if I used a computer I would probably tear up what
came out and use it as a collage so it would only be part.

BM: How important was your trip to Germany?

HL; It was very important. It gave me an insight into how we are
here in Zimbabwe in comparison to what is happening elsewhere.
I need to see art, exhibitions and interchange with artists to analyse
myself and my work. We are isolated here. We achieve much by
this isolation because outside influences, movements and trends do

not affect us so much and yet we have to see them to balance where
we are. This stimulus helps us to go forward on our own path and
challenges us to dare.

BM: One of your big involvments locally has been in teaching...

HL: Teaching is important in a sense that I kept up with times, with
the young generation, with their thought, and helped them to express
themselves. Some of my students come from very conservative
backgrounds and you introduce them to things they hadn't seen or
didn't know about, hadn't thought about. You bring out Soutine and
Picasso, Kokoschka, and you open a new door into what people
were trying to say. My involvement also has been with teachers
from the rural areas who have been trying to find ways and means of
being able to have an art club and also provoke thought with their
students and again finding ways to improvise, saying let's work on
newspaper, with mud, the making of brushes. I find it stimulating
and I like young people, I find them very exciting. With the young
generation of our black painters there is so much that is happening
now, and I would rather spend my time in trying to help those who
are producing something different. The different is what I'm looking
for.

Sioffer Geihng

Helen Lieros, Sacrificial Goats,
1994, 61 X 43cm, ink on paper

BM: What do you find particularly interesting in the current art
scene here?

HL: I think it's very exciting. Don't forget that it's been stone,
stone, stone, and now people are exploring colour and again the way
they're moving from something that is very figurative, very
realistic, and breaking it up and exploring the space and finding
something more. Okay, you have a common factor that it is very
much of a socio-subject, like coming from Zengeza to town and the
folk that are ploughing the land. That is normal. But what happens
to those... again the fragmentation, sometimes breaking it up and
making it into maybe an abstract... or the symbolism that is coming
out in the work. They are exploring the media, again the improvisa-
tion of what they can get and what comes out of it. That's
what art is all about... the creativity that is coming out.

BM: Music has been very important in your life, how does it
intedink with painting? How do you see the two art forms?

HL: For me they're so close that it is just unbelievable. With
sound and harmony, orchestral, there is so much colour The
ups and downs, the drama, the peacefulness, the water 1 feel
that sound has so much to do in my life, in my subconscious
world with colour Music and painting, for me, are so
interrelated. Even when I was little and I was playing the
piano, I would see colours. My teacher would say... what,
how are you playing? and I'd say, I see green... and that's a
red note. No, she would say, that's a black note. And I
would say, no that's a red note, because there was a harsh
quality in that note. So my work is very much related to
sound, always has been.

BM: I think of your paintings and music as having a greater
involvement in the inuiitive, subconscious kind of under-
standing and response to life. It isn't the ideas so much as
the feelings that are involved in life that you are painting
about.

HL: Yes, that's what I'm searching for So sometimes even
if my work is static, if I hear a sound or listen to a beautiful
orchestral symphony, it speaks to me, it helps me.

BM: What about religion and the spiritual? You have done a
lot of paintings of subjects like Easter, marriage...

HL: We were talking about old artists like El Greco who
were iconographic, and I love icons, the static, the glow and
the colours... I think they have played a big part in my
painting. The Easter ceremony is very beautiful in the Greek
church. It's not just the spiritual, it's the whole procession,
the symbolism... 1 think it's the symbolism in religion, and
the way it has been retained. Living here, there is a lot. I
didn't find it so much when I went back to Greece with my
mother I felt that it had lost that spiritual... become very
commercial. So I'm not an over-religious person but I love the
symbols, the candles, the rise... there is a warmth in there that sort
of recharges all those batteries, spiritually, that have just disinte-
grated through the year So for me, Easter is very special.

BM: When you're talking about religion, I feel you are seeing it as
a celebration of life...

HL: Yes, for Easter, it is. If you see it, feel it... it is so special. It
gives you an insight. We are living but we don't look within
ourselves, and I think Easter is a time when you look within
yourself and try to find out how you tick and what it is all about.
Even the fast... It cleanses you out and makes you more alert,
makes you thmk on a higher level, makes you more aware, and
makes you search withm yourself Out of my Greek, that is one
thing I have retained, and Easter is one time that I find very special.
Krislos anesli. Christ has risen. It is rising, and you want to rise
inside you. It's very beautiful.

Letters

Dear Editor

I am an admirer of Pip Curling's ability to
express herself, especially her article in
Review in sorting out young African artists
re realism. In reference to her interpretation
of Giants & the Lone Woolf- 1 was very
much affected when I read Malcolm
Bradbury's book 10 Great Writers. These
ten helped usher in 'modernity' - more or
less published between the World Wars. It
was a break away from the Victorian era -
the past. Such a collection of greats in one
volume led me to have the ten photocopied.
I wanted to pay homage.

To think all those great thoughts and ideas
were constructed out of, using a common
denominator - 26 letters of the alphabet
(hence the alphabet at the bottom). The
photocopies were neat-sized about 4x6.
Cutting around the faces I got a key shape
which I thought quite appropos - they were
keys to a new approach to thinking. The
negatives I chose to feel were the shapes of
electric light bulbs - representing the readers
as sentient beings receiving greatness (the
dots inside the heads were 'hits').

Now these ten were all writers, not a
politician nor a scientist in the lot ( two
playwrights) - Joyce, Kafka, TS Eliot,
Conrad, Mann, Proust, Ibsen, Pirandello,
Dostoevsky and Woolf When the women
artists thing came up, Woolf needed
attention as t'was nine to one, male to
female. Needless to say I'm all in favour of
interpretation but 1 also want to defend
universal, eclectic thinking as opposed to
feminist bias. I'm no scholar, just a deep
appreciator of greatness. In awe,

Mary Davies

Mary Davies, Giants and the Lone
Woolf, 1994, mixed media

Dear Editor

It was with amazement followed by
frustration that I read your comments
referring to the lack of a local school of art
(Gallery no 2). Two art schools already
exist in Zimbabwe. For some extraordinary
reason this fact is largely ignored by the
local art community. Your comments in
relation to the following facts would be
appreciated.

1 . The Harare Polytechnic Art School
opened in 1980. Its average intake is 20
students per year most of whom graduated in
the early years with a London City & Guilds
Diploma in Design for print and latterly, a
National Diploma in either Fine Art or
Design for Print.

2. In excess of 200 students have been
trained by us. Many of them hold senior
positions in advertising agencies, design
studios and publishing houses. Many are
self employed, some teaching in secondary
schools. A large number have exhibited
their work at Gallery Delta. Others have
travelled abroad pursuing their careers
successfully.

3. Our present lecturer in charge is an ex-
student who runs the Department extremely
efficiently. Other members of staff include
well known local artists. We are fortunate to
have two expatriate lecturers on our full-
time staff as well as numerous part-time
teachers ensuring a full well-balanced
training.

4. At a recent exhibition at Gallery Delta
several of the exhibiting artists were our
students. This fact was ignored in the
reviews.

5. At the recent Graphic Artists of Zimba-
bwe Association exhibition half of the artists
were either our graduates or members of
staff.

While we acknowledge that the Fine Art
option has only been available for the past
four years, it is difficult to understand why it
is totally ignored. I fail to comprehend why,
instead of offering encouragement and
support to an institution with a proven track
record, the art community continues to yearn
for another Zimbabwe School of Art. It
would be interesting to know how much

money has already been spent on 'feasibility
studies' and such-like for this project which
shows no signs of ever becoming a reality.
It is frustrating for the staff and students at
the Poly to observe this waste when we
know that even a small portion of this
money could have been used to improve our
woefully inadequate facilities. We are
fortunate to be adequately staffed with
qualified, competent, enthusiastic and
dedicated staff - what we need is recognition
and support!

Dianne Deudney

Editor's comment:

'Diplomas' not degrees; 'woefully inad-
equate facilities'; "local artists' as teachers;
plus only one group of Fine Art diploma
students whose work has been exhibited at
Delta; these are some of the very reasons
for the attempt, which began before the Poly
offered the Fine Art option, to get funding
for a fully recognised School of Art with
degree status. Many of the Poly lecturers
have had the benefit of training for a degree
in Fine Art. Why should Zimbabwe's
students be denied such an opportunity?
There is certainly room for argument that the
new School of Art could be developed from
the Polytechnic Department. What is needed
is a comprehensive plan for such a project -
another feasibility study? Can the Poly offer
one? Such studies are essential to persuade
donors to support projects. Yes, a lot of
money has been spent and we can only hope
that it has not been wasted. However, it was
extremely disturbing to read in The Herald
recently that Professor Kahari, Director of
the National Gallery, who is supposed to be
leading the project, and who publicly
declared (as did President Mugabe) at the
1994 Heritage opening, that he would ensure
that this project went ahead within his
tenure, now thinks the School should be set
up in South Africa! They already have
several universities and polys that offer good
degree courses in Fine Art. We need one
here. Were those heartening speeches just
more empty rhetoric? Ironically, Professor
Kahari has been invited to talk at a sympo-
sium in London later this year on the
School! What will he say? Stephen
Williams, former project manager/consultant
SADC Region School of Art and Design
Project, will reply, in Gallery no 5, to the
above letter Any other contributions to the
debate would be welcome.

Nicholas Mukomberanwa,
Woman

Reviews of
recent work

Nicholas Mukomberanwa,

My spirit and I, National Gallery,

March 1995

Nicholas Mukomberanwa is one of the few
veteran Zimbabwean stone sculptors to
have broken the ethnographic mould. This
retrospective exhibition of 72 sculptures
and drawings (1962-1995) however did not
contain his best nor make apparent the
individual stylistic and conceptual
development of his work. In the 60s,
Mukomberanwa addressed traditional
African beliefs and socio-religious themes;
his early style was detailed, rounded, with
exaggerated features as in Rain God and
Chaminuka the Great. This period was
followed by a more expressionist outlook
in the 7()s. when his work announced pre-
indcpcndence prophecies evident in
Breaking Free and showed experimenta-
tion with abstract planes and stylisation.
By the late 80s, post-independence
disillusion preoccupied the artist, captured
in Street Beggar. Greed and Too Many

Preachers. These later works are moralistic
in tone and deal with issues of corruption,
exploitation and the capitalist mentality.
These pieces established the artist as social
critic.

Mukombieranwa's work is narrative and
immediate. Though presented with a
modernist facade, the sculpture expresses
African ideals and mannerisms. This is, for
example, articulated in his rendering of
anatomy and posture. Most of the figurative
works are crouching, seated or kneeling in
typical Shona fashion. His work over the
years reveals a consistent search for a new
way of expressing himself and a progressive
reduction to minimalist statement. Techni-
cally, Mukomberanwa's control of three
dimensional viewpoints and interplay of
forms, coupled with an assymetrical rhythm
of curves and angles in his best work,
reveals his use of both intuition and formal
sculptural intelligence.

It is a pity that some private collectors
refused to loan works to the National
Gallery (though this speaks to the personal
regard collectors have for Mukomberanwa's
work and to the Gallery's unwillingness to
provide insurance), and that the layout
denied any understanding of the artist's
development, as what could have been the
most important retrospective ever mounted
in the country, failed to do Mukomberanwa
justice. TM

The dove's footprints

Marjorie Locke was well known to
Zimbabweans for her commitment to the
arts and crafts of this country. What we
didn't know was that, in addition to running
the old, and facilitating the development of
the new, Bulawayo Art Gallery, in the face
of seemingly endless and insuimountable
obstacles, she was quietly carrying out an
in-depth study of the traditional woven
patterns found in the baskets, mats, beer
strainers, penis sheaths and other household
objects of the Ndebele people. \nThe
Dove's Footprints, published posthumously
by Baobab Books, her work has come to
fruition. The name and a concise explana-
tion of the origin and meaning of each
basketry pattern is given, accompanied by
illustrative close-up photographs. The
simple direct text gives the materials (a list
of botanical names is included), dyes,
techniques and uses, as well as identifying
which district each object comes from. A
detailed introduction sets the cultural and
historical background and space is given to
a description of the coiling, twining,
starting and finishing techniques employed.
The book closes with a look at variations on
traditional patterns, contemporary patterns
and the effects of commercialisation. Line
drawings indicating the form of the baskets
would have been a useful addition. The
layout has been beautifully done although
the designer has been seduced by the
softness of the dove rather than the more
relevant crisp markings of its footprints.
Our knowledge of the material culture of
Zimbabwe is enlarged and enhanced by this
immensely pleasurable book. TTiis nation
owes another debt of gratitude to Marjorie
Locke. BM

The Dove's Footprints by Marjorie Locke,
Harare: Baobab Books. 1995, Z$1I0.

Raku workshops, Rosselli Gal-
lery, Masvingo, March 1995

F'our raku gla/ing workshops run by Gemt
Mcyburg of Gwaai Potteries were recently
held at the Rosselli Gallery. Raku is a very
direct quick method of glazing, creating
random markings and textural effects. The
pot is taken out of the kiln red-hot where-
upon the glaze 'crazes' or cracks on
exposure to the air. While still hot the pot
is smoked in leaves, grass or sawdust
causing various stains and markings. These

A new venue: Pierre
Gallery, March 1995

Eagerly anticipated as a new artspace, the
Gallery Pierre threw open its doors to the
public at the end of March. Former
Alliance Francaise and Le Forum curator,
Olivier Sultan, has created his own

n d

effects are preserved by plunging the pot
into cold water. The resulting colours are
rich; blues and greens oxidising to reds.
Ceramics in Zimbabwe have been suffering
from a lack of inspiration. Let's hope this
initiative will spur the potters on. For
visitors to Masvingo, the Rosselli Gallery,
recently re-opened under the enthusiastic
new management of John and Nicky
Rosselh, is at 39 Hughes Street. NR

Visual arts by BAT students,
National Gallery, May 1995

Students, particularly in our conformist and
conservative society, need to be encouraged
to express themselves freely, to explore, be
bold. They also need to be pushed into
thinking about their subjects and engaging
with the ambiguities of life. Work on this
exhibition is disappointing in its scale and
treatment. The predominance of small
monochromatic pnnts may testify to the
learning of techniques but in the end the
artist uses whatever materials she/he can get
to carry her/his personal, evocative vision.
One student who is developing a strong
personal style and statement is Harry
Mutasa. His paintings display a pleasure in
colour and movement, and his metal
sculptures capture the physical tensions of
bodies with humour and panache. The
range of his subject matter indicates an
awareness of the multiplicity of creative
possibilities. Another young artist of
promise is Givemore Huvasa whose small
etchings were sensitively done. The
improving standard of the graphics holds
possibihties for the future. BM

Harry Mutasa, Sunbathing
Nude

exhibition venue at the comer of Churchill
and Normandy Avenues in Alexandra Park,
Harare. The gallery is a converted resi-
dence, graced with a pool and a landscaped
garden, temporarily home until the end of
July to the first exhibition of — for want of
a title — Sultan's Favountes. The Northern
News put it succinctly when they said of the
exhibition: "All of his old favourites of
wood and stone are there: Gutsa, Jack,
Munyaradzi. Tshunia and others " and
indeed the show represents much of the
talent that Sultan has highlighted, and in
some cases nurtured in former exhibitions,
now all brought together under one roof.
The work is displayed throughout the house
and in the garden beyond.

I am particularly fond of Fanizani Akuda's
mischievously smiling figures in stone. His
faces seem to combine characteristics of
oriental and Shona features, in humourous
surrender to all of life's vicissitudes.
Zephania Tshuma's work, often vaguely
obscene and sometimes very amusing —
jutting red penises and figures with heads
stuck up their bums — are also here in
profusion. Rashid Jogee's masterly
painting, justly named So That We May
Know Each Other, spans one entire wall.
His wildly stroked paint, vigorously applied
layer upon layer, seems to blow all ways at
once and creates a dynamic tension amongst
the more serene works that surround it. I've
never much gone in for the darling of the
stone sculpture afficionados, Henry
Munyaradzi, but his ubiquitous, blank,
circular-eyed signature faces, adorning all
manner and shape of stone, are here amply
in evidence. Lazarus Takawira's sculptures
remind me of birds about to ascend in flight.
These sleek and streamlined creatures are
perhaps the most stylised of all the works on
display paying little heed to the stone from
which they are delicately carved. Aside
from Jogee. amongst the painters. Celine
Gilbert's darkly expressionist paean to the
last call. The Pub. most impressed me, as
did Jill Bond's delightfully sensual Sleep-
less Nights.

Sultan plans to hold regular one-
person shows on a
monthly basis and hopes
that this new venture will
generate fresh criticism
and closer dialogue
between artists and the
public. DJ

Africa 95 begins in August and runs until
December throughout Britain. Keston
Beaton may attend a workshop and exhibit
at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and possibly
other Zimbabwean work by Berry Bickle
and Keston will be at the Delfina Studio
Trust in London. Exhibitions include:

forthcoming
exhibitions
and events

Contemporary Metalwork in Africa (Crafts
Council); The Art of African Textiles
(Barbican); Africa: The Art of a Continent
(Royal Academy of Arts) ; many other
galleries will also be having African
exhibitions (details from the Editor).
Margaret Garlake will be Gallery's eye in
London, and Tony Mhonda will be in
Yorkshire, givmg us their impressions of
Africa 95 and its impact in Britain.

Therese Houyoux from Geneva will be
exhibitmg paintings and graphics at Gallery
Delta from Tuesday 25 July. Houyoux
works with the human form, exploring
through process changes in imagery.

Amal<hosi Theatre from Bulawayo will
be holding their Inxusa festival at Gallery
Delta in August. Cont Mhlanga's group is
justly renowned for their energetic expres-
sive drama. Don't miss this chance to see
some of Zimbabwe's best — watch the
press for details.

Helen Lieros will exhibit paintings and
graphics at Gallery Delta in late June/early
July. The works are part of her Inheritance
series and will feature new developments
using paper mouldings.

Women artists of Zimbabwe will be the
focus of the Longman exhibition at the
National Gallery from early August to mid-
September, Also exhibited during this
period, will be work by Harare Polytech-
nic students. A chance to gauge the
potential of the Poly as Zimbabwe's 'School
of Art'?

Martin van der Spuy will exhibit
paintings at the Pierre Gallery in July. At
the same venue in August, a one-man show
by Joseph Muzondo will feature stone
and metal sculpture, and in September,
Brighton Sango's stone sculpture will be
on show. Pierre Gallery is running a
competition with Alliance Francaise on
the theme of 'Sport and Movement' and
prizes will be awarded.

^^g^S^'

^^.'%.^^.

The art magazine from Gallery Delta

' .^i; ^-;i

^?»^J;1

Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe

Gallery Delta, the publisher and the editor gratefully acknowledge
the following sponsors who have contributed to the production
of this issue of Ga/Zery magazine:

Anglo American Corporation Services Limited

The Rio Tinto Foundation

APEX COBPORATION OF ZIMBABWE LIMITED

Joerg Sorgenicht

Ddta Lorporatton Umitefl

allery

Contents

September 1995

17
18

Artnotes

To celebrate a landscape: an interview with Henry Thompson

Open places: a Comishman in Africa
by Peter and Margaret Garlake

Jean Hahn: impressionist of Africa
by Barbara Murray

Ways of seeing the rural landscape in Zimbabwean fiction
and painting by Tim McLoughlin

Thomas Mukarobgwa: memories of nature
by Pip Curling

Letters

Letter from London
by Margaret Garlake

Reviews of recent work and forthcoming exhibitions
and events

Cover: Henry Thompson. Bri(lf;e. 1995. 30 x 40cm,

acrylic on canvas. Photo by Dani Deudney

Left above: Tapfuma Gutsa, Gadget of Influence, 1995,
approx 200 x 40cin. mixed media.

Puolisher: Derek Huggins. Editor: Barbara Munay. Design & typesetting:
Myrtle Mallis. Originatio n by HPP Studio. Printing by A.W. Bardwell &
Co. Paper Express from Graphtec Ltd.

Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not be reproduced
in any manner or form without permission.

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the writers
themselves and not necessarily those of Gallery Delta, the publisher or the
editor.

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Artnotes

So Gallery has survived one year in print
and the wealth of material that deserves
publication is so large that, finances
allowing, we will be publishing well into
the niillenium. In this issue oi Gallery, we
focus on one of the major strands in
Zimbabwe's artistic tradition: landscape.

The visual experience of nature and
people's interaction v\'ith nature have
continuously absorbed painters in Zimba-
bwe, from the earliest San artists who
expressed their consuming communion with
nature on their cave walls to our more
recent painters who have almost all included
landscape, at one time or another, in their
work.

Landscape painting offers the viewer a
foothold in nature — a way of seeing a
specific place, of experiencing the perma-
nency, the variety and the flux of existence.
It reminds us of the origin and absolute
foundation of our existence: the enduring
cycle of destructive and creative change of
which humankind is only a recent and often
irritating fragment.

Landscape is not currently 'popular' content
in the art of First World countries where
over-industrialisation and the ramifications
of technological progress, urbanisation and
excessive materialism make individuals'
relationships with nature increasingly
tenuous. In Zimbabwe, we are still very
much figures in a landscape. The majority
of our population lives in countryside.
Towns and cities are relatively small
outgrowths. All but main roads readily
revert to grass and mud. Many of those
who do live in cities either have close ties
with extended family and inherited land in
the rural areas or treasure their easy ability
to get out into the 'bush'. Despite history,
politics and emerging techology. nature still
dominates our lives. The land surrounds.
The drought threatens. The rain brings
release. Nature is patently and directly the
source of our survival. In Belgium recently
when 100 children were asked to draw a
chicken, 7S of them drew a headless,
plucked, frozen, packaged version! This is
not yet the scenario in Zimbabwe. In a
global context. Africa is one area where
natural forces arc pre-eminent and this is
reflected in our art.

Perhaps too. the landscape of Africa itself
arouses a strong response, demanding an
image. In his KclKni to Paradise, after
years of exile, the committcdly political
Breytenbach admits:

■"... ihe essence ofAfrku is in its clariiy.
its bareness, its hariztms burned clean of

hisliiry and of time... I nas filled with
awe at the eternal beauty of it, diminish-
ing our human concerns, or at least
putting all in a bigger perspective."

Modern angst which springs from and
focuses on our moral and philosphical
uncertainty and our potential destruction of
ourselves and our environment is by
omission a statement of the importance of
landscape. While expression of that angst is
honest and essential, it has become unbal-
anced, a dictatorial mindset. Talking about
the work of the Post-impressionists, Dr A C
Barnes, founder of the Barnes Foundation
collection, said that their paintings were
"richly expressive of life that means most to
the normal man alive today." He wrote
later:

"If the creative impulse leaves its mark
in a material that generates similar
feelings in other people, the work of art
is a human document of permanent
worth. Its degree of worth is determined
bv the extent to which the artist has
enriched, improved, humanized, the
common experience of man in the world
in which he lives."

I would venture to suggest that much of the
newest art coming out of people's experi-
ence of the deteriorating natural environ-
ment in First World countries serves only to
impoverish, depress and dehumanise the
world in which we live. Much of this art is
shocking and disturbing, a valid, necessary
response to contemporary reality but it
offers little in terms of positive alternatives.
Landscape painters in Zimbabwe allow us
to experience the power and beauty of
nature and our place within that beauty.

This is nol a promotion of idyllic and
Utopian |)astoralism but rather a reminder
that landscape paintings "... possess...
regenerative power... and demonstrate once
more that luiture could be the ultimate
.source of strength for the contemporaiy
world." Pissarro said, ".Salvation lies in
nature, iww more than ever." He lell that
the troubled times in u liich they lived (in
1900!) dcmandcil a keen awareness of the
visual world and that developing a sensitiv-
ity to nature was vital nol only to goinl art
but also to meaningful existence.

One of the greatest artists of the 2()tli
century. Cezanne, encouraged artists,
"There i\ a passing moment in the world.
I'aint it in all its reality. Forget everything
else for that." Part of our passing moment
in Zimbabwe is our still dominant and
stunning landscape, largely unaltered as yet
b\ the particular scoiMgcs of what we couki

label the 'over-developed' world. Zimba-
bwean artists continue to attempt to capture
its significance for our lives and to offer
human documents which can enrich,
improve and humanise.

In this issue we focus on a few of the varied
representations of landscape in contempo-
rary Zimbabwean art. There is not room to
include many who deserve mention but it
serves to affirm the place landscape painting
has in our community despite its not being
chosen for exhibition overseas. Along with
the figurative, abstract and conceptual,
landscape maintains its place and contrib-
utes to a "bigger perspective" in our art
scene here.

In the review of Nicholas Mukomberanwa's
retrospective exhibition in Gallery no 4,
reference was made to the National
Gallery's "...unwillingness to provide
insurance." The Head of Exhibitions
assures us that the National Gallery does in
fact provide full insurance on any works
loaned by collectors. However, works
brought to the National Gallery by artists
are subject to restricted insurance. We
apologise for any damage the statement may
have caused to the National Gallery's
reputation.

Art revels in and seeks to understand and
express the variety and multiformity of
human experience. One thing history
proves is Ihe impossibility of pronouncing
infallibly. A short time ago in Zimbabwe
one man infamously pronounced "never in
mv lifelime" now we have another pro-
nouncing "never ever"\ It may lake time
but ine\ itably his dictate will be reversed by
knowledge and justice. Art history reveals a
continuum of change in people's under-
standing and Galleiy actively sets out to
provoke such changes. We aim to present
art from Africa so that people both here and
elsewhere may see the varied representa-
tions of local experience. We also seek
views on art from beyond our borders and in
this issue we include a "Letter from
London' bv the well-known art critic.
Margaret Garlake. Perhaps the w ork she
offers and her insights may spark some
changes locally.

The Editor.

Henry Thompson, Mountain, 1995, 61 x 76cm, acrylic

To celebrate a

landscape

Filling his canvases with light, colour and space,

Henry Thompson, has worked slowly

to build up a distinctive body of work.

In this interview with Barbara Murray

he talks about painting landscape

and his latest canvases.

BM: Henry, I've known you and your work for many years now
and what surprises me is not so much that you have recently started
making Nyanga landscapes but rather that you haven't done so
before!

HT: Well, I know that for both of us Nyanga has always stood high
on the list of favourite places. It is both visually and emotionally
very accommodating, isn't it? But I cannot remember ever wanting
to paint it. Besides, in the early days my interests were elsewhere,
I was drifting into an abstracted mode of expression and the
Nyanga landscape just did not fit the bill. I was doing mostly land-
scapes, getting progressively more abstracted. I wanted to see how
far I could push the landscape into abstraction without losing the
image.

BM: Why do you consistently choose landscape as your subject?

HT: Because for me it is such a sane thing to do. I grew up on the
edge of the Kalahari which is a part of the world fairly often sub-
jected to prolonged droughts and one has no choice but to deal with
essentials if one is going to survive. You learn to read the land-
scape.

BM: Modernism and post-modernism largely ignore landscape.
What place do you consider landscape painting to hold in contem-
porary art'.'

HT: Perhaps not a prominent place but this is not unusual. I don't
think it is all that often that the landscape achieves the prominence
it had with Constable and Turner, and then afterwards, with the
Impressionists and the Fauves.

BM: Many of your works incorporate the human figure in the land-
scape. What is your thinking behind this?

HT: The figures I tried to integrate into the surface of the land-
scapes in such a way that the one cannot be .separated
from the other. The thinking is that if you are going to
destroy the landscape you will also destroy the figure.

BM: Who have been the influential artists for your
landscape work? For example, in your early painting
days you must have been aware of the Nyanga land-
scapes that Robert Paul was doing at the time. How did
you react to them?

HT: By the time I got to see Robert Paul's work, I was
already a confirmed Nyanga addict. I was impressed by
his work and I still am. He is for me the foremost
painter of the Nyanga landscape. During the 60s. the
Rhodes Hotel was run by a woman whose name escapes
me for the moment. .She owned a good collection of
Robert Paul's Nyanga landscapes which she hung in the
sittingroom just off the main entrance. This room
became my first port of call whenever I went to Nyanga.
When she eventually left she took the paintings with her
and it has never been the same since.

BM: What is il about Paul
like?

work precisely that you

HT: I don't believe one can ever say anything 'precise-
ly' about painting! No, his biggest attraction for me is
something completely different: he was a no-nonsense
person antl he painted that way!

BM: Apart from Robert Paul's work. I know that you
read widely and have studied the works of other land-
scape artists such as Cezanne... .

HT: Ah! Cezanne. I thought you would get around to him; one
always does. Didn't you tell me you went to Aix some years ago?

BM: Yes, I did and I wish I'd understood him better then. Even so,
what struck me was how Cezannesque the landscape still was and
perhaps always will be.

HT: Yes, well this gives one some idea of the measure of this her-
mitical old genius. His prolonged and probing dialogue with Mont
Sainte-Victoire must surely be one of the greatest triumphs in the
annals of landscape painting. One feels that his exploration of this
landscape was largely an exploration of the self. D H Lawrence
wrote somewhere that Western painting has never been able to
achieve anything worth a damn apart from the few apples that
Cezanne painted. Well, as we all know, he became a power-house
for twentieth century art. The trouble though is when you plug into
a genius of this stature you plug in at the level of your own under-
standing and the results are not always commendable!

BM: What about Matisse, Picasso, De Kooning, Soutine,
Beckmann etc... painters you often refer to?

HT: When we are talking landscape there is not much to be said
here. Matisse is regarded by many as possibly one of the best land-
scape painters of this century. While he was still a student, Gustave
Moreau told him that he was destined to simplify painting. Well he
did and he did it beautifully. If one considers that he is also one of
the greatest colorists ever, I can't see how he could possibly go
wrong with landscape! But he felt no great attraction for it and
neither did Picasso. Soutine on the other hand did, and all those
strange landscapes that seem precariously to teeter on the edge of
total chaos which he painted while he was living in Ceret were to
have a lasting effect on many subsequent painters including De
Kooning. But it is De Kooning's more structured paintings that
appeal to me, paintings such as Door to the River. Montauk High-
wax and Ruth Zowie for instance.

BM: Getting back to your curreni preoccupation, does the
Nvaniia series on which you are now working differ in any way
from other series that you have done in the past?

HT: Well, there haven't been all that many. Not only am I not
prolific. I'm as slow as all get out... but to get back to your
question. No, not really. Apart from the Ov/P/A/zu/i/c series,
they are all of them about landscape. And even the cafes should
be seen as the places of concord in the transit from one land-
scape to another. The Cafe Afrique series started sometime in
the 80s. I have been an incurable cafe-ist for most of my life
and the cafe theme, for me. suggests a wide range of possibili-
ties: I'm working on it!

BM: So that's what you are doing in the cafes..
What is it about cafes that intrigues you?

research!

HT: It has more to do with being recharged than being
intrigued. It's a place away from the place where you work,
where, if your luck holds, the coffee is good and so is the com-
pany. It's a place where people come and go... But getting
back to the series, my first was called Refuge and was the direct
result of the armed struggle in the 70s. I did these paintings in
an effort to come to terms with my own anxieties. They were
inward-looking landscapes with all self-revealing markings kept
to a minimum and are perhaps the most abstract paintings I
have done. They spilt over into the early 80s as interrupted
images and barricaded landscapes. About this time, give or
take. I did a big painting of two bathers in the open to mark the
end of hostilities.

Meanwhile a new series, which I called Mozambican Summer
was on its way. These paintings, on which I worked off and on
until the early 90s, were landscapes anticipating more pleasur-
able times in this sub-region.

BM: How and why did this Nyanga series begin?

HT: A few days after the opening of a solo exhibition of mine
at Gallery Delta in "92. Sarah and I went to Nyanga. Some
months later I did my first Nyanga landscape. Before the year
was out I did another one. The following year I worked on
other paintings and then, in "94. I returned to what was now
obviously becoming a Nyanga series. What 1 had in mind right
from the start was to do some, not too many, moderately sized
paintings to celebrate a landscape that has given me so much
pleasure for so many years.

BM: Your reluctance to paint the Nyanga landscape has been a
longstanding one. Now we have this present involvement.
Could this series have been induced by the Mozambican
Summers, both being about the pleasure of landscape?

HT: 1 would not rule that out. but you know it is amazing how
much visual information filters through even when you may be
looking with only half an eye. And you need this information
when you respond emotionally to whatever comes to demand an
image. I think this is how the creative process works for me.

BM: Did you have a clear picture in your mind of the images
that you wanted to make?

HT: Not clear, no. But I knew I wanted to create a spirit of
place that would be a celebration of the landscape. The thing to
do was to avoid the extremes of visual inimicry or the hiero-
glyphics of introspection.

BM: What do you mean when you talk of "visual mimicry"?

HT: What 1 mean is a too detailed graphic description that will

completely swamp the feel of the place. As I said before, what I
was after was to create a spirit of place with only enough visual in-
formation as touchstones to achieve this.

BM: What appeals to you most about the Nyanga landscape?

HT: It has a quality of light that appeals to me greatly. I am talk-
ing about the emotional light rather than the physical one. And sec-
ondly, the space. For a mountainous terrain it is remarkably open
and uncluttered.

BM: Light and space would suggest colours...

HT: Exactly. I was going to have to rely on colour to do so many

things for me. For instance, how do you paint mountains fairly
close-up so they don't block thai opennesss you wish to achieve?
The only solution I managed to come up with was to run the colour,
let's say blue, of the sky, as far down as possible and then drawing
the outline of the mountain, a simple line, somewhere in this blue
colour field. In other words, the mountain and the sky are exactly
the same blue. Now when you look at this painting the blue below
the outline of the mountain seems to be slightly darker than the
identical blue of the sky. Colour can be very obliging, sometimes!

BM: Now that many of the paintings are completed do you feel
reasonably satisfied or do you...

HT: Please don"t say it! You know, in the Pompidou Centre there
is this marvellous painting by Matisse called Violinist at the
Window. He stands with his back to the viewer playing his violin
and I think Matisse was right. I can"t help feeling that instead of
doing these Nyanga paintings, a lively tune played on a pennywhis-
tle for instance would have been much more to the point. don"t you
think so?

(above) Henry Thompson, Hill, 1995, 111 x 120cm, acrylic

(left) Henry Thompson, The Wader, 1995, 51 x 41cm,
acrylic

(above) Peter Lanyon, Portreath Watch, 1962, 183 x 122cm, oil on canvas. Within
weeks of his return from southern Africa, Peter Lanyon was painting the small
Cornish harbour of Portreath. He continued to do so throughout his life.
Portreath Watch, 1962, is his last painting of the subject.

(right above) Peter Lanyon, (title unknown), 1938, 33 x 40cm, oil on board

Peter & Margaret
Garlake discover
evidence in
Zimbabwe of the
effect of the
African landscape
on Peter Lanyon,
an artist of inter-
national stature

The open places
a Cornishman in Africa

In September 1993. during a visit to
the office of a keen art collector in
Harare, two small landscape paintings
of southern African views attracted
attention by the vigour and freshness
of their treatment. The collector told
us he had bought them at the auction
of the contents of an old colonial
house in Harare. He had read the sig-
nature on them as "Ganyon" but his
research had failed to reveal any south-
ern African artist of that name.

It appeared to us that they were almost cer-
tainly very early works of the Cornish
artist, Peter Lanyon, for whom we had both
had, for many years, a particular enthusi-
asm. The paintings were removed from
their frames to see whether there was any
confirmatory evidence on the backs. There
was not, but one bore a painting of the
Conical Tower of Great Zimbabwe, con-
firming at least that the artist had visited
this country. Slides of the paintings and
descriptions of the signature were sent to

Lanyon's widow. Sheila, who immediately
confirmed that they were indeed by him.

Peter Lanyon was bom in 1918 in the
Cornish fishing town of St Ives. His father
was at the centre of the town's lively artis-
tic community; he was also somewhat of a
political radical and. for instance, a strong
supporter of the Afrikaans cause in the
Boer War. Peter studied art during his
schooling at Clifton College and later at
Penzance Art School. Encouraged by the
art historian, Adrian Stokes, he then joined
the Huston Road Art School in London to
work under William Coldstream and Victor
Pasmore. Though he considered this an
"exceedingh good training", he left after
only two months. At this time, Lanyon's
paintings were set down in a lively,
sketchy manner which inevitably showed
the impact of his teachers and of the great
modern pioneers and sometimes hinted at
the sensuous paint and bold marks of his
mature work.

A few days after his twentieth birthday,
Lanyon, his mother Lilian and his sister
Mary went out to South Africa. Prior to
her marriage to Peter's father, Lilian had
been married to a mining engineer on the
Rand. He had died of tuberculosis very
young. The family arrived in Cape Town

young. The family arrived in Cape Town on
25 March 1938 and travelled to Johannes-
burg where Lilian's first husband's family
entertained them and introduced them to the
social life of the white middle class. Peter,
radical and politically aware, was shocked
by white racial attitudes and was attracted
by the bush more than the cities. They
made several excursions from Johannes-
burg, the most memorable being to the
Mont aux Sources in the Drakensberg where
Mary vividly recalls that Peter was so
impressed by the drama and vastness that he
sketched while he rode.

On 21 May the three left for the Victoria
Falls where Peter, who painted assiduously
throughout the trip, was furious because the
light was too harsh to work. Peter then
spent two or three days in Northern
Rhodesia.

'■/ said I wuiueil lo paint an African, sn they
got a native to stand up in front of me and
play a concertina, one of those round ones.
and I hated it. I couldn 'I paint him and yet I
couldn 't understand what I hated — there
was sometliiiifi terrible that this man should
be standing up and doing this. I remember
what I did. I threw the painting away and I
sat down and asked him to sit down — he
was ven,' embarrassed about this — and
asked him to play, and he played some
marvellous music, and I still get echoes of
what he played from this music that is
played by the Cape coloureds and the
Africans in the Cape, which I think is even
greater than jazz"

The party then returned through Bulawayo
where they visited the Matopos and Peter
greatly admired some of the rock paintings.
Between 29 May and 12 June, the Lanyons
stayed with the Crease family in Salisbury
from where they visited Mazowe, the
Chinoyi Caves and Great Zimbabwe. On
the voyage out to South Africa, Peter had
become attached to Peggy Crease, who was
later to marry a van Niekerk whose brother
was a tobacco farmer The two paintings
first identified may have been given, by
Peter, to the Crease family.

This was almost the end of their trip; they
spent 14 to 16 June in Johannesburg. One
ill-documented episode remains. In
Johannesburg. Peter held his first one-man
exhibition. This could either have been in
May and included paintings made in the
first two months only, or during the two
days at the end of their visit to include
paintings made in their three weeks in
Rhodesia. But two days is scarcely time to
select, frame, catalogue and hang an
exhibition: Peter was at this time painting
prolifically, probably producing at least one

painting every day, so he would have had
ample material to select from before they
left South Africa for the north. The most
logical guess is that most works were
selected and the show prepared before they
returned. Mary recalls only that the gallery
was a small, upstairs space and that no other
artist shared the show. No catalogue
survives but given that, at this time, Peter
was working on a small scale, he probably
showed at least 20 paintings. Two of them
may be those identified in Harare. Two
were recently sold by Sheila Lanyon. She
retains one, of Cape carts probably in Cape
Town. On the reverse. Peter painted a
portrait of himself in the uniform of the
Royal Air Force which he joined in 1940.
Another, a larger work, of houses in Cape
Town with Table Mountain in the back-
ground, was given to the Newlyn Art
Gallery for auction in 1969 and re-auctioned
in Penzance in 1994. Some are almost
certainly still in South Africa or Zimbabwe,
unidentified by their present owners.

Lanyon later spoke eloquently of the
importance to him of the African experi-
ence:

".South Africa had an immense influence
cm me. I found I suddenly met a country
which was uncultured, a country that was
wide open and had no sensibility: ify(ni can
understand what that means about a
country. It was so at the Cape, which had
an oldness about it. and was so in the bush
amongst the animals... The country was loo
big for me. in fact it was so big I insisted at
one time that I must go up one of the
mountains, so I went with my sister on
horseback and I remember climbing up a
rock face of about 300 feet at about 9500
feet up and sweating with the lack of
oxygeti. We spent the night up there on top.
I found that I really began to get to grips
with it. And I've still got drawings that I did
on the back of a horse on the way up. ami I
think they actually luut cm influence on my
interest in very high places, vaslnesses. for
instance in what I would call a frontier
civilisation, something which is not
established and small and tiny and meticu-
lously kept like Britain or Switzerlaiul. but
the open places... When I came hack here I
got extremely disillusioned with painting
what was in front of me. I found that going
down the coast and painting a hit of
lUmnibal's Cam or Zennor Cam was very
boring because I had tricks ami ways of
doing it."

Often inaccurately described as an Abstract
Hxpressionisl painter, Lanyon was certainly
intensely aware and interested in all
developments in this field, visited the
United States with increasing frequency and

became a close friend of Mark Rothko and
Robert Motherwell. However, Lanyon
insisted on the "primary importance of
knowing before making" and while his
paintings often resemble those of gestural
artists working "on automatic", his own
process was far removed from their Zen-
inspired emptying of the unconscious. Yet
his art was also intuitive: intuition was set
to work on a vast store of information
recording his relationship with the country-
side. Throughout his life. Lanyon insisted:

"I'm really Just an old landscape painter
like Constable, only they can 't see it. I shall
probably end up painting a lot of sheep on a
hillside."

Having chosen to work in paint. Lanyon
struggled constantly to extort from it an
expression corresponding to his multi-
dimensional sensuous experience of
landscape. Far from being a quiet contein-
plation of nature, this experience involved
immersion in sea, gales and mine-shafts:
observation of the variations in the greens.
greys and blues of the countryside: mobility
to register the abrupt shifts in angle, scale
and distance to be seen in the landscape of
West Penwith in Cornwall and. finally, the
mastery of another diinension by learning to
fiy a glider. This last ended with his death
from injuries sustained in a gliding accident
in August 1964.

Southern Africa was the starting point of an
important artistic journey. The Drakensberg
first stimulated his fascination with high
places and vertiginous viewpoints. The
paintings he made in southern Africa are
raw and tentative but it seems that the
intense impact of the landscape was an
iinportant contribution to the developing
.sense of space — formulated from sound,
smell, touch, local myth and history as well
as visual appearance — that informed all his
mature work.

We are most grateful to Mary Schofield,
Peter's sister, for providing an itinerary of
their journey and telling us of her memories
of it: to Sheila Lanyon for confirming the
identification of the two Harare paintings
and showing us three others. She also
probably has Peter's diary of the trip but has
not yet located it again. The quotations are
taken from taped interviews transcribed in
Andrew Lanyon's book. Peter Lanyon.
privately published by him in 1990. Some
material is taken from Margaret Garlake's
"The Constructions of Peter Lanyon" in
I'eter Lxmyon: Air. Lcmd and Sea. London:
The South Bank Centre, 1992. We would,
of course, be delighted to hear of any other
paiiuings or information on Lanyon's
African experience.

There are many truths

about the landscape of Africa.

Barbara Murray writes about

the honest response to one

such truth in the work of one of

Zimbabwe's most resilient painters

Jean Hahn :

impressionist of Africa

"...art is not. and never has been, hut an
affair of a piercing eye and an al>le hand."

Frank McEwen wrote this in his introduc-
tion to the 1968 Eleventh Annual Show at
the National Gallery. While one may argue
that he ignored the passionate heart,
inquiring mind and intense spirit, there is
something in what he said which much of
the modern art world has forgotten.
McEwen went on: "How more endearing
they (the works selected for the annual) are
than laboriously academic exercises or the
amateuresque 'pretties' which might in
'mind' and matter have materialised in
Welwyn Garden Cir\- some time between the
wars. They are more meaningful also than
echoes of the last decade of Paris or New
York 'trivialism '. It is the art here, on this
ground, born from the bowels of ancient
Africa, that will tell in time. and. like
Papenfus. Paul. Wood or Hahn ... reflect
directly an inner power."

The 'pretties' he was referring to were the
msasa, jaearanda and Matopos landscapes
that proliferated in Rhodesia at the time,
equivalents of which have done such a
disservice to landscape painting throughout
the world. In Jean Hahn's work, McEwen
recognised the realisation of one of the
many possible true reflections of Africa.
There is indeed nothing academic, labori-
ous, amateur, picturesque, pretty or trivial in
the work of Jean Hahn. With her restrained
palette of bleached-out -yellows, warm earth
red-browns, greys and her economic line,
Hahn captures a vital spirit of place and a
direct expression of nature which anyone
who has visited the bush of Zimbabwe
cannot fail to recognise.

Jean Hahn first exhibited in Zimbabwe in
1957 and for 38 years she has remained true
to her own spontaneous responses to the
landscape of Africa. Critics over the years
have spoken of her fast and capable
technique using mainly oil or wash drawing:
one wrote that her paintings were like "a
breath of fresh air at a gunner 's smoker!"
He went on: "Her style is brisk and clean,
her drawing incisive and her eye... keen."
When she exhibited in Pretoria in 1968, the
critic wrote: "so assured in her use of line,
so able to discard the inessentials in
catching the mood of places... a fascinating
combination of discipline and freedom... the
authority of the artist who knows exactly
what she is after and how to achieve the
effect."

James Roberts, critic for The Herald wrote
in 1 987: "Not many artists can capture a
landscape 's mood like Jean Hahn. She
makes something distinctive out of what
many of us thought of as commonplace.
And by a restricted use of colour she
intensifies atmosphere. There is a beauty
here that nuiy know nothing of tenderness
hut which we seek after for all that."

Writing for The Financial Gazette in 1989,
Pip Curling declared: "Jean Hahn 'sfour
wash drawings make no compromises to
acceptability. They are monumental in their
realisation, vital in their execution and
uncompromising in the stark tonality of
their colour These are the nH>st honest
works on the show." Curling went on to say,
of other painters, that they "merely play with
the landscape according to the rules of a
game of (their) own invention", use "the
landscape as a starting point for (their) own

(left) Jean Hahn, Red Field,
1985, 56 X 72cm, oil on board

(below) Jean Hahn, Bush,
1995, 60 X 77cm, oil on board

OUT! self indulgence" or "miniaturise the
landscape into colour-coded decorations.
Pity the face of Africa that it is so used and
abused."

Jean Hahn studied at the Royal Drawing
School and the Chelsea School of Art in
London as well as in Paris, Geneva and
Frankfurt. She has exhibited at the Royal
Academy and the Imperial Institute,
London, as well as in Belgrade, Johannes-
burg, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth,
Grahamstown, Bulawayo and Harare. In
1977 she had an exhibition with Brian
Bradshaw and Robert Paul and she says,
with a self-deprecating laugh, "/ sold better
than them".

If you ask Jean when she started painting
she says with another laugh "a long time

ago... I wouldn't like to say\" At Chelsea
School of Art her life class was taught by
Henry Moore, but perhaps her most influen-
tial teacher was a woman in Switzerland
who insisted on working "on the spot".
Jean says: "/ never paint in a studio. I
haven 't got a studio, never had a studio. I
go out into the bush, always. I often sit on
the ground in utter discomfort to get what I
want... if I'm comfortable I don't concen-
trate. The most difficult thing is to find the
place... where you want to sit. If you saw
me in the bush you 'd think I was absolutely
cracked. I go round in circles, talking to
myself. The light is always wrong and you
can 't paint with the sun behind you or with
the shadows. I've given up easels because
tliev always collapse. If there 's a rock or
bush or something I use that. One time
there was such a wind I had to tie myself to

a fence.... quite mad... and I come back
completely exhausted. Some I do on my
knees. I always finish my paintings on the
spot. I never rework them. "

Hahn has always painted the landscape.
Travelling and living in Europe it was the
untouched, uninhabited areas that appealed
to her and since coming to Africa her work
has singlemindedly concerned the raw bush,
'7 like wide open spaces but I like to look
into things... and always in the dry season.
I paint the dry grass in Africa which has
been sucking up the sun all the year, till the
rains come. When I first came from Europe
we lived out in the bush and I thought
everything was terribly dry and dusty... and
then I suddenly realised that that was
Africa, and now I can V wait for it. I re-
member going back to Europe, the gra.is
was deep green and I thought it was fright-
ful! This is a very hard country. "

Her choice in reading is biography rather
than novels, in painting impressionism
rather than expressionism... the real rather
than the fanciful. Jean goes on: "I'm cmti
anxlhing contrived... I'm more impressionist
I suppose. I'm against thinking too much...
a spontaneous reaction to what's there. I
work very fast... if I'm slow then it's a dis-
aster Working slowly means much less con-
centration and too much time to think.
Thinking is dangerous I think. Many mod-
ern painters are thinking too much. When
you think too much you get so complicat-
ed... it's a different way of looking.
Dis.secting is what I don't like... taking
apart... it becomes almost mechanical...
maybe mechanical is not the right word, but
not spontaneous, no feeling... I think it's
not necessary to understand it. Once you
start pulling .'ionu'thing apart it loses its
magic. Magic is a bad word... .■ipirit.
essence perhaps. But if you start iniahsing

Jean Hahn, Darkening Hills, 1 994,
49 X 61cm, oil on board

it loses its magic. That 's my quarrel with
art now... everything has to be explained.
And I think that's a pity... 1 hate eveiything
being dissected. It l<ills the aura, the atmos-
phere. It's a way of seeing. Much oftliis
talk about art is contrived."

Other artists whose work she Ukes include
Luis Meque, another painter whose work is
immediate and spontaneous. Talking about
paintings by him it turned out that those she
didn't admire were the ones I knew he had
reworked. "If I don't work quickly it's had it
as far as I'm concerned... if it's worked too
hard... anything done slowly is a disaster
Working fast one obviously concentrates
more... or at least I do! If I don 't do it fast I
start thinking... thinking that it's a disaster.'
Adda Ceiling's work is spontaneous, fast...
and I like John Piper veiy spontaneous...
Cezanne, yes always. Picasso, no.
Matisse, no. Turner 's late work is wonder-
ful."

Jean herself lives in a very ad hoc way...
last week she kayaked down the rapids at
Victoria Falls! Her small cottage in Harare
contains only the bare essentials; only what
one needs to live with a minimum of com-
fort. Paintings and drawings are hung or
propped everywhere, amongst books,
papers and family photos, on the floor, on
top of cupboards. The small garden shed is
totally taken up by work done over the

years. Most weeks she goes out to friends
in some part of the country where she is
dropped alone somewhere in the bush to
paint. Her many trips to the bush reveal the
extremes she will happily go to to find her
subject. "When in the bush, I concentrate
madly... could be surrounded by herds of
wild animals without noticing them! Last
year one friend I was staying with said
' Where shall I leave you ' and I said, ' Well
somewhere here ' and we went down to the
Munyati River There was lots of splashing
going on and I said, 'What's that? ' and he
said, 'Crocs I suppose. ' Then he dropped
me and I began painting. After a time I
stepped back to see what I'd been doing
and there was a loud swish and rustling in
the bush just behind me and I looked down
and there was a large snake. It was an
adder of some sort and he was definitely
warning me. I carried on but after that I
was not so keen to go there. And there was
another ridiculous story... years ago I went
out with some hunters and they said,
'Where do you want to go?' and I said,
'Drop me here ' because they were going
after crocs and they said they 'd come back
in a couple of hours. And I'd seen in the
morning a croc on the island in the middle
of the riven So anyway they dropped me
and that was that. And after a time I sud-
denly noticed, on the sand, just behind me,
large tracks! If a croc comes you know
there's nothing you can do. Anyway I
called the picture Crocs Around. "

Jean can't be bothered with making an
impression on anyone... "/ don 't want to
express myself in painting. Nobody wants
to know about me, at least I don 't think so.
I don 't usually talk about my painting. I
have always painted from an early age and
never really philosophised about it. I dis-
like any reference to 'contrive ' or 'style '.
One should paint and not have 'motives ' or
'trends' — it's all 'tendencies' in the world
today... obviously difficult to avoid!"

Jean Hahn' paintings reflect her character.
They are sparse, direct and real. Her sensi-
tive use of a restricted colour palette relies
on truth rather than drama. There are no
splashes of primaries to enhance or intensi-
fy. Her art is a true and natural interpreta-
tion accomplished with bold fluid lines; the
subject rendered in quick, free brushwork.
economic, vigorous and straight-forward.
Her spaces are uncluttered, picking out the
essentials, capturing the mood of the sparse,
dry bush and creating in the viewer the illu-
sion of being within that landscape. It is
work that speaks of 'a piercing eye and an
able hand', of honesty and integrity, of the
dedicated life of a painter and of a love of
the African bush.

Seeking to broaden our conceptions,
Tim IVIcLouglilin, lecturer in English at UZ,
writes

Ways of seeing the rural landscape

The aim of this paper is to examine what relationship there may be
between the ways rural landscapes are perceived in fiction and in
painting by black Zimbabwean artists. A few generalisations may
help to set our bearings: black writers in Zimbabwe, particularly in
the 1970s, give brief rather than extended attention to the landscape,
as though it was too obvious to dwell upon, and yet when they do
they tend to stress the aridity of the land. White writers turn more
deliberately to the landscape as either threatening or exotic. For
black painters man is seldom absent from the landscape, usually
working and always the point of attention: the painting often has a
flat, two-dimensional emphasis. Landscapes by white painters
seldom have people, instead an empty expansive view of untouched
nature: trained in Western traditions they give careful attention to
perspective, composition, light and distance. It is not possible to do
more with these several divergencies in this brief paper than to focus
on one area and allude to as many of the others as seem apposite.

Before discussing particulars of the fiction and painting it is
important to remind ourselves why the rural landscape is a recurring
feature in much Zimbabwean art. The phenomenon is hardly
surprising given that the vast majority of Zimbabweans live in the
rural areas and depend on the soil for their livelihood. A more
salient reason is that the people have a special relation with the land.
They regard it not as just another possession, an economic commod-
ity to be bought and sold, but as a spiritual asset "associated with the
history of a chiefdom. with the ruling chief and with ancestral spirits
who lived on it". ' In Shona culture the high god Mwari has ultimate
dominion over the land and its fertility and the ancestral spirits
together with the living community exercise ownership through
rituals of respect and appeasement. The land is as much a source of
spiritual as of material life, a provider of food, of protection in old
age, and the tangible expression of the bonds between an individual,
his tribe and his ancestors . In arts other than fiction, for example
sculpture and painting, allusions to land are repeatedly found in
depictions of its occupants — from the hunters of rock paintings to
the 'spirit woman' of John HIatywayo's painting, from the stone-
carved birds of Great Zimbabwe to the anthropomorphic and
zoomorphic figures of more recent sculpture which evoke the
metaphysical dimension of the land. -

In his recent novel Bones Chenjerai Hove alludes to many of the
above features of the landscape — its spiritual ethos, its links with
the ancestors, its fecundity, its hospitable familiarity. Yet these
features are given as threatened by the connng of the Settlers at the
close of the 19th century. That threat is metaphored as a disease: the
.Spirits speak as follows:

"Disease has eaten into the wealth of your soil. Disease has
eaten into the wills of your ancestors, your own fathers and
mothers. Di.sea.se has sucked the juice of the land you inherited
for your children. Do not sit and drink to the comfort of your
hearts because there is no reason for you not to rise, not to see
the clouds of vultures in the sky. Disease crawls <m the rocks
which ytiii have kiu>wn to sit there all the time for your protec-
I Z tion. It has eaten into the core of the heart of the hard nuipcmi

and the great baobab. Disease grazes the pastures like the cattle
of your wealth. Disease flies in the sky like the fi.sh-eagle that
heralds the coming of the season of the rains. "'

Several facets of a landscape are here, but the notion of disease
stands against and undermines the metaphors of vitality which
describe the landscape. The land is no longer a virile dwelling
place. In writers earlier than Hove, this same resort to metaphor is
repeatedly used to read the landscape as an indicator of spiritual and
political malaise. Marechera suggests the spiritual aridity brought
about by colonialism and the concommitant struggle to stay alive in
this description, which together with its metaphoric thrust also has a
strong visual impact which might well be conveyed in painting. He
is describing his home near Rusape:

"There was not a green blade of grass left. There was not a
green leaf of hope left; the drought had raised its great red hand
and gathered them all and with one hot breath had .swept all the
leaves into a red dot on the pencil-line of the horizon... " ■*

But not every landscape in novels by black writers is so desolate.
The perspectives so far di.scussed often belong to young adults, or at
least to people who question the world and attempt to make sense of
it. In some fiction the innocent eye of the child sees Zimbabwean
landscape as hospitable, even comforting, as in this description by
the young girl Tambudzai in Nervous Conditions:

"The road wound down by the fields where there were always
people with whom to pass ten minutes of the day... admiring the
broad-leafed cdiundance of the maize crop when it was good...
And although the stretch of road between the fields and the
terminus was exposed to the sun and was, from September to
April, except when it rained, harsh and .scorching so that the
glare frimi the sand scratched at your eyes, there was always
shade by the fields where clumps of trees were deliberately left
standing to shelter us when we ate our meals or rested between
cultivating strips of the land. " ^

What Tambud/.ai sees is a fertile scene in which the predominant
feature is the people.

A constructive start to comparing landscape in fiction and painting
can be made by rcnnnding ourselves of some slrcnglhs and limita-
tions endemic to the two art forms. For example the plastic arts
have a much more stimulating visual impact than the written word.
Painting provokes emotional and imaginative responses by the direct
visual appeal of colour, forin and line. Against this it can be argued
that the words of fiction, while not having that immediacy of
impact, allow for a more comprehensive release of the imagination.
Another difierence is that the serial inanner in which language lakes
the reader from sentence to sentence and page to page achieving a
cuiTiulative rather than a single frame experience means that images
can be successively employed and certain verbal associations
developed for symbolic and llicmalic purposes. A painter can
achieve \ isual ellccls of rin thm by repetitions of colour or shapes

in Zimbabwean fiction and painting

and of brush strokes but cannot use the serial effects of fiction.
The emotional impact of his work, and painting is to do primarily
with the expression of feehng. rehes on the way he uses the space
of the canvas, colour, shapes, structures, relationships." Conse-
quently painting is less authoritative over its audience's response
than fiction. It shows rather than tells its viewer what is happen-
ing and therefore has more free play with its audience's re-
sponses than fiction; it is more elusive about meanings.

In asking how black Zimbabwean painters see the rural landscape
we need to remember that the medium itself presumes an attention
to textures, grain, colour, lines and shapes. Zimbabwean painters
seem particularly attracted to the resources of the medium to convey
vitality in the landscape. To expand on this I want to look mainly at
work by two painters — Kingsley Sambo and John Hlatywayo.

Kingsley Sambo (1932-77?) is that tragic figure of Zimbabwean art
who started as a cartoonist, achieved flashes of brilliance with his
paint brush, who continued to paint after UDI when many others
gave up for want of materials, who has two paintings hanging in the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, and who disappeared from his
home in 1977 at the height of the liberation war, to be found dead
some time later. He has a pertinence to this study not simply
because he was raised and eventually retired to that same part of
Zimbabwe as Marechera evokes in his fiction; he produced most of
his landscapes in the 1970s when two interesting developments were
taking place — a new generation of black writers was beginning to
publish and talented painters like Thomas Mukarobgwa and Joseph
Ndandarika were turning to sculpture. When Smith declared UDI in
1965 one of the consequences was such a shortage of painting
materials that many black artists, some of them with the outstanding
ability of Charles Fernando, gave up altogether. Sambo persevered
on his farm in the eastern region at Dewa.

Sambo usually paints in oils on moderate sized canvases. The paint
is applied thickly with fluid rounded strokes giving an impression of
energetic movement. His Walking in the Forest has a figure in the
lower left foreground walking through the landscape. There is no
attempt at naturalist detail. Most of the canvas is filled with the
fluid rhythmical shapes of the trees in sombre looming colours —
greys, blues, browns. The light is subdued with the figure distin-
guishable mainly by the more vertical brush strokes, not by a
contrast of colour. This gives the impression of the figure being a
product of and assimilated into the landscape. The lighter colours of
the top of the tree-line blend in with the sky with its gentle pinks and
greys combined with lively yellows and reds. The effect of the
blending of the figure with the vegetation and that with the sky is to
suggest a vast vibrant landscape into which man fits unobtrusively.

People fill Sambo's better known paintings of urban life, such as his
oil on paper Dance (1962). The same is true of much urban
township painting. But what happens in Sambo's rural landscapes
such as Walking in the Forest or later in Countryside (1973) is that
people are as it were absorbed into the landscape, reduced in size,
but nevertheless there at the heart of the strong colours and thick

rhythmical brush strokes. People are living there, a small human
presence in a world which extends away from them beyond the
frame of the canvas. As in Walking in the Forest the structure of the
work suggests extension beyond the canvas rather than closure.

Sambo's landscapes convey nothing of what Marechera calls "a
desert place, an earth of piercing heat" . The rounded brush-work,
the rhythm of the strokes and the range of strong colours, reminis-
cent of Van Gogh whom he admired, evoke a latent even kinetic
energy in the landscape. ' The effect is similar to that in work by his
older contemporary Mukarobgwa. His painting Where I Used to Go
with My Cattle (1961) presents the landscape as a richly coloured
molten flowing interweave of terrains. The curt bold brush strokes
evince his desire to follow "the rolling motion of the hills" . ^
Sambo's landscapes are full of a similar rhythmical motion. As the
English painter John Craxton says of his own landscapes, "the whole
dances with a static movement" . ■* One critic has said of Sambo, "he
was driven by an extraordinaiy dynamism and the need to put his '

soul into his paintings" . '° I take this to mean that the paintings are
a way of talking about his attachment — emotional and perhaps
spiritual — to the fluid energy and strength of the land, and by
extension, of Zimbabwe.

This point becomes clearer if we compare landscapes by white
painters like Alice Balfour (d. 1936) and others who are fascinated
by the vast unpeopled spaces which they see. Much attention,
particularly in water-colour painting, goes into the brush-work
details of long winter grass or aloes, contorted shapes of branches,
and attention to light in expansive skies. Stillness is a common
effect. So too in the oil paintings of say Robert Paul who in Inyanga
Landscape ( 1952) is concerned with the structure, solid shapes and
colour planes of the landscape, not its naturalistic details; the
undoubted achievement of Paul's paintings emanates from the
physical rather than the spiritual.

There is an underlying stance towards the land seen in white
painting, even in the huge detailed oil paintings of the early explorer
Thomas Baines (1820-75); so often the landscape is empty of
people; the painter confronted by an unfamiliar face of nature is
awe-struck. The challenge for the artist is to fashion it. capture it
within the frame of his canvas, to fix his artistic authority upon its
wonders. Painting becomes an extension of the will and power to
control.

John Hlatywayo (b. 1928) differs in many ways from Sambo;

notably he is much more explicit than either Sambo or fiction

writers about a spiritual presence in the landscape, and this shows

not least in his use of colours and his brush-work. His work

Approaching the Light, a mixed media study of several figures

facing a treed landscape, evokes questions about who these figures

are. The figures have their long draped backs turned to the viewer

while they look towards dark trees which stand in a field of yellow

light. Use of yellow and white in contrast to the dark browns

suggest this is a painting about hope, or at least better times. The

very ab.sence of precision provokes the viewer to questions about I O

John HIatywayo, Waiting for News,
C.I 970, 91 X 123cm, oil on board

symbolism. Whatever the painting means it works with darkness on
the verge of or meeting light. The people are facing the promise of a
freshly invigorated landscape.

Paintings by HIatywayo come closer than do Sambo's to a meta-
phoric perception of the land already noticed in the fiction. His
reverence for the landscape as a place of spiritual life is evident in
the broad straight movement of his brush as in his use of light.
Sambo by contrast works metonyinically. Every facet of his
impressionistic canvas connects in an ever expanding linkage of
colour and shape. In their different ways both offer us a much more
positive view of the landscape to that seen in the fiction. Neither
sees the land as arid physically or spiritually. What they remind us
is that the land is a potent presence that absorbs and contextualises
man. In this sense these paintings offer an endearing view that
complements the view of fiction. The reverse side of fictional
landscapes, their positive potential finds expression in the paintings.
The vitality often absent in the fictional landscape is present in the
paintings.

Kingsley Sambo, Country Side, c.1965, 66 x 93cm,
PVA on board (PC-9400-0192)

Kingsley Sambo, Ligfit, c.1965, 84 x 66cm, oil on canvas
1 4 (PC-6300-0085)

The paintings of Sambo and HIatywayo suggest a contrary but
complementary perception of the landscape to that of writers and it
might be argued from this that painters were less concerned to read
the landscape politically than the writers, or at least that their
political reading is more rooted in traditional views of the land than
the surface appearance suggests to the writers. The point to make is
that the materials of painting, the challenge of colour and line, have
prompted these painters to evoke the strength, movement, potential
of what they see rather than the absence of these things. The
materials of the art, particularly colour, prompt the choice of what to
paint rather than a theine or an issue.

The paintings I have referred to are only a small part of what has
become an enormously diverse artistic heritage, but they do suggest
significant differences from the way landscapes are presented in
fiction. The paintings convey the rhythmic vitality of the landscape,
a feeling of empathy with the lurking power of the land and a
presumption of close knit bonds between man and his physical and
spiritual worlds. They suggest a more positive and assured ethos
than many landscapes in fiction. The point for readers of fiction is
not that the Spirits in Hove's Bones quoted earlier do not know
about these positive aspects of their apparently bleak landscapes.
Their plight is all the more harrowing because the landscapes which
Sambo and HIatywayo give us are the landscapes the Spirits yearn
for.

Notes

1 Michael Bourdillon, The Shnna Peoples. Mambo Press. Gweru, 1976.

2 For analysis of these figures see Marion Arnold. Zimbabwean Stone
Sculpture. Books of Zimbabwe. Bulawayo. 1981.

3 Chenjerai Hove, Bones, Baobab Books. Harare. 1988.

4 Damhudzo Marechera, Hmise of Hunger. Heinemann. London. 1978.

5 Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions. ZPH. Harare, 1988.

6 Thomas Bodkm. The Approach to Painliufi. Collins, London, 194."!.

7 Jamila Hava, "Kingsley Sambo: .\ Retrospective View." Insight. Sepleniher
1984.

8 Frank Mcbwen, "Inlrodiiction", New Art from Rhoilesia. Commonwealth
Institute, London, 196.V

9 John Cra.Mon ciled by Malcolm Yorke. The Spirit of Place: Nine Neo-
Rimumtic Artists ami their Times. CoiKVMc. London, 1988.

10 The Herald. Harare, Lt May 1984.

Editorial nole 1 ; I'lie complele paper was first published m Commonwealth \o\
14 no 2 1992. Unforlunalely a shortened version is presented here due lo l.ick of
space. Anyone wishing lo read the full text can conlaci the editor,

i-.ditorial note 2: The paintings discussed were not available for photi>giaplnng so
we have used other examples of the artists' work which we thought most relevant
Numbers in brackets are data tags for the National Gallery's PernianenI
Collection-

Affectionately known as Thomas Mu,

Thomas Mukarobgwa^ is a long-standing member

of the art community in Zimbabwe.

Pip Curling looks at his work & life in art over 40 years.

Thomas Mukarobgwa:
memories of nature

Thomas Mukarobgwa, (title unknown), 1995, 61 x 61cm, oil on canvas

Thomas Mu decided to be an artist when he
sold his first painting for £40 to Frank
McEwen in 1957. As a young man. Thomas
Mu worked as a cleaner in the old Palace
Theatre in Salisbury. One June day in 1956
he walked past the building site of the new
Rhodes (later the National) Gallery and
stopped to look. A black-bearded man who
was Frank McEwen the newly appointed
Director of the gallery, looked out at him.
Thomas smiled and Frank beckoned him in.
This meeting of two men, each in search of
his own dream, was to result in an unprec-
edented explosion of art. McEwen dreamed
of finding the art of the people of this
country. Thomas Mu dreamed of something
beyond his life as a cleaner A deep
friendship grew between them. While they
walked together in the bush. Thomas taught
Frank the ways of the Shona people. Frank,
in turn, encouraged Thomas to translate his
personal and cultural experience into colour
on canvas. He also asked Thomas to recruit
other young men to join the National
Gallery and become fledgling artists of his
'Workshop School'. -

Born in 1924 near Rusape, Thomas Mu was
raised by his uncle, a rural farmer The
young Thomas, like all Shona boys, herded
the family cattle in the hills and granite
outcrops. He spent the long hours absorb-
ing the ways of nature and the behavior of
animals while he played the songs of the
bush on his chipendan. ' He recalls places

Thomas Mukarobgwa,
Adam & Eve, 1964,
70 X 100cm,
oil on canvas
(PC-9400-0189)^

where people used to sit and "look into the
ground in the early morning". His early
understanding of nature and his faith in its
perfection is that which motivates all his
creativity. Painting is for him a recollection
and a re-creation of a particular moment in a
special place. He says, "When you remem-
ber something in your painting it stays with
youforever."

McEwen shunned the idea of formal tuition
in his Workshop School. He provided
materials and required from the artists a
commitment to discovering their personal
expressive means. ^ Thomas Mu found his
own way of handling paint; applying it
generously to the canvas in long often
parallel brushmarks of juxtaposed and
interwoven pure colour In his paintings,
form is overwhelmed by colour. Where the
colours of his landscapes might look unreal
or contrived, they are no less than a
distillation of the prismatic purity and the
brilliant seasonal hues of the bush Thomas
knew as a child. Resonant colour recreates
the essence of the soil, the rocks, water and
foliage as he says, "mostly when the country
is heautiful".

In Thomas Mu's paintings, people and
animals encounter each other in the mystical
mountainous landscape of his home in the
Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe. The story
at the heart of each work recalls a time
when people were in a pure state of oneness
with the land, animals and the spirit world.
Frank McEwen said of Thomas Mu, "For
years our best painter, he is a master of folk
knowledge and ancient myth, a linguist, a
musician, and a respected sage."

When McEwen discovered the aesthetic
potential of stone sculpture in local
serpentine, he promoted it as the authentic
art form of the country. Thomas Mu, like
all the Workshop School artists, turned to
that medium. Stone, for Thomas Mu is
essentially another canvas. He translates
the sensuousness of his painted brushmark
into the surface texture of the stone. Where
colour activates his paintings, the play of
light on the subtlely articulated surface of
the stone, animates his sculptures. His
chisel caresses the raw material of his
sculpture with delicate, shallow carving to
reveal the inner life of stone. Humans and
animals merge into the stone which is their
shared spiritual home. From the time of his
boyhood, Thomas Mu remembers that
"Sometimes when y(ni come across a rock,
you can feel your hair moving and the
shadows welcome yin< to rest."

Thomas Mu, unlike all the other "first
generation' stone sculptors has no follow-
ers. It would not be possible for another
artist to access the empathy which exists
between his soul and that of the stone. He
has no "style" or "manner" which is
reproducible. His revelation of life through
art is too intimate and personal to encourage
imitators.

Thomas Mu has remained faithful to the
National Gallery where he still works. He
exhibits and .sell his sculpture in the
National Gallery Sales Gallery. It is all but
impossible to see his paintings. With the
posl-indepcndcnce rush of dealers in stone
sculpture, Thomas Mu the painter was
neglected by the art market in this country.
Recently he came to the attention of a

British art dealer who now has unrivalled
control over his paintings. As quickly as the
paint dries on the canvas, the work is
shipped out of the country. His dealer
supplies all his paint and canvas and each
work is bought at a fixed agreed price
according to size. He does not ask what
happens to his work once it leaves him or
what price it fetches wherever it is sold.
Money is not important to him he says, only
the freedom to have the materials to
continue to paint.

The National Gallery has a representative
collection of the early paintings of Thomas
Mu but none of his later work. In July this
year, Thomas Mu was sponsored by Stanbic
as an Artist in Residence at the Standard
Bank National Arts Festival in
Grahamstown, South Africa. There he
painted, played his chipendan and spoke
about his work and its philosophical
meaning. It is ironic that Thomas Mu is
today known in South Africa, collected in
Britain, but is relatively unknown as a
painter in his own country.

Notes

1 The artist's name is variously spelt Mukarobgwa,
Mukarombwa or Mukaromba.

2 The early artists of the Workshop School were
employed as attendants at the National Gallery where
they painted and carved in the basement.

.1 The chipemlan is a single stringed bowed ntusical
instrument with a gourd as a resonator It is held in
the mtnith while the string is plucked.

4 ()t the group of young painters who included the
two Ndandarika brothers Joseph and Luca. as well as
Charles F-'ernandu. only Thomas Mu has survived as
a painter

5 Numbers in brackets refer to the recent identifying
data tag given to all works in the National Gallery's
Permanent Collection.

Letters

Dear Editor,

I read with interest the responses from staff
and students of the Harare Polytechnic art
department to your editorial in Gallery 2
and sympathise with the writers over the
negative perceptions often expressed
concerning the department's status. The
correspondents proceed to attempt to justify
their department's existence by negating
aspects of the Regional School of Art and
Design (RSAD) proposal and by adopting a
'them versus us' stance. Particular vehe-
mence is aimed at the two preliminary
studies carried out. Far from being a waste
of resources, such studies are essential. It is
naive to assume that a proposal such as
RSAD could gain credibility or attract
financial backing without a thorough study
of the relevant needs and issues.

The RSAD initiative was launched by the
late Director of the National Gallery,
Professor Cyril Rogers, in 1986. The
following year a Netherlands consulting
agency produced a feasibility study which
endorsed the need for RSAD but reported
only on Zimbabwe citing the inclusion of
reports from other Sadc countries as too
time consuming. In March 1991, 1 was
appointed Project Manager for RSAD under
an agreement between the European
Community and the Zimbabwe Govern-
ment. The terms of reference noted the
need for 'a thorough qualitative and
quantitative investigation within both the
public and private sectors of Sadc in
relation to the demand for a visual art
training facility.'

A comprehensive study of the visual arts,
their teaching modalities and employment
potential within the Sadc region was a
primary requisite. How could we construct a
regional art school when we did not know
what our neighbours had to offer, what their
thoughts were about the project or what
their contemporary visual arts culture
consisted of?

During the course of the study over 400
people were consulted representing the
opinion of almost 200 government depart-
ments, universities, colleges, galleries and
private companies in Angola. Botswana,
Lesotho. Namibia. Malawi. Mozambique,
Swaziland. Tanzania, Zambia. Zimbabwe,
South Africa, Britain and the USA. Several
hundred other people were consulted by
means of questionnaires. The Harare
Polytech was amongst those consulted and
valuable ideas were exchanged with Sharon
Dutton and other members of staff.

When I started my contract the project had
the support of two influential and commit-
ted educationalists. Fay Chung. Minister of
Education and Culture, and Cyril Rogers.

During the next two years Cyril Rogers
passed away and Fay Chung was removed
from her post. Without them, the project
has not developed as well as was hoped, and
no other influential person has so far shown
any commitment.

One great impediment was the delay in
securing a suitable tract of land from the
Harare City Council. Following the
withdrawal of the originally allocated site in
July 1992, an alternative was selected and a
formal request for usage of the land
submitted to Harare City Council in
September 1992. Despite frequent commu-
nication with the City Council during and
after my contract, a response to the request
is to date still being awaited from the
Council and its parent Ministry of Local
Government by the National Gallery. With
some leverage and forcefulness from the
top, the land issue could have been resolved
without delay and the school by now could
have commenced construction.

As long ago as mid 1992 the Bulawayo City
Council indicated that it was willing to
donate a piece of land. Despite the fact that
a donation of land was never on Harare City
Council's agenda and that their dithering
had seriously delayed the project, certain
officials in the then Ministry of Education
and Culture would not hear any suggestion
of the project going to Bulawayo.

The findings and recommendations of my
final report, presented in March 1994, were
intended to maximise the potential of the
proposed school and to ensure the relevance
of training to be offered. The rationale
behind the RSAD project rests firmly within
the needs of the region for an institution
focusing on the advancement of the region's
visual arts, the development of art theory
and history and the training of artists, art
teachers and designers. The potential of art
as a channel for employment, income
generation and development remains
relatively untapped and unexplored.
Graduates of the school would help nurture
a fresh perception of art in the region and
create a visual language and theoretical base
which would articulate an indigenous view
of African art history and practice.

RSAD was never intended to supplant any
existing visual art institution but rather to
complement them. The RSAD would differ
from existing facilities in the following
ways:

1. The RSAD is intended as a regional
facility whose character would be shaped by
the iteraction of the cultures and traditions
within Sadc. Existing training institutions
are largely national in character.

2. The RSAD would be independent and

self-governing which would afford it more
flexibility in respect of policy and structure
to meet the shifting needs of the future.

3. Existing art training facilities in the
region are typically small, specialised and
uneconomic. The RSAD would include
theory, history and training of artists, art
teachers and designers.

4. The RSAD is intended to address specific
areas such as theory and history. A research
facility within RSAD would draw together
researchers who would begin the task of
documenting our own history of art.

5. The RSAD would address the complaints
of education ministries throughout the
region concerning the lack of well trained
teachers to ensure that art is properly and
more generally taught in our school systems.

6. The RSAD would address the limited
scope of indigenous graphic design,
packaging and advertising by bringing
together the best designers, lecturers,
students and ideas from the region.

7. The RSAD would serve as a focal point
for other cultural pursuits by affording
concert facilities, gallery space, a confer-
ence venue and the like predicated on its
regional character.

The aim to build a Regional School of Art
and Design is attainable and needs only
courage and resolve to see it through. It is
therefore discouraging to see a member of
the Board of the National Gallery (and
incidentally an ex-lecturer of the Harare
Polytech) being quoted as saying that she
believes the RSAD is unnecessary. Does
this sentiment reflect the mood of the Board
of the National Gallery as a whole? If it
does we may as well pack away our
aspirations and settle for more of what we
already have, which in my and many other
people's opinion is not enough. If we set
our sights low enough and undersell our
hopes for the future then we should not cry
when development and advancement pass us
by.

In the meantime the Harare Polytechnic art
department staff may feel a sense of relief to
hear that, in the seeming absence of interest
in the RSAD project from Harare, an action
group has been formed in Bulawayo to see
whether the project, in full or modified
form, might not now be transferred to the
country's second city. Recently opening
Amakhosi's Township Square Cultural
Centre in Makokoba, the Town Clerk of
Bulawayo, Mike Ndubiwa, indicated that
Bulawayo was on its way to becoming the
cultural capita! of the country. The Regional
School of Art and Design might just fit in
nicely with that plan.

Stephen Williams, former Project Manager/
Consultant SADC RSAD project 1 7

While the visual arts and culture in Zimbabwe get consistently sidelined
(most recently with a Government directive demanding that our 'National'
Gallery become financially self-sufficient through its sales shop), Margaret
Garlake writes from a society that recognises the importance of its arts

Letter from London

Directors of public galleries, unlike theatre
managements, make a big effort for the
peak tourist season: at the beginning of
August, London had a feast of first-rate
exhibitions, all deservedly clamouring for
attention. One of the most improbable was
at Hackney Hospital, once a workhouse,
recently a psychiatric hospital and now
scheduled for demolition. In the interim, a
team of artists set up installations in the
empty wards, corridors and departments.
Video, paintings, piles of mattresses,
distorting mirrors, nesting boxes, a lift
transformed into a padded cell combined,
though no individual piece was outstanding,
to create a sense of acute unease and
dislocation. To wander at random through
an almost empty hospital — a few patients
remain — is a peculiarly transgressive act.
calling into question the boundaries of
freedom and restraint, madness and sanity,
and the role of the artist as our social
conscience.

Back in the centre of town, the Hayward
Gallery had one of those shows so logical
that one was amazed that it had never been
done before. 'Landscapes of France —
Impressionism and Its Rivals' set Impres-
sionist paintings against the vast and little-
known canvases of castles, wounded stags
and above all, landscapes characteristic of
the mid- 19th century, to reveal how the
revolutionary new art movement developed
within the safe taste and cut-throat competi-
tion of the annual Salon. The Salon, which
drew enormous crowds, set the terms of
normative taste: landscape was very
popular, often symbolic, conveying a sense
of permanence: even if the subject is a ruin
or a seascape, the paint is solid and indi-
cates a sense of graviias.

Monet and his friends showed in the Salon
even while they were edging towards the
small, fresh, sketchy paintings that focussed
on the informal, the impermanent, celebrat-
ing the delights of the ordinary, as well as
the trains and new roads that promised
modernity and mobility. By restoring
Impressionism to its unfamiliar roots in the
19th century French artworld, 'Landscapes
of France' emphasised its extraordinary
radical prescience of change and demanded
a new appreciation of the Salon paintings
that we have rejected for so long.

The South Bank art complex, to which the
Hayward belongs, is itself in something of a
1 8 state of flux. Richard Rogers Partners were

the winners of last year's
competition for a remodelled
South Bank. Their scheme
involves an elegantly
undulating clear canopy that
runs parallel to the river,
entirely covering the
Hayward and its immediate
neighbours. It swoops
dramatically down to frame
the Festival Hall, where it
will mercifully require the
demolition of a Sixties'
terrace that slices the facade
in half horizontally. Hold
your breath and wish hard —
it may even happen.

Not far away, across the
river at the Tate, was an
extended reverie on the
imminent passing of our
own century. 'Rites of
Passage', subtitled 'Art for
the End of the Century', brought together
artists seldom seen in London, from the
venerable Louise Bourgeois to the young
Pole, Miroslaw Balka. It succinctly
demonstrated the forms through which
today's innovators communicate: mainly
installation and video. The nearest it came
to painting were John Coplans' immense
photographs of parts of his own body, in
extreme and unambiguous close-up. Artists
have always scrutinised the human body,
often in its less lovely aspects: it is the
conjunction of new media with the develop-
ment of recent critical theory of 'the body'
that makes today's focus feel like a tidal
wave.

In order to view Mona Hatoum's Corps
Elmnger, you stand in a small domed
cubicle around a screen set in the floor, on
which a video film runs. It traces a journey
through the interior of the artist's body,
made by inserting micro-cameras into
various orifices. Accompanied by a
magnified sound track of the same interior,
it was oddly compelling. The arrangements
arc more or less the same for all of us, yet
they were almost entirely unrecognisable,
as if that 'foreign body' had been trans-
posed into our own familiar envelopes of
flesh and features.

As for the riles of passage', the deep theme
of the show was to propose the ccntrality of
the artist as one who articulates and
celebrates the rituals, both personal and

Hamad Butt, Familiars Part 3: Cradle

(detail), 1992, Chlorine, glass, steel

wire and white paint

communal, that mark our transitions from
one state of being to another. Art stands, in
this construction, on the edge of the known,
the safe and the acceptable; its role is to
make us see the world differently. Balka's
Remembrance of the First Holy Commun-
ion was a life-size tableau of the event that
conventionally marks, for Catholics, a
threshold between infancy and childhood
and a ritualised step towards the adult
world. It is complicated by the replacement
of the handkerchief in the breast pocket by
a heart-shaped red pin-cushion into which
visitors to the first showing, in an aban-
doned house in Poland, were mutely invited
to stick the pins with which they were
issued.

This ritual was omitted at the Tate; nor
were the full iinplications of Hamid Butt's
Familiars Part 3: Cradle fully spelled out.
The product of his fascination with alcheiny
and its position on the borders of magic and
science, Christianity and heresy, its great
glass bubbles were filled with chlorine gas.
The Tate had in place a complex evacuation
procedure should one be broken: the
implications ol the hazard inherent in the
Miargmal position encapsulated in Butt's
piece.

No such dangers altemlcd 'Drawing the
Line' at the Whitcchapel Art CJallery.

Henri Matisse, Buste de femme (SIrene),

1950, 63.5 X 49.2cm, Chinese ink and brush

(Courtesy Lumley Cazalet Ltd, London)

Ananged by the artist Michael Craig-
Martin, it was an exploration of the visual
eloquence of the drawn line from prehistory
to Matisse, Leonardo to Lichtenstein.
Seriously and anarchically ahistorical. it
was hung with immense sophistication and
knowledge to demonstrate a visual logic
that united Tintoretto and Malevich, Ingres
and Agnes Martin; a logic that transcended
subject matter to present drawing as an act
of human communication more profound
than words.

The most respected of London dealers,
Annely Juda, devoted her summer
show to a most resonant and ail-
too historical moment. '1945 —
The End of the War" (arranged in
collaboration with the Denise
Rene Gallery in Paris and the
Galerie Hans Mayer in
Dusseldorf) was a collection of
70-odd avant-garde pieces "to
show what was happening during
this memorable year in history", as
she explained in her introduction.
Its linages ranged from a tiny,
poignant figure of a prisoner enineshed
in barbed wire to lyrical depictions of the
serene Sussex landscape; from a Calder
mobile to a Picasso still life with a skull,
grimly redolent of Paris under the Occupa-
tion. They were, as so often in this gallery,
nearly all of exceptional quality and
poignantly evoked the terror, the sadness
and the invincible optimism of 1945.

Forthcoming excitements include the
opening of "Africa: The Ail of a Continent"
at the Royal Academy in October, as the
centrepiece of Africa "95. Ancillary
exhibitions focussing on contemporary
African art and photography, new art from
South Africa, textiles, calligraphy and
metalwork will keep us running around the
country, a.s well as conferences, music.
film, theatre and literary events.

The Turner Prize shortlist — the anworld"s
equivalent of the Booker — is intensively
scrutinised at this time of every year. The
current shortlist consists of Mona Hatoum,
Galium Innes, who makes large refined
sparse abstract paintings. Mark Wallinger. a
figurative painter much of whose witty and
accessible work concerns his llesh and
blood race horse called A Real Work of Art.
and. for the second lime. Damien Hirst —

he of the pickled sheep. The Turner Prize
provokes passionate debate for and against:
'too much money"; 'not enough women";
'it's all conceptual' or alternatively,
'encourages young artists"; ditto 'new
media" ; 'makes people aware of contempo-
rary art". To have two painters shortlisted is
unusual and a pleasing rebuff to the
frequently intoned 'painting is dead"; the
Prize also focusses aspiration, brings vast
numbers of visitors to the Tate — still
ht)nourably free to all — and singularly
entertains us.

The problem with much contemporary art is
its immense size, far beyond the domestic
scale. In order to house it. the Tate is
developing a redundant power station on the
South Bank opposite St Paul's Cathedral.
Bankside Power Station, not madly
distinguished aesthetically was only
completed in 1963 and was
decommissioned 18 years later. In the first
phase of the conversion planned by the
Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre

de Meuron. tonnes of redundant scrap metal
machinery are now being removed from its
guts, the sale of scrap metal apparently
nicely filling the financial gulf before the
flow of millenium funds begins.

We are all millenarians now, if still not sure
in which year it will take place: this issue,
which is significant at least to the manufac-
turers of fireworks, has become a matter of
furious and dotty debate in correspondence
columns. Like the new Tate building, we
are all in transitional condition and the
marginality of the Bankside location, in a
rundown area of south London, parallels the
relationship between the new art seen in
■Rites of Passage" and the wider culture.
The certainty is that today "s outrageously
new art will be absorbed as readily as the
new museum will be incorporated into its
soon-to-be regenerated locality. A little
over a century ago those now revered artists
and blue-chip bastions of the modern art
market, the Impressionists, were in the same
position.

'rf-''r!'/i+?5-'-'"*f^

Horizons / Perspectives, Stephen Williams, Mpapa
Gallery, Lusaka, June 1995

The recent exhibition by Zimbabwean painter Stephen Wilhams at
Lusaka's Mpapa Gallery was uneven but included soine exceptional
oils as well as sensitively-rendered watercolours. Known for his
large abstract canvases. Williams was by circumstances confined to
small and mid-si/ed works. He clearly expresses himself most

Reviews of recent work

The Image, Therese Houyoux,
Gallery Delta, July 1995

Over the years Zimbabweans have seen the
work of many European artists most of
whom express the angst of urbanised
mankind. Therese Houyoux "s works.
executed with delicate precision, by
piercing, cutting, folding and inking layers
of Java paper, could not be more different.
She offered us a meditation, in subtle greys.
blacks and whites, on a fundamental image
of life. She integrates the primary biologi-
cal structure of the shell, the leaf, the spiral
of growth, the fertile female, into one image
which, through repeating echoes of its form,
dissolves and mingles with the shadows and
markings around it. Rendered calm by the
nature of the work, the spaces of Gallery
Delta led naturally along a progression
through the developing images, each one
subtlety different, playing gently with the
intricate allusions and endless variations
possible within the single form. Music and
mathematics underpin Houyoux' work and
one viewer likened the exhibition to Bach's
music with its delicate, measured and subtle
variations. BM

We were able to see this work from Geneva
thanks to the long friendship between Helen
Lieros and Therese Houyoux. Helen Lieros
wrote of the work; "7 have been privileged
to witness over a time span of 30 years the
research, the pictorial discoveries of
Therese Houyoux. The different develop-
ments where the human element disap-
peared to merge with its environment and to
re-appear no longer as a particular person,
place, event or object, but as cm integrated
whole where transition has been made
evident with acute self-awareness. The skill
to re-enact the drawings, patterns, images
channel the power with profound quality,
compressed energy and a sense of continu-
ous disclosure through the media, all of
them shaped by a peremptory statement. To
discover and perceive, you are drawn by a
chemistry and then all of a sudden there is a
sense that these initiations manifest
themselves in a sacred labyrinth, a series of
revelations, a sense of fulfillment, an aura. "
HL

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Therese Houyoux, Image

freely in his larger works, in this case the series pieces Kuhu and
Makgadikgadi, each of which was striking and also succeeded as a
group. These were the only works done in oil on paper, with which
he was able to create, in almost calligraphic minimalism, the depth
of the African horizon, as well as the perspective and starkness of
its landscape. Here, his concern with metaphor and impressions of
place spark the viewer's imagination. Using layers of subtle colour
and washes of paint, he evokes a sense of timelessness and vast
horizons. The acrylic paintings were more academic. They worked
as abstract explorations of texture but left the viewer searching for
an interpretation. The exhibition was a welcome opportunity to
view contemporary work from a neighbouring country. Hopefully
it will be one of many. DH

1+1=1, Works by Rashid Jogee and Gerry Dixon,
Gallery Delta, July 1995

Paintings by Rashid Jogee and sculptures by Gerry Dixon recently
filled Gallery Delta producing a powerful sense of two contrasting
individual visions. These two artists, each in their own unique way,
express their lives and interaction with society through their art.
Jogee's focus is internal; his paintings, an externalising onto canvas
of personal experiences. The great sweeps of pigment, painted and
overpainted to stimulate imagination and enrich perception,
allowed or encouraged to drip and flow over the surface, invite us
into his idiosyncratic world where emotions and thoughts are
symbolised as markings and colours. With this technique, control
is essential to maintain communication. This is not always the
case. The small watercolours. filled with calligraphic markings,
capture in miniature this same spontaneous outpouring of experi-
ence into colour.

Gerry Dixon by contrast is more

express his opinion about ex-

a particular message, more

with humour. Dixon

our destruction of thi

materialism, our hy-

injustices. His piece.

E.xisting System, 3M,

syndrome; man

One for the Pope. 'I

comments

resonances on

when the head is

devil's horns

These socio-po-

combined with

sculpt u r a

use of forms

clear undcr-

qualities of

e X p 1 o i t e il

sensualitv.

Sloffer GeiliitK

cerebral, more concerned to

temal events. Each piece has
often than not edged
confronts us with
environment, our
pocrisies. our
One for the
refers to the
money - monkey.
Lion 's Cross.
amongst its many
religious hypocrisy;
lifted it reveals two
holding it in place,
litical statements arc
a fine sense o(
counterpoint in the
and textures, and a
standing of the
materials which are
remarkable

Gerry Dixon, One for the Pope, Lion's Cross

(Below) Lines rising from a recum-
bent figure transform into a creature
witfi a snake's body and antelope's
head. Marondera

shortcomings. His own comparative
analysis is based on months of arduous and
meticulous tracing by both himself and a
number of able assistants. It brings together
a mature understanding of the nature of art
and a knowledge of recent and contempo-
rary San beliefs and value .systems. It thus
offers us an insight into the perceptions and

Arthur Azevedo will exhibit sculptures,
drawings and graphics at Gallery Delta from
19 September into early October. Zimba-
bwe's master sculptor in metal shows work
that continues his investigation into the
structural forms of animals capturing as he
does so succinctly and evocatively their
inherent character.

OJ forthcoming

The Hunter's Vision:

The Prehistoric Rock Art of

Zimbabwe by Peter Garlake

The Hunter's Vision is the product of eight
years of study and careful recording
of hundreds of rock art sites in the
granite country of Mashonaland,
Masvingo and

Matobo districts; it is a digest
of Peter Garlake's conclusions,
illustrated by sites and paintings
almost none of which has been
published before.

Without doubt it is a handsome book,
well written and beautifully illus-
trated, and the British Museum
Press are to be congratulated on its
layout and design. While ZPH
must be commended for making
such an important book available
within Zimbabwe, I find the local
cost of $365 very high (more
expensive than many coffee table
books) which will put it out of
reach of many people. For those
interested in Zimbabwe's unique
Stone Age inheritance, it is well
worth the investment. The text
is extremely readable, with Peter Garlake's
enthusiasm for the country and his subject
evident throughout. Divided into an
introduction and nine chapters, the book
describes and analyses a long underrated
art, and as it does so, breathes life not onl
into the paintings, but also into the lives
of the prehistoric San artists and the
society in which they lived.

This is not a guide book. In the interests
of protecting the art from vandalism and
theft, only the districts in which the
individual paintings are found are
indicated. This is of particular concern
to the author, who considers Zimba-
bwe's prehistoric paintings one of the
world's last and greatest undiscovered
cultural treasures. This does not at all
detract from what the book sets out to
achieve.

Traditionally our rock art has been
viewed and recorded from a
Eurocentric viewpoint, few observers
recognising it to be anything more than
descriptive of the daily life of hunter-
gatherers. Peter Garlake reviews these
approaches, highlighting their considerable

preoccupations of a people who lived at
least two thousand years ago.

The author demonstrates "thiil Scin
art is probably as rich as any in
allusions and evocations,
metaphor and symbol."
Through the idea
that "one cannot
read art: one
can only
V explore aspects

ofsii^nifi-
cance" Peter
Garlake identifies
those aspects of
significance to include
images depicting trancing,
supernatural transfor-
# mation and potency.
For the San, potency
resides in the abdomen
as an innate personal spiritual power which
everyone possesses though few choose to
make it active. The work demonstrates how
these ancient artists conceived of potency as
pervading the artists' entire surround-
ings and that much of their painting
seems "to be a means of delineating a
force that permeates nature and
land.scape" . It presents us with a
comprehensive and coherent account ot
the paintings as "visual realisations of
the perceptions of the artists' societies of
their world... Above all. they image the
supernatural energies inherent in almost
all living things, the forces that gave
meaning and significance to the world,
to life and to all human and animal
activity..."

This is an exciting document, which will
be of especial value to artists and art
historians, as well as to prehistorians and
archaeologists. PJ

The Hunter's
Vision : The
Prehistoric Rock
Art of Zimbabwe
by Peter Garlake,
London: British
Museum Press and
Zimbabwe Publishing
House, 1995, $365.00.

exhibitions
and events

The annual expose at the National Gallery,
the Zimbabwe Heritage 1995 Exhibi-
tion opens in November. The team of
selectors this year have again pared the
entries down from a mammoth 3000 plus
and although the format and prizes will, for
1995, follow the pattern of recent years, we
hear that suggestions have been made to the
gallery administration and that changes
should hopefully occur soon which will
attempt to regain this exhibition some of its
previous prestige and significance.

Adda Gelling, Simon Back and Nicole
Gutsa will be exhibiting paintings at
Gallery Delta in October providing some
provocative insights into their individualis-
tic responses to the Zimbabwean context.
This will be Adda Geiling's last exhibition
before she returns to Berlin to take up work
for her Masters degree in Fine Arts.

On the 21 November work from Henry
Thompson's Nyanga series, some 20
canvases which capture in resonant colour
and bold composition the emotional and
physical nature of a particular landscape,
will fill the spaces at Gallery Delta.

If you're going to California at the end of
October, the Jessica Tress collection of
work from Zambia, South Africa and
Zimbabwe, including work by Gerry
Dixon, Tapfuma Gutsa, Richard Jack,
Nicholas Mukomberanwa, Helen
Lieros, Luis Meque, Stephen
Williams, Munya Mudzlma, Bernard
Takawira and Tackson Muvezwa will be
exhibited.

Dominic Benhura, Colleen
Madamombe, Agnes Nyanhongo and
Jonathan Gutsa are amongst sculptors
exhibiting work in the Chapungu Annual
'95 from I August till 26 November

"Genesis" with work by Tapfuma Gutsa,
Keston Beaton, Luis Meque and three
German counterparts, Felix Droese, Jupp
Ernst and Peer Christian Stuwe opens
in Germany on 1 7 September

y^^'^-mi

'mi

bardwcll printers

",.-/..

. -"-i^

No 7

iW^ 'W

Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe

Gallery Delta, the publisher and the editor gratefully acknowledge
the following sponsors who have contributed to the production
of this issue of Gallery magazine:

Anglo American Corporation Services Limited

TINTC

The Rio Tinto Foundation

APEX CORPORATION OF ZIMBABWE LIMITED

Joerg Sorgenicht
Fricdbert Lutz

Contents

March 1996

Artnotes

3 Empire's offspring

by Anthony Chennells

7 Scratchings at memory ; an interview with Sarah Pratt

10 Art ... and something more
by Adda Geiling

12 Africa "95 — skimming the contemporary?
by Keith Murray

1 6 Reviews of recent work and forthcoming exhibitions
and events

Cover: Berry Bickle, Pro Amore (detail). 1992, 129 x 21 Icms,
acrylic & mixed media. Photo: Stoffer Geiling

Left: Marisha Pels, Seswaa (detail). 1995, rubber, steel, wire &

bone. Photo: Stephen Williams

Publisher: Derek Huggins. Editor: Barbara Murray. Design & type.setting:
Myrtle Mallis. Origination: HPP Studios. Printing: A.W. Bardwell & Co.
Paper: Magnoprint from Graphtec Ltd.

Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not be reproduced
in any manner or form without permission.

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the writers
themselves and not necessarily those of Gallery Delta, the publisher or the
editor

Subscriptions from Gallery Publications, c/o Gallery Delta. 1 10 Livingstone
Avenue, PO. Box UA 373 Union Avenue, Harare. Tel: (14)792135.

Artnotes

'■ ■ Who influenced you ? ? ' asked a young
white Zimbabwean with a clip-board project
for a mind.

'Eveiyone is influenced by somebody.'
adding the clip-board dogma (and most are
so influenced that they never ascend to
themselves). "

This quote from a recent article written by
Professor Brian Bradshaw is strikingly
relevant to this issue of Gallery.

Modern theory plays with the idea of the
human being as a 'construct' of culture,
consciously or unconsciously moulded by
his or her social, political, ideological
environment. Art being an expression of the
human condition reflects this 'construction'.

Anthony Chennells in his article looks at the
ideological and political histories of this
country, the resulting norms and authorities
and their effects on art. Both perpetrators
and "victims' of any ideology are
'constructed' and art helps us to
'deconstruct' ourselves and our society. The
insight he offers could prove a useful
exercise both for artists in considering their
own work and for viewers.

A review of art exhibited at Africa '95 offers
further evidence of the influence of norms,
authorities and change on art. and
particularly of the power of institutions and
curators to determine society's perceptions
through selection and presentation of
particular works of art — something we all
could be more intensely aware of.

Elaine de Kooning wrote:

"Western art is built on the biographical
passion of one artist for another:
Michelangelo for Signoretli: Rubens for
Michelangelo; Delacroix for Rubens:
Cezanne for Poussin; the Cubists for
Cezanne: and Picasso, the philanderer for
anyone he sees going down the street. That
something new in art cannot come into
existence despite influence is a ridiculous
idea, and it goes hand in hand with an even
more ridiculous idea: namely that something
totally new. not subject to any influence, can
be created. ... Any artist, however who
looks only into his own life for his ideas is
still going to find the irresistible ideas of
other artists there"

Most artists are happy to list those whose
work they admire and whose techniques,
approach and even content they emulate.
But the great point of Bradshaw's statement
lies in that last line:

"... most are so influenced that they never
ascend to themselves."

It encapsulates a basic premise of creativity
— the ability to go beyond the known into
the new, to take individual experience and
make something original of it, something
that will enable us to understand a little
more, open our eyes to other possibilities.
The artist needs to get beyond the constructs
and influences, aware of them, using them or
rejecting them, making choices to break the
mould.

"// was not a question of knocking over other
gods. It was a question of finding your own
reality, your own answers, your own
experience... We discovered a simple thing,
yet far-reaching in its effect: 'The search is
the discovery.' Picasso had said, I don 't
.search. I find.' We lacked the confidence
for such an arrogant remark. We discovered
instead that searching was itself a way of
art. Not necessarily a final way. hut a way"

Within our own small system changes are
occurring, a chance for new 'constructs' to
have a positive effect. A director has at last
been appointed for the Bulawayo National
Gallery. As of the 1st of February, Stephen
Williams is no longer just 'temporary' or
'acting'. Events at Douslin House already
show evidence of his knowledge of the
regional art scene, his energy and his
commitment to art. Hopefully, his influence
will be felt throughout the system!

In closing, I would like to thank, most
wholeheartedly, Stoffer Gelling whose
photographs have been a major contribution
to the quality of Gallery. His generous gifts
of time and materials have helped the
magazine to walk its precarious financial
tightrope. Stoffer has now returned to
Germany with his family and we wish him
well in all his future endeavours.

Gallery survives and we hope this issue will
encourage artists in Zimbabwe to examine
their influences and 'ascend to themselves'.

The Editor

Sarah Pratt reveals in her interview that she
is consciously seeking to unravel the
'constructs' of her existence. By looking at
her personal family background and its
wider context as European in Africa, she is
attempting to form some sort of
understandable identity.

Adda Ceiling believes that artists can affect
and change the norms of their society by
making work which exposes the forces that
"construct' it. The system is there but can be
challenged and hopefully bettered. She
urges Zimbabwean artists to examine
contemporary reality, to become more aware
of the existing inlluences and to express a
fearless interpretation of their effects.

There is no avoiding the importance of
influence. No one would disclaim the
effects of Picasso on the story of art just as
no one would refute the influence of African
art on Picasso — the artist as influenced and
influencer.

As Picasso said:

"Now is the lime in this period of changes
and revolution to use a revolutionary
manner of painting and not to paint like
before''

Evolution generally occurs gradually,
experience shaping the direction of
development. However this slow process
can be punctuated by sudden change coming
out of a significant realisation. Norm
breakers in art are those who force society to
see in a different way. We now take entirely
for granted the breakthroughs accomplished,
but there is always another to be made. If
the artist is overwhelmed by the authority or
norm, change does not occur. It demands a
disturbing process of continuous
questioning.

Perhaps what John lerren has written is
appropriate:

UNESCO bursaries for artists under
.^."i: opportunities for practising artists to
work at various art institutions through-
out the world. If you want information
ask at Gallery Delta or write to the Editor.

In a two part article, Anthony Chennells contemplates

the power of centres and norms in Zimbabwean art.

This first part investigates evidence of post-colonial cultural fragmentation

in the work of two white Zimbabwean painters.

The second part will look at the effects of empire on the work of black

Zimbabwean artists.

Empire's offspring

The Australians used to use the phrase
Culture Cringe to describe their relationship
with Europe. Culture Cringe implied that
Australians were raw and unformed, their
culture an imperfect replica of Europe's, and
that the only way in which they could stand
tall was by more perfectly imitating the
metropolitan model.

White Zimbabweans have their own
versions of Culture Cringe. One only has to
go to Harare antique auctions to see it
manifesting itself. Buyers who feel no
obligation to distinguish mukwa from
mopani would be mortified if they confused
walnut and oak veneers.

In the last ten years, post-colonialism has
become the rage in cultural studies and.
whatever its theoretical limitations, it has
helped to free us from a belief that the
cultural productions of the "UK" constitute
an ideal and that all else is an imperfect
copy.

Post-colonialism as a theory challenges the
idea that cultural authority can be found only
at the centre of one of Europe's various
empires. At its most unsatisfactory, post-
colonialism responds to this cultural
authoritarianism simply by asserting the
authority of an alternative local centre:
whatever London does Harare can do as
well. At its more complex, however, post-
colonialism recognises that artists at the
peripheries of empire command perspectives
which the metropole does not know.

The very term post-colonial insists that all
peoples living in the wake of empire, ruler
and ruled, metropole and colony, are in one
way or another the products of colonialism.
The legacies of empire ensure that we
pos.sess. at the very least, a double vision
formed from our familiar Zimbabwean
experiences as well as from the multiple
influences, banal and serious, through which
we have experienced outside worlds.

Helen Lieros, Anatomy of Rock, 1992, 35 x 26cms, mixed media

Berry Bickle. Pro Amore (triptych),
1992, 129 X 515cms, mixed media

The very possibility of double vision
involves a subversion of the steady authority
of the metropolitan gaze. If other ways of
looking at reality are possible, then the
authority of the centre is called into
question.

Cultural nationalists want the culture of the
former colony simply to displace the culture
of the metropole. Post-colonialism however,
theorises an alternative to the idea of centre
answering centre. It refuses the idea of
centre and therefore of 'norm" itself. If the
metropolitan 'nonn'is subverted, then the
very concept of norm will be regarded
sceptically ( I ).

In the place of metropolitan models and the
faint echoes of peripheral imitations, we are
in a position to relish the multiple influences
which play on our lives. Two recent
theorists write that:

"... post-colonial literatures take us from the
monocentric into the polyphonic, from the
dominance of a single culture into
convt '"ent cultures, from pure ancestry- into
hybridisation. "(1)

The traces of empire ensure that many
visions compete with one another on more
or less equal terms.

The post-colonial model does not exist only
in the tensions between colony and
metropole. If the very idea of 'norm' is
being questioned, then all centres are
suspect. Most countries know centre and
periphery through the tensions between
capital and province, for in most countries
the capital conflates political and cultural

power Stephen Williams has played with
this arrogance in an article in Gallery. He
called his account of culture and politics in
Bulawayo 'Sketches from the Fringe,' an
ironic title, since, by the end of the essay,
one felt that the fringe was centre and that
Bulawayo has as much or as little right to be
taken as seriously as does Harare (3).

Two Zimbabwean artists who reproduce
issues of the post-colonial condition in their
work are Helen Lieros and Berry Bickle.
Lieros has consciously produced an art
which confronts her dual heritage of Greece
and Zimbabwe. In an interview in Gallery.
she asks, "Am I Greek'.' Am 1 African?"
Lieros identifies the form of her figures in
Byzantine stylisalion but at the same time
she can think of the major theme in her work
as "the earth, the discovery (for myself) of
Africa, the stratas. laiul formation." (4)

In one of Lieros's paintings. Anatomy of
Rock. Greece is present in a form other than
the human figure. The pink, brown and blue
of Zimbabwe's granite country at certain
limes of the year doininate the colours of the
painting. The rock as organic is suggested in
the rib-like lines which confidently mould
the centre of the work. The painting's
strongest colours however, are the patches of
blue which surely recall the sea. One blue
area intrudes into the painting like an inlel
into land. The other, a painted rectangle of
paper, suggests a window opening onto
another, maritime, world.

Even while the painting is celebrating the
colours and textures of the Zimbabwean
landscape, its artist allows us to glimpse the
sea which physically intrudes into Greece

and mythically lies so deeply in a Greek
consciousness. The bones of the rock and
the window on the sea compete within the
painting as alternative centres of attention.
It is as if Lieros, Zimbabwean artist,
acknowledges that her art also allows the
viewer access into that worid which was
classical to Europe.

Berry Bickle acknowledges the multiple
inOuences on her work as consciously as
Lieros. Bickle is acquainted with .some of
the most influential voices in modern
cultural theory and these are given form in
her work. Probably the most important
thinker of the twentieth century is Michel
Foucault and post-colonialism is heavily
indebted to him. Bickle used quotations
from Foucault in the booklet. Other, which
accompanied her November 1994 exhibition
at Gallery Delta (5).

She quotes Foucault as saying that the
European tradition has become accustomed
"to seeking origins ... to recon.ttituting
traditions ... to projecting teleologies ...
(feeling) a particular repugnance to
conceiving of difference." In this quote,
Foucault is describing the totalitarian mind,
whether it is the mind of imperialism,
fascism, Leninism, Apartheid, cultural
nationalism or a European complacency
v\hich presents its social practices as ideals.

The Nazis and South Africa's Afrikaner
nationalists looked for origins, as if origins
tell us who we arc now. An emphasis on
origin allows us to think of history as
possessing ends which are already present in
beginnings. History is then seen as moving
with the predictability of a series. Shaping

political agendas around origin and end
(teleology! gives us the illusion of
reproducing the logic ot time. The
envisaged end may be the German State, the
British Empire. Pan Africanism, the worker
state of Lenin's fantasies or a South Africa
where everyone inhabited areas which their
origins made appropriate for them.

Bickle answers these totalitarian constructs
with wit and pathos. She offers a series of
spoons which have no possible purpose
except to reiterate their own emptiness.
Someone is hungry. There is terrible pathos
in her empty dresses, another series which
has no end except the death that we all will
share. The dresses have the horror of clothes
stripped from concentration-camp victims.
Looking at them one is more conscious of
their emptiness than of themselves.

Two dresses within another series bear labels
pronouncing difference:

"/ don 't believe as they do. 1 don 't live as
they do. I don 't love as they do."

The third, which completes the series, is
simply marked:

'7 will die as they do."

The T becomes all tho.se who have been
slaughtered for difference, for being
constructed as "other" in someone's belief
system. But the "they" ironically is all of us:
even the most arrogant person, most certain
of the rightness of his or her ways of
thinking, will share the same death as those
to whose "otherness' they feel most superior.

One of the most important insights in
modem cultural theory is the idea that all our
understandings are culturally constructed.
One way of coming to terms with this in art
criticism is to think of a painting as a text.
To understand any text one must understand
the language and its symbolic references.
No word can be fully understood unless one
knows the cultural system it is part of.

In Other. Bickle quotes from Fanon's The
A)rheolog\ of Knowledge to explain this in a
different way. Fanon writes that his ideal
cultural critic looking at a painting "would
try to discover whether space, distance,
depth, colour, light, proportions, volumes
and contours were not. at the period in
question considered, named, enunciated in a
discursive practice."

Bickle strikingly realizes this in a triptych.
Pro Amore. An unreadable script scrawls
across a panel vital w ith the brilliance of a
Matabeleland sunset illuminating the
harshness of the Matabeleland bush. Stuck
to the panels are objects which signify
previous attempts to inhabit that landscape:
an opened fan. the wooden snake of
thousands of tourist exchanges, a diary page,
a framed photograph of a Victorian
"explorer" in collar and cravat, a tourist
photograph of the Falls. None has any
particular dominance: the British explorer
and artist, the black colonized and curio
maker have equal authority only because
Bickle has allowed them to have it.

But at the same time. Bickle is denying her
own painting the status of the tlnal word.
Because Bickle is the artist, she has the

authority to contextualise the various
artifacts in the way she chooses but she
knows the limitations to her authority. Part
of her medium is the scrawled writing which
admits to its own inarticulateness. I turn to a
page in Other. A similar scrawl runs
diagonally across the page but this time it is
imposed on cleariy typed words. We live in
a culture which gives the written word a
final authority. Eager for that certainty. I
read the words beneath the scrawl and find:

"awkward jumbled
language . . .
inventing a language
for other ... in
suspension, born in
paint . . . language
is a sound in ab-
straction. "

I have turned to the word for finality and
Bickle denies me the certainty of what I
believed was most sure.

A.,^'^riJ. //^^

Post-colonialism is concerned with the
alternative vision of traditionally powerless
groups. In our context we think of these as
the races against whom colonialism
discriminated. Sickle's triptych reminds us
of other powerless groups. The ornate frame
around the photograph of the "explorer'
reminds us that it is men who go out.
Women constrain them within a pretty
domestic space their femaleness is supposed
to have created. Fan and snake occupy the
same panel, conventional male and female
images. The fan suggests how white women
were expected to maintain the illusion of
fragility in a hard world. The curio snake
reminds us of the new economic
circumstances which re-write the
masculinity of a black man, reduced to
creating artifacts for the tourist "other".

If we are to loose our Culture Cringe and
stand upright, what is GuUeiy doing
including amongst its offerings Margaret
Garlake's "Letter from London"? (6) Is
Garlake offering us a validation of our poor
provincial efforts'? At the beginning of this
article 1 suggested that London is as much
post-colonial as the most far-flung former
colony. Post-colonialism's preoccupation
with centres, borders, norms and authority
informs every line of Garlake's column.

The installations which make up the
exhibition at Hackney Hospital "create a
sense of acute unease and dislocation ...
callin); into question the boundaries of
freedom and restraint, madness and sanity,
and the role of the artist as our social
con.science."

When Garlake describes how the Hayward
re-contextualises Impressionists' work by
juxtaposing it with landscapes from the Paris
Salon "which ... set the terms of normative
taste." one suddenly understands anew how
Impressionism "focussed on ... the informal,
the impermanent, celebrating the ordinary ...

modernity and mobility."

Garlake refers to "recent critical theory of
'the body' y We are accustomed to thinking
of the body as the most stable of sites but
post-colonialism understands better than
most how aspects of bodies can be made the
basis of competing ideologies. Much of
colonialism was based on theories of skin
colour. What bodies signify and therefore
may or may not do is more than skin deep.
Bodies in a heterosexual, patriarchal society
perform the functions which that society
imposes on them. The body of a woman
who chooses not to bear children or the
bodies of men and women in same sex
relationships are seen as deviant or
demonstrate in their practice alternative
theories of the body.

Garlake claims that a function of art is to
stand "on the edf;e of the known, the safe
and the acceptable" and. in my dialect, to
allow the grace of the unfamiliar, the
dangerous and the subversive to enhance our
vision.

'Letter from l.oiulon' is iniporlani not only
because Garlake writes with rare authority
but because it reminds us of a paradox:
London is an imperial centre in a post-
colonial age. London no longer hands down

the law like some latter-day Sinai. Instead it
is the site of innumerable transecting
influences. London re -colonised from its
own colonies understands that boundaries
set around politeness and value are
permeable, constantly shifting, as the voices
from beyond, of others, of those colonised in
so many different ways, assume a
momentary eminence simply by asserting
that they are there.

Notes

1 . See ("or example Bil! Asticroft. Gareth Griffith. Helen
Tiffin. The Empirf Writes Biuk: TIteory in Practice in
Pnst-Cohnial Literaliires. London and New York;
Roulledge, 1989. p.17.

2. Diana Bryden and Helen Tiffin. Decvlonisint;
Fictions. Sydney: Dangaroo. 199.'^. p.^."^.

y. Stephen Williams, 'Sketches from the Fringe'
Gallery, no 2 (December 1994). ppl8-19

4. 'Helen Lieros: An Interview with Barbara Murray."
Gutter,-, no 4 (June 199.S). pl4.

^. Berenice Bickle. fJ^Z/jtr. Harare; 1994. no pagination.

6, Margaret Garlake. 'Letter from London'
Gtiller^. no .S (September 1 995 >. ppl 8- 19.

Attempting to understand the enigmatic nature of others and the identity
of self is a continuous search of the past and the present for clues.
Sarah Pratt talks about her strangely resonant etchings

at memory

■ your

BM: The subject matter of your etchings is very personal -
family in their specific environments.

SP: Yes. these works are all family related. I wanted to
re-create a sense of belonging.

BM: Why re-create?

SP: The works represent almost a lost childhood,
something whole that was there and has gone. We moved
to the farm when I was five and all my life has been
centred there but the family has been breaking up with my
brothers leaving home, then my sister, and then I left. We
had a family reunion which set me off on this subject.
Fowler says: "As we approach AD 2000 and the end of
the millenium. the 1990s will witness an increasing and
increasingly morbid fin de siecle search for roots in the
past, for meaning in what has happened in the Twentieth
Century ... nostalgia at a personal level will consequently
be rampant ... to eveiyone a family tree, to every place a
potted history ..." (I)

BM: So this is an attempt to make your own family tree, to make
sense of your past and the people in it?

SP: Yes. I think that people are constructed by experience and
motivated by memories of past events, they form a vital part of each
individual. Memory allows me access to a place where recognition
and exploration of myself as a cultural, multi-layered human being is
possible. Memory is identity. If I can quote again, Stevenson said :
"The past is myself my own history, the seed of my present thoughts,
the moidd of my present disposition." (2) So my works allow me to
piece together the past in a narrative sense, to explore aspects of past
events. Most people are deeply affected by where they grow up. If I
hadn't grown up on the farm Td be totally different. 1 am working
in terms of my memories of that time. You could call them interior
rural landscapes.

BM: Your works express interesting relationships between humans
and animals.

SP: Well animals have always been part of our lives on the farm.
The geese, the bloody fish...

BM: Are they 'bloody" fish?

SP: Yes ... really! The trout ... my father and brothers are frantic
fishermen. So my whole life I've been transported back and forth to

Nyanga. At that family reunion, everyone came back to the farm,
from New Zealand, from South Africa and from Zimbabwe. They
all came back and the men just disappeared and when you did see
them all they talked about was fishing and what they caught etc. So
my sister-in-law in this etching is clutching a trout because that's
what she's got to look forward to, being married to my brother Fish
are going to be part of her life whether she likes it or not.

BM: She is holding the fish very close, almost like you would a
child. She's looking away but her face is impassive, accepting?

SP: Yes, there is acceptance. She has married into that experience.
When my brother catches trout, their daughter clutches the fish like
that and carries them around until she is covered in fish slime.

BM: In the etching of your mother alone, the fish are coming in and
out of holes. Why is that?

SP: I just wanted fish sticking out of everywhere. In some sketches
I have not made into etchings, fish come out of the walls and even
the roof. In another, the fishing hooks grab onto me, hundreds of
them. Fish everywhere. Fish skeletons. Even some figures whose
heads have become fish-heads. Women and family are subjected to
the fish. The geese are just to project another aspect of my mother's
life into the picture.

BM: The geese
are her choice?

SP: Yes. She
hkes them. She
doesn't like fish.

BM: So the

animals

dominate?

SP: Yes. they
take over my
parents lives, and
mine too!

BM: And you

resent that?

SP: No. I don't.
It's just the reality.

BM: .Although
the people are

with the fish or geese, the viewer is never quite sure of the
relationship. The people are surrounded by the animals but not
doing anything with them.

SP: I like that. You don't understand the relationship. It makes
you question the character. It adds something, not being able to
define the relationship.

BM: Do you think of these relationships as strange?

SP: No. it's just one plus one plus one equals the person.

BM: When you did your thesis on art theory last year what did you
concentrate on?

SP: Portraiture by 20th century women artists. Frida Kahlo. Alice
Neel. Paula Modersohn-Becker. and I talked about Kathe Kollwitz a
couple of times, looking at their portraits of women and their self
portraits. The use of personal iconography is what I'm specially
interested in and the problems for the viewer who obviously has not
experienced that person's life. With all the iconography that Frida
uses, you really have to read an autobiography before you can
understand her images. This is problematic but it adds interest to the
work, the fact that the viewer can't really understand her.

Pure portraits only give some idea of the person. I want to work
with the objects that make up their lives. I think that a person's
character is the result of all the experiences that they've had and
their collective effect. So I try to represent individuals through
experiences I have shared with them, expressing part of myself, and
using the objects as symbols resulting in a narrative image. I am
interested in narrative art, the story of a life.

BM: Which artists' work do you like?

SP: I like de Chirico's work. Grant Wood's American ('jtithic is my
favourite painting. It's wonderful. I relate very strongly to that
painting because of the defensive stance ... the 'this is my land'
quality. On the farm you experience a sense of insecurity whether
you own the land or rent it. With the land aquisition policy, you feel
you don't belong. You don't know if your land is going to be taken
away from you. The psychological effect it has had on farmers is
very strong. There is also the insecurity that I feel of whether I can
stay here or not. I need to locate a sense of belonging somewhere. It
is so beautiful here and at the same time you feel you won't be here
always.

BM: WtuT work then re\eals the life of your family, captures their
involvement with the land and the animals and the insecurity of their
present situation. I don't get much feeling from your work that the
land is beautiful.

SP: I wanted to express the Africanness of the outside, the
intrusiveness of it. You can't get away from it. You can't close the
door. There are no doors or windows. People are in the landscape,
part of it. yet they are vulnerable.

BM: Do you see the African landscape as harsh, for example in one
etching you use a lot of spikey aggressive cactuses?

SP: That etching is of my sister who now lives in Chiredzi where it
is unbearably hot. She is fanatical about cactuses. My cousin is
clutching one, getting spiked. When people are insecure in their
environment they become attached to material things and in my
opinion it is dangerous. The people are made vulnerable through
clutching them.

BM: In many of the etchings there is a sense of intense emotion
created by the objects and the surroundings but the people seem
impassive.

SP: I am more interested in
expressing their emotions
through their environment,
through the objects I associate
them with, rather than on
their faces. In the etching of
my mother and my brother-
in-law, she is obviously the
dominant one; he is a
dreamer.

BM: The characters are very
stationary making the
etchings more like traditional
formal portraits where the
person sits for the artist.

SP: I've always enjoyed that

static quality, lack of

movement. I want to present

a set picture of my view of the person. For example, the etching of

the dressmaker is of my sister-in-law. She is from New Zealand and

I don't relate her to the farm at all. She lives in the city, hence the

buildings in the background. Dressmaking is her career. I'm

interested in how objects and

your career shape you and

how you cling to it, it's your

identity. She is surrounded.

hemmed in by her career It

is in a sense constricting. But

it's her choice and that's how

she portrays herself We are

formed by our choices. They

create our identity.

BM: The patterning of the
entire surface, like a textile, is
characteristic of your work.
When did that style start'.'

SP: Well at school we only
did drawing and textiles.
There was no painting. When
I started at Michaelis, I was
doing painting but in second
year 1 began printmaking. all

the difTerenl types, lino cut. collograph. stone
litho. plate litho. screen printing, mono prints.
They give you a sound technical grounding in
both black and white and colour. Then in third
year I chose printmaking as a major,
specialising in etching because I could get so
much more detail. I hate the flatness of screen
printing and litho. It's the embossed quality
and the preciseness of etching that 1 like, the
control you have over detail. My paintings
were also detailed, precise. The small animals
and objects fulfill my need for detail. And I
like using the many techniques to create
different and contrasting surfaces and textures,
waxy, soft, sharp, lined — fish scales, floor,
fabric, flesh. The faces are etched in black and
then pushed back smooth to get the white back,
giving a softer surface.

BM: Do you work from sketches?

SP: Yes. not detailed, just rough sketches. In
my opinion if you work from a detailed,
planned sketch the result is cold. If I dont
rework the copper it comes out too perfect. I
try to rework, to use mistakes. My work is
quite tight anyway so it is easy for my self not
to come through, to get too tight. I think I lose
a lot of feeling in the work if I just translate a
perfect drawing onto copper plate. Also I get
bored, just copying, which must show in the
etching.

BM: What is your process?

SP: I do a very rough sketch first, just

outlining composition. Then I etch and do the

first proof. You can"t really see what you're

doing while you are making the image because

it is a reversed process, so I go back and rework

and rework until I get what I want. The smaller

works take about two weeks of working and

reworking. I'm getting better at making less

proofs. Initially you're e.xcited to see what

you've done, but as you get more technically

adept you can plan it more and take fewer proofs. My sketches also

usually define the light source. Etching lends itself to shadows so I

emphasise light and shadow. And I like the play with perspective.

BM: The distorted perspective adds an interesting element
particularly inside the buildings which are European in style.

SP: Yes, I wanted European images. The buildings are European,
the subjects are European, only the land is African. It would be a lie
to use African objects. I used to use African objects in still lifes but
now I feel they are not part of my identity. I can admire them from
afar but they are not part of my own character I am not involved in
that very personal sphere with them. They are not part of my family
and the experiences I've shared with them. My parents are attached
to the African land, the birds, the animals. They are European, but
they grew up here. I am a Zimbabwean but I have grown up around
people who themselves grew up in Rhodesia, a separate but identical
place. My parents" sense of uneasiness, not being able to secure a
future in Zimbabwe, all those things accumulate, create a sense of
defensiveness and looking back to one's own culture. If you're not
secure, the other culture is threatening. We are affected by Africa
and the result is that we look more to where we belong.

Any small community, say of Jewish people surrounded by a
Christian community, accentuates and defends their own culture.

Contact with a culture that is not yours, realising that that is quite
normal and fine, does not result in wanting to join that culture but
rather in strengthening your own culture. So one accepts other
cultures but identifies more strongly with one's own culture and the
smaller the community the stronger the need to cling to one's own
culture. The white community in Zimbabwe is not truly European
anymore. They are products of Zimbabwe. They have their own
culture.

Changes make you question who you are and it comes back to
family, to those experiences and your memories of them. Much of
the art now being produced by students at Michaelis is very personal
in nature. People are trying to find a sense of identity and a sense of
belonging. Memories help to strengthen the barriers around the
individual's cultural identity.

Notes

1. P.J. Fowler. Tlu- Pasl in Cimlempomn Society: Then. Now. London & New York:
Routledge. 1992, pi 61.

2. Slevenson quoted in E. Tonkin. Narrating our Pasis: The Social Construction of Oral
History. New York: CUP. 1992, pi.

All reproduced works:

Sarah Pratt, (Untitled), 1995, approx 48 x 34cms, etching

Adda Geiling, a painter whose upbringing in former East Germany
fostered political awareness and sensitivity to self-censorship,
worked and exhibited in Zimbabwe for three years.
Her experiences of the local art scene lead her to make this challenge

Art

"Take an object, do something with it. then do something else with
it!"

This entry by the American painter Jasper Johns in his sketchbook,
was over the years to become his personal motto. It helped him
create a number of interesting and decidedly controversial pieces of
work, such as Flag, painted in 1954/55. the tlrst of his Flag series.

The American flag was at that time difficult to imagine as a piece of
art. It seemed downright absurd. But because of this absurdity. Flag
remained for many years the focus of art theory — discussed,
celebrated, hated. Disturbed by the subject and irritated by its
superficial harmlessness, the viewer was captured. The often seen
but seldom closely observed object, the flag, became the focus of
conscious looking.

Can a painting be a projection plane for confrontation with one's
own country?

Is Fine Art not often described as a medium for everything that is
'aesthetically beautiful' and thereby clearly identified in its
functionality?

Can you bind ideology, politics and art together? There are many
answers to these questions, often of a complicated nature. The
diversity of views on art forbids a consensus.

The Italian artist Renato Guttoso remarks for instance:

"Art is not ideology. Init can experience ideological influences. Art
is a vision of the world, not an instninwnl for conveying a given
knowledge..."

Alfred Hrdlicka, an Austrian sculptor and graphic artist, has said:

"Without the nutrient and the raw material of politics, art makes no
sense. Art has always been and wilt always be politically used and
misused."

Whether art is vision or "what good artists make" (Picasso), in every
case, art wants to be more than ihc interaction of colour arul form.

Perplexity concerning contemporary art is great. In the face of the
enormous ovcr-cmphasis of subjective experience, the viewer,
despite the intelligent and fascinating arrangement of the content ol a
work, feels insecure and alienated. The basic problem remains one
of approach. The artist, concerned with his individuality (since only
that makes him an artist), assumes that painting is not a mirror, but
I U rather that it arises from being irritated. However, the recipient is

Alfred Hrdlicka, Studienblatt zu "Plotzenseer Totentanz",
1974, 32 X 21.2cms, drypoint etching. (Photo courtesy
Rasch und Rohring Verlag, Hamburg.)

only prepared to a degree to let himself be irritated and follow the
thought process of the artist. He will give up this effort quickly if
the world of the artist seems too far removed from his own: even
though the content is the whole point, apart from the formal,
pictorial quality of a work. Nowadays the meaning of the painting is
often ignored, yet it is specifically the developing of an
understanding between the artist and the viewer on the content, that
makes the work, at least for the viewer, original and exciting.

Meantime, there is an enormous freedom for the artist. The
multiplicity of artistic expression has grown immensely since the
beginning of the 20th century. The traditional media of painting and
sculpture have been enriched by object art. installation, performance
and liappeiuMg. Hvervbody can express himself in any possible
medium, going turlher ihan ihe two-dimensional, experimentnig.

In ihis respect. Zimbabwe moves in traditional ways. There is not
much experimenting, only a few artists seem to have discovered the
challenge of crossing boundaries. Much work is made with sale in
mind which, while not in ilscif condeinnable, perceptibly limits
creativity.

Adda Gelling, Big Fish (detail on left / complete
work below), 1995, approx 2 x 2.5m, mixed media

and something more

If you added up all the "spirits" of contemporary Shona Sculpture,
you would think that Zimbabwean art is deeply rooted in tradition.
At least since the birth of Shona Sculpture however, the recourse to
traditional subjects often seems to be an expression of helplessness.
Only a few artists reflect a contemporary existence or awareness
(befindlichkeit); in most cases the art and the artist's own life are
strictly separated. The problems in the artist's life are avoided and
not used as subjects for his or her art. There is a great fear of
confronting difficult subjects. It is easier to go back to the
'traditional" subjects. Only a very few artists are courageous enough
to paint real and delicate issues (beriihrungsangst).

Painting in Zimbabwe has had an enormous upswing in the last few
years. With Luis Meque. Shephard Mahufe. Fasoni Sibanda. George
Churu. Keston Beaton and others, a new generation has grown up.
with enough potential to develop their own artistic language. Still
missing however, is the self-confidence to cross boundaries and to
see themselves as the mouthpiece of serious social expression.

It was conspicuous at the 1995 Zimbabwe Heritage exhibition, that
in comparison with previous years, more and more artists did not
enter, with the majority of established and leading artists not
participating. This left the stage to mostly young inexperienced
artists, who in fact need to be confronted with the work of the
experienced artists in order to develop.

Reality for most Zimbabweans is anything but rosy at the moment.
Many have to fight harder than ever for survival. Dissatisfaction
grows, specially within the younger generation. There is enough
material for committed art. as soon as its potential is discovered.

"Even if politics are decided at a higher level, the fermentation
amonf> dissatisfied people cdvvays provides political dynamite and a
measurement of the mood because, despite their lack of influence,
the future is often anticipated in the underground, at grassroots
/fi'p/." (Alfred Hrdlicka)

Art has an enormous capacity to reach into the future, to make it
possible to feel what cannot be expressed in words. Art is in every
case a sensor of its time — that is its chance, its opportunity and its
special quality.

It seems Zimbabwe is still looking for its identity. Is there any better
task for an artist than to participate in this process, to influence it. to
make an impact and to represent his or her consciousness?

Note: Jutta Jackson kindly translated this ailicle from the German for Galiery.

Recognition of the richness of African arts was
one of the ainns of Africa '95 and while It pre-
sented some of the art from Africa it was in-
evitably limited, as Keith Murray writes. Now
that the debate has been so successfully
i opened can we hope it will continue with
k more, in-depth, and well researched r.
-^ temporary exhibitions from ind-^-' '
African countries?

Africa '95, a Season Celebrating the
Arts of Africa — how to begin? A
question that the London galleries
and curators must have asked
themselves from the initial
planning of these exhibitions, a
balancing act of space and
budget against the huge
diversity that is Africa.

Africa — The Art of a
Continent at the Royal
Academy was without
doubt the exhibition of
a lifetime, a chance
to study under one
roof a vast array
of artifacts
covering
over a
million

years, from the Olduvai hand axe to a Zulu
vinyl-asbestos earplug. Inevitably the
popular favourites seemed to be the most
weird and exotic, the same driving force that
motivated many of the original collectors.
There is no doubt that works such as the
Kongo nail fetishes have the power to evoke
a visceral twist, even in today's most cynical
Western gut. Sensual beauty also proved
ageless, the Burkino-Faso chair drawing
many admirers. The serene Yoruba
terracottas and the masterly Benin bronzes
fully justified their fame. And there were
many new delights such as the Chief's stool
from Tanzania complete with attendant
guard.

A jam-packed collection of wonderful
artifacts, the RA exhibition reinforced
comfortable Western conceptions of Africa
as exotic and remote. And where did
Zimbabwe feature in all this? The Bird that
would complete the unity of the national
tlock was tucked in the comer of a vast
room, kindly lent by South Africa!

Chair, Nuna, Burkina Faso, 20th century (?), wood
81 X 67 X 28.5cm (Musee de L'Iran, Dakar)

mwwmwm,

Fante, Ghana, Will You Fly
or Will You Vanish? Either
Way You Can t Escape Us,
C.1920, imported cotton
applique

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K02C0
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Africa '95

skimming

the contemporary?

African Metalwork at the Crafts Council
Gallery was one of the few exhibitions to
have an African curator — Magdalene
Odundo, the renowned potter from Kenya.
As the title suggests, a sincere overview of
all Africa was attempted, and in the initial
stages this worked well. Ceremonial regalia,
gold weights, currency bars, weapons,
implements, were well displayed, the only
wish was for more information.

This exhibition ran into that old self-made
dilemma, art or craft? It is a distinction that
barely holds water, particularly in Africa, but
has been circumscribed by administrators
and bureaucrats to make their lives easier.
(Does craft still come under the Ministry of
Women's Affairs in Zimbabwe?)

As exhibits approached the present however.
the art content was sidelined. I have no
problems with artifacts made by hand from
recycled or scrap metal, proud that recycling
has been part of the way of life in Africa for
many years (the Western world has only
recently attempted to move in this direction,
with much 'green' trumpeting). The milk
chums, containers made out of bottle tops,
light bulbs turned into paraffin lights etc. are
all very salutary even if their appeal in

Akosombo Textiles
Ltd, Ghana, 1995,
wax print cotton
textile

London is one of quaintness. However
when they are 'artistic' but technically
incompetent copies of ghastly Modeme
metal and glass furniture, I fear the worst.
Including these last objects was a disservice
to the superb achievements of the earlier
work, and reinforced a view commonly held
by Westerners that all of Africa is primitive
and backward.

The Art of African Textiles: Technology.
Tradition and Lurex at the Barbican Art
Gallery, more than any of the other
exhibitions, gave a feeling of an art form
that is alive and well, with some outstanding
examples both old and new. Passing through
a specially commissioned Egyptian tent-
hanging, you left the inhuman public spaces
of the Barbican behind and were faced by
two subtle and rich applique hangings by
Chant Avedissian. loosely based on famous
monuments and mosques of his native
Egypt. The colours of these deceptively

simple geometric compositions, many
shades of black, ochre, olive green with
small highlights of red, immediately
identified the work solidly with Africa.

The main body of this exhibition was
loosely arranged by country and technique,
with historic precedents interspersed. It was
an intelligent presentation, allowing the
viewer to browse and investigate. Thus an
apron, beaded in traditional fashion (from
the Kariba area), was placed near South
African dress cloths decorated with dense
arrangements of safety pins. A traditional
cloth stencilled with an endless indigo repeat
of There is no King as God was juxtaposed
with a modem reworking of the same
tradition, a cotton wax print repeat of a
motorbike composed of spirals, the
background completely filled with an
endless Vroom — evidence of a vital
tradition continuing from the past into
regeneration in the present.

High-backed chief's stool,
Nyamwezi, Tanzania, late 19th
century, h. 107cm (Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin)

Kangas. embroidered and dyed gowns,
cotton, silk, political and celebratory prints.
flags, all were displayed with comprehensive
historic details of how and why
developments took place making a very
satisfying and vital exhibition.

Big City — Artists from Africa at the
Serpentine Gallery avoided the trap of trying
for too much and gained by allowing the
individuality of the artists to
come across. After I had
looked hard at the first
twenty or so of his
postcard-sized
drawings,
Frederic Bruly
Bouabre from the
Ivory Coast had me
hooked — entering into
his world philosophy,
complete with an evolved
written language, naive but
profound drawings that combine
with the writing to present great
graphic style, a commitment self-
evident in the sheer number of
cards on display, a series of series
that have become part of his very
ife. In an interview in the
accompanying catalogue. Bouabre
savs:

"Culture is the torch, the heiicoii
that lights the way. Without culture,
mankind would live in darkness."

"I obsene and what I see delii^hts
nie ... discovering things that would
otherwise pass unnoticed and
revealing them to your fellow human
beings is being creative..."

Seydou Keita is a Malian
photographer who has spent most of
his life taking portraits of local people

in Bamako, his birthplace, always using the
same camera, the same room, the same
props. He can date his archive by the
backdrop, his bedspread, which he changes
every two years. The results are a
compo.sed. contrasted, crystal clear record of
the people in the town until 1977 when he
was pushed out by the advent of cheap
colour photography.

Bodys Isek Kingelez from Zaire is. in his
own words, "the enlightened artist of new
horizons, creator-maker of Kimheville."
Using polychrome maquettes of fantasy
buildings, towns, roads, trains, he has
created a world that makes a mockery of
many of this decades's architectural
preoccupations. Highly stylised, they
delight the eye and the imagination, and
many are convincingly buildable. How
many of today's architects can offer as
much?

However, some of the work on the
Serpentine show was unremarkable. The
poignancy of an assemblage of found objects
plus written commentary has to be very
powerful indeed if it is not to be diminished
when moved out of its original context;
competent wall murals are to be found in
many countries in Africa: and weak
versions of Zephania Tshuma's caustic
visions produced by a South African sculptor
were among the works exhibited.

As a Zimbabwean I was looking for
Zimbabwe's involvement in Africa ■9.'>. It
cannot be a coincidence that two of the three
Zimbabwean items I saw (the Zimbabwe
Bird at the Royal Academy and the Apron at
the Barbican) both came from South African
collections. Even more damning is the fact
that two of the curators. Magdalene Odundo
for the Crafts Council and Tom Phillips for
the Royal Academy, are no strangers to
Zimbabwe.

There is no doubt that there are Zimbabwean
artists whose work would stand up well
against the individual artists shown at the
Serpentine, that the work of Zimbabwe's
best textile artists would have exposed a rich
new vein at the Barbican, that Weldart has
produced work that would demonstrate at
the Crafts Council that modem metal-
working techniques can produce real art in
Africa.

An intelligent selection of the best of the
varied arts and crafts of Zimbabwe,
pre.sented at an official level, would have
been an eye-opener in London. With a bit of
effort and enlightened support this couki still
be achieved.

«VoiLA comstJTLeRACfSiiSK

fSwSWiWIBv^S^' ^ « AN^A!s/r!T rmmmtBiMm.

Frederic Bruly Bouabre, The Couple United by Eternal Feelings Tortured in Twisted
Embraces of Pure Love, 1993

Frederic Bruly Bouabre, This is how Racism Destroys the Whole of Humanity, 1993

Kagiso Pat Mautloa, Tablet, 1993, 109 x 43.5 x 2cms, metal, wood, oil on canvas

Reading the Landscape - Nyanga,
Henry Thompson, Gallery Delta,
November 1995

A few years ago I guided Brian Bradshaw to
the Eastern Highlands. Bradshaw, that
master etcher and painter who has. since the
fifties, been the doyen of landscape painting
in South Africa, wanted to see some good
country, to make some sl^etches and
observations for a painting series which was
later to be coined Bradshaw '.v Africa. Late in
the afternoon we were descending the hill to
Mare Dam where I had planned a night stop
or two from which to make excursions, and
in the hope, at dawn or dusk, for the
opportunity to fish a trout. Bradshaw
suddenly broke silence and exclaimed in his
broad northern accent: "This is Robert
Paul's country. Why ... why are you bringing
inc liere ? I don V want Paul 's bloody count ly.
I don 't want to paint here. I want rocks ... I
want Africa. Africa Africa. I want those big
granite outcrops" He thumped the steering
wheel in frustration. At my direction we
stopped at a cottage. I endeavoured to
explain and promised him his Africa Africa
next day. I unloaded my pack. There was an
exchange of sharp words. He drove off. high
revving up the hill and out of the valley
heading back towards Makoni through which
we had driven earlier in the day between
huge granites which he appreciated. I
remarked the intensity of his feelings. 1
thought I would not see him again and I
reconciled myself to several days fishing.
And then I realised he had gone with my rod
and tackle. He came back in the late night
and said: "Found your Jlslting rod." Then I
heard him say by way of explanation, "It's
all Mavis' fault." When I enquired who
Mavis was he said: "Well, you know ... the
bloody car hire people", whose delay that
morning had irritated him immensely. The
next day we went on to Nyanga North, to
Ziwa and Zuwa, and found good rocks and
country and baobab for him to satisfy his lust
for his Africa.

The lesson is obvious. Bradshaw was
seeking the recognition of that special
something in the landscape with which he
identified completely. The landscape is vital.
Not all will satisfy. Bradshaw"s origins are
Bolton and the moors and Wales and its
mountains. Nyanga with its pines and waters
did not satisfy and he had a very healthy
respect for Robert Paul, the major body of
whose work was Nyanga in all its moods.

Henry Thompson was bold, in the wake of
Robert Paul, to take Nyanga — Reading the
Landscape as a theme for a series of
paintings. Clearly there was a danger, a trap
to avoid. Henry Thompson is however, a
white African. His origins are a farm near
Kuruman on the edge of the Kalahari and it
is there that his appreciation of the landscape
began as a small boy. And it is obvious that
he delighted in nature. He told me once,

over coffee, that his grandfather, whom he
loved, had a deep love of the land and was a
conser\ ationist at heart who ran no more
cattle that was necessary for the needs. And
how, after a wild ride with his brother to an
adjoining farm, the old man rebuked them
severely for seeing the lathered horses off to
water with a switch across their rumps. A
lesson, he says, he has never forgotten.
Henry Thompson was uprooted from the
Kalahari and it is after many years of living
in Zimbabwe and visiting Nyanga that he
paints that landscape.

Does Henry Thompson succeed? Yes.
Certainly and well. His paintings are still,
calm and clear, like the clarity of the early
morning. He would u.se the phrase
'champagne morning". There is no specific
view that we can recognise absolutely but
rather the basic ingredients of earth and sky
and rock and tree and grass and water and
sun and light and shade are brought together
from here and there and are familiar to us in
their essence and in their new but lasting
juxtapositions and relationships. How do we
associate these paintings of an African
landscape with Nyanga? Most importantly
and almost magically, Helen Lieros
comments, it is the line of the hills which
expresses most and which wavers here,
thickens there, wanders there. The centre of
the exhibition is the viewer, around him the
paintings, and if one allows the eye to move
from painting to painting, the line of the
hills, encompassing all yet freeing all. links
and creates a panoramic effect. There are
paintings which include the road, the bridge,
the cutting, the long-grassed verge and bush
and msasa trees, a building and village, a
dismembered tree, rocks, and even the artist,
and in all there is the line of the hills, not
specific of Inyangani or any other range or
down, but which secures us with a strong
sense of place.

There is one painting. September, in which
the density and shade of the blue of the hills
is identical to the blue of the sky but
mysteriously, because of the darker outline,
the hills take on and appear a darker blue.
And in these paintings we have the

remembrance and the longing, of times past
and for future times, for Nyanga, which for
many of us is the place we go in good
expectancy, for it is in the main, open and
friendly, warm and embracing country, and
to which we are drawn again by these
paintings.

I have not watched Henry Thompson paint
... I don't know anybody outside his family
who has had this opportunity if even they,
but he works in his studio, taking excursions
to look long and hard and thoughtfully ...
and to make sketches of the structure of the
landscape, abstracting to simple geometric
form and I suspect that when he works he is
thoughtful and deliberate, never wild, and
that his markings with the bigger brush that
appear spontaneous are deliberated long and
hard and then put down with gusto and
panache, as in The Dismemhered Tree.

My own favourites were Hill, a masterly
work which stands in the memory for its
softness and subtleness of colour and light
and its unusual composition, and The
Dismembered Tree for the thrust and sweep
and sear of the red that runs through it.
There were others to which I was drawn ... a
smaller painting, Landscape, in which the
rocks of a kopje were evident and where the
long grass of the savannah bleached white
at the very end of the hot, dry season shines
white as if with frost as the early morning
sun glances and dances along it ... and
reminiscent for me of crossing the

grasslands of the Somabula Flats at dawn on
a jewel of another African day. Inevitably
there were some which I liked less, for
example the painting of the lake, the island
and the rock which seemed to me less well
composed and a shade too surreal.

Henry Thompson, as in a previous
exhibition where he paid homage to Matisse
and Picasso, gives us an insight into himself.
There is nostalgia in his Reading the
Landscape which depicts his old model MG
in which he delighted to tour to the Kalahari
and, as he once told me, to put his foot down
and listen to the gutsy roar of the exhaust
through the town of Kuruman at sun-up, but
with which he sadly had to part years ago.
And in In My Mind's Eye, he places himself
in the country wearing his favourite cap and
looking hard with squinted eye. If these two
paintings are for me less well formed and
painted, it is perhaps because they eschew a
metaphysical edge and there is a poignancy
in them, and if there is any ego, his desire to
make a mark, to mark a place for posterity, it
is understood. Surely he has earned it. He
reads the Nyanga landscape very well
indeed.

Henry Thompson is a long-standing and
major painter whose rendering of the
Nyanga landscape is his own and which
stands our scrutiny. Most of these paintings
are memorable and can still be called to
mind. Derek Muggins

Henry Thompson, Landscape (left)

Henry Thompson, The Dismembered Tree (above)

The 9th Annual VAAB Exhibition,
National Gallery in Bulawayo,
Dec-Feb 1995

Art in the Time of ESAP:
Directly outside my office window in
downtown Bulawayo, a young man in t-
shirt, jeans and dark glasses spends each
day patiently awaiting buyers for his fruit
and vegetables. Across the road, the post
office pavement has been transformed into
a tlea market by women selling porcelain
statuettes, toys, petticoats, kitchenware,
jewellery, handbags and other articles. A
few blocks away, the central parking spaces
have been commandeered by mountains of
onions and other produce. The streets are
alive with the sound of free marketeering;
this is the age of ESAP and the motto is sell
or perish.

In the National Gallery of Bulawayo a not
dissimilar scenario is enacted on a daily
basis under the guise of Art. Agents bring
sackfuls of BaTonga stools, doors, baskets,
beadwork and drums from the Zambesi
Valley, traders flash necklaces from
Ethiopia and Kenya, sculptors and painters
appear from Malawi or Mozambique, long-
suffering crafts people from the rural areas
wait with forbearance for audience on
"buying' days and paintings are taken from
the walls of middle-class homes and
presented in the hope that they are the lost
and priceless work of some famous artist.
All seek to convert something which they
perceive as having value for that most
elusive of commodities, money. This is the
age of the great sell where aesthetics plays
second fiddle to the grim reality of
economic survival.

Enter the 1995 Visual Artists' Association
of Bulawayo (VAAB) Annual Exhibition.
The VAAB Annual is a juried show and has
top billing in the two main rooms of the
Bulawayo Gallery which are spacious and
ideally suited to large format work in the
mould of Baron or Jogee. The reality of
this year's show is somewhat different
though and, exceptions apart, marks a
retreat to small, safe and saleable paintings
and unremarkable sculpture.

Of those that do stand out, Rashid Jogee's
Madhouse is airy, breathes freely and has
somehow escaped the fate of many of his
paintings which suffer from being
overworked and dense. Other paintings
that leap off the walls are Tomi Ndebele's
Blind Please Help. Voti Thebe's Mtwane
"Nhlabathi" , Char Cooke's Morning Light.
Sibonisiwe Gala's Playtime and Images
and Val Broomberg's Nude. Various
permutations of the Mzilikazi School style
are included in the show but there is a
noticeable loss of direction within the
school with little evidence of the tough
social commentary which originally
brought the genre into prominence. i -j

Of the textiles, Sibonisiwe Gala's / Need
You Mum and Gweru artist Clement Cohen's
How Did Life Get Here? impress with their
freshness and scale but otherwise the fabrics
on view reveal nothing new or particularly
excitinii.

Sibonisiwe Cala, Playtime and Images (detail)

The graphic section is made up mostly of
collographs emanating from the Douslin
House studio and the influence of Mary
Davies. However, this is another movement
in trouble, its impulse having succumbed to
uniformity of style, dearth of content and a
noticeable decline in technique.

The metal sculpture genre closely associated
with Bulawayo is conspicuously absent this
year and in its place is a hoard of wooden
sculptures in the style of Zephania Tshuma.
A Tshuma industry has emerged over the
years which began with the old man's
immediate family but which has now spread
to remote family members and even those
who have no claim to kinship at all.
Unfortunately the uniqueness of the genre
has long been smothered by their
commercial viability and only occasionally
does a gem emerge from amidst the mass of
look-alikes. The old man has not been well
of late and his sculptures are rarely seen in
Zimbabwe these days, most ending up for
sale in Geimany.

If the VAAB 9th Annual Exhibition is
anything to go by. safe, small and saleable
seem to be the catchwords of the times. The
reality of ESAP and the messages of the
new economic age for the visual arts are
plain for all to .see. With local patronage
falling as rapidly as the value of the dollar, it
is the tourist trade that is dictating the
direction of our art and portable and cheap is
what is being called for, something which
curio sellers figured out a long time ago.
Stephen Williams

Methuseli Tshuma, We share everything

Decorated Homes in Botswana

Traditionally, in Botswana, the home is the
woman's domain and it is her responsibility
to build, maintain and decorate it. In this
respect, art blends with everyday function,
continuing a basic premise of African art.
Decorated Homes in Botswana looks at
both the history and the present reality of
this tradition.

WoiiKMi m Botswana use what is readily
available (earth, dung, oxides) whereas,
when men decorate buildings it is with
bought materials (paint, cement) and is
usually for monetary gain. Fascinating
technical information is presented regard-
ing the constituent elements of traditional
decorating materials vis-a-vis their
commercial counterparts. The book
deconstructs the perjurative stereotype that
Africans live in 'mud huts', referring
instead to the geologically more accurate
terms of clay or earth. The point is made
that the morass of cement block and
corrugated iron structures that are the norm
in urban settlements are built by men and
are often less suitable to withstand the
extremes of heat and cold than traditional
thatch and earth houses.

Emphasis is given to the origins of designs
and the influence of other regional group-
ings such as the South African Ndebele and
Pedi. Lekgapho, regarded as being the very
essence of Tswana design, is given its own
chapter. The pattern in lel<gupho is
produced without tools, utilising only the
fingers on the courtyard of the lelapa
(homestead) or on the wall of the house.
The authors note that lekgapho is the one
design not being continued by younger
people but it is interesting to note that the
cultural symbolism of lekgapho is a
frequently recurring theme within contem-
porary painting in Botswana.

Illustrated with Sandy Grant's excellent
photographs. Decorated Homes in Bot-
swana is intelligently and sympathetically
written. It provides historical background
and draws in the broader context of the
shifting socio-cultural patterns of modern-
day Botswana. When research for this
book was initiated, it was in the belief that
the art of decorating dwellings in Botswana
was practised only by the elderly and was
in the process of dying out. The winters
and the reader are thus pleasantly surprised
to discover that the practice is still flourish
ing, albeit mostly in rural locations, and
that young people are propagating the art
form with a new and energetic vision.
Stephen Williams

Decorated Humes in Botswana, Sandy and
Elinah Grant, Mochudi: Phutadiktibo
Museum, 1995. (Available through the
Botswana Book Centre in Gaborone.
Phutadikobo Museum in Mochudi and the
National Gallery in Bulawayo.)

Life of the Line — Luis IVIeque,
Gallery Delta, March 1996

Luis Meque takes us on a fast talking tour, a
tour cataloguing the here and now of this
city, this land. Harare. Zimbabwe. 1996. He
shows us the real life of these times — and
he depicts it frankly.

His street people gesticulate at us from
street corners, vendors stare at us with dead
eyes, whores beckon us into their lairs, pool
players sneer at our passing, lovers,
enwrapped in their feeling are oblivious to
our presence. He takes us through the bars
and the shebeens to the dark side of the citv

^i* <fr'

Luis Meque, (left from the top) The artist with The Poolroom, Lovers II,

Love to Hate

(above right) Harare City Life

where dull stares and cupped hands demand
money, to dingy rooms where beer has
loosened tongues and tempers. Throughout
the journey he points out the stark
expressionless faces, or the backs of heads
— all anonymous people, united in their
experience of existence on the edge. All
survivors ... for the time being.

Luis Meque's paintings convey movement or
lack of it — both expertly expres.sed
through his wide bold brushwork (the
exhibition might well have been called Life
in the Line). He gives us the mood of these
street situations, captures the spirit of the
moment with his striking colours and simple
strong strokes. Unhesitant, they show us this
life — as it is — in your face.

The small works are snapshots, a series of
"postcards from the edge". They capture
single heartbeats in the lives of these
survivors, himself included — snapshots
from the frontiers of experience. The artist
is caught up in a world of extremes and his

recording of these situations, these moods,
these feelings, these places, these people all
indicate a search. He searches with his
strokes, his colours, searches to portray the
spirit of the moment, and to understand why
and how.

Why does love turn to hate with so swift and
violent a red stroke? Outcast, standing alone
— why is she nobody's wife? Why are there
jobless people, fighting over money? Luis
Meque explores the current political and
economic times of the city and the way that
these powers intertw ine with the culture and
the people. He portrays the belief of
Africa's people and the mysticism of the
land itself inextricably bound to the basic
needs of the people. This is a hard life. A
rough life. Luis does not show us delicate
watercolour countrysides, or united pastel-
happy families. He shows us the basics:
strong colour, passionate strokes — life on
the line.
Christina Lutz

Thapong — 1995 International
Artists' Workshop Exhibition,
National Gallery, Gaborone

After two weeks of heat, sand and insects in
Mahalapye. the Thapong International
Artists" Workshop uproots and translocates
200kms by road to the National Gallery in
Gaborone, a venue which might have been
purpose-built for the annual post-workshop
show. At a stroke the sweat and toil of the
workshop is transformed into presentability
and elegance by the pristine white walls
and floors of the gallery. A wonderfully
designed building with high ceilings,
alternative quiet areas and good lighting,
the gallery is a curator's joy which has the
ability to bring art to life.

The Thapong show is good this year. There
are some exceptional paintings on view
with the work of the South African artists
Reggi Bardavid and Amos Letsolo standing
out in particular. There are surprises too.
Canadian Libby Weir's large unstretched
diptych entitled Kalahari Desert bears an
uncanny resemblance to a painting
produced a few years ago by Motswana
artist Velias Ndaba, while another of hers
entitled The Heat of the Kalahari could
easily be mistaken for Thapong founder
Veryan Edwards' work. Are we witnessing
here the healthy cross-fertilisation of ideas
or just the commonality of place, light and
time?

Edwards has produced some fresh work, far
more purposeful and tough than the loose,
amorphous style of her previous paintings.
The mixed media floor piece by American
Marisha Pels entitled Sesuaa (see page 1 )
is innovative in terms of its media (rubber,
steel, wire and bone) and for the fact that it
breaks away from the constraints of art
which either hangs on walls or ascends
vertically from the floor. Dias Mahlate
from Maputo has the strongest of the
sculptures on view, his wood pieces. Sonata
and Dancer, resonating with a tempo that
could only have been produced by a
Mozambican or Angolan artist.

In an exhibition marked by extremely
strong abstract painting it was puzzling to
note that virtually all of the purchases made
by the Botswana National Gallery for its
permanent collection were of lesser quality
figurative work. A contrast was provided
by the selection made by Motswana artist
Philip Segola who, on behalf of the Bank of
Botswana, selected much more innovative
and interesting work.

Thapong continues to be one of the best
southern African artists' workshops and.
along with its satellite workshops which
focus on drawing, young artists and women
artists, has been of crucial importance in
the development of contemporary visual art
in Botswana. Stephen Williams

Dias Mahlate, Dancer (top)

Veryan Edwards, Namib Journey (above)

Heritage Exhibition, National
Gallery, Harare, 1995

Exhibitions selected by large juries
inevitably result in compromise and
although the 199? Heritage was a fair survey
of much of the work being done in
Zimbabwe, it was patently obvious that this
was not the best work, better work being
regularly seen at other venues throughout the
year. But perhaps one of the problems with
this exhibition may rather lie with the level
of participation. A jury can after all only
select from what is submitted. The current
system of having 'invited artists', 'guest
artists' and selectors showing work is
detrimental and even they do not seem to
enter their best work. Leading artists can no
longer be bothered to submit work if they
are not amongst the 'invited'. Commitment
to participation must be regenerated if the
National (jallery is to rescue the Heritage
which is fast becoming a non-event.

Yes, the work was better hung this year with
the fewer works allowing some breathing
spaee. And yes, the work was technically
competent but, on the whole, it lacked
passion, intellectual engagement, ambiguity.
complexity.

Amongst the works on this year's Annual
which did make an impact on me was
Bulelwa Madekurozwa's Changing Skins
with its strong image and disturbing
strangeness. A young woman, her face
emerging from shadow, one hand passively
dangling over a knee, stares out of a mask
created by ritualistic daubs of red and black
paint. This paint is transformed, becoming
skin itself, overtaking her aggressively
pointed breast and the lower half of her
naked body. A black dog with
indecipherable gaze and the foreboding
darkness of the background into which the
viewer is drawn before being catapulted
back to the woman's eyes, combine to evoke
a sense of the unknown. Colours,
composition and intent work well to create a
canvas replete with repressed violence and
sexuality, the potency of superstition and
ritual, and the psychological entrapment of
the individual.

Berry Bickle, Urban Displacement

Another imposing piece was Berry Bickle's
installation. Urlmn Displacement, with its
drastic interpretation of contemporary
African existence. Three stark iron bed
frames are placed in formal line, covered not
by the comfort of mattresses or blankets but
by arid, barren earth in either dry sand or
harsh red lone. The conflicting images
disturb. In place of pillows, a broken clay
pot and a rusted-through enamelled basin.
In place of blankets, a covering of dry thorn
branches. Now I lay me down to sleep? To
sleep, perchance to dream? No. no comfort
there. Rather an existence no longer

bearable, a sense of tiltimate defeat. Are
these beds or graves? Where once there was
food, water, comfort, rest, there is now only
the offer of death. Centrally placed on the
wall above, drawing all into a formal
composition, another dry thorn branch
reaches upwards in a flare of desperation.
The selected elements evoke traces of
memory, shake out multiple references and
challenge our complacency.

So yes. there are good works around but
why do so few of them make it to the

Heritage? Why do so many of our leading
artists feel it is not worth participating? A
few members of the National Gallery's staff
work overtime, to at least keep the National
Gallery on the map, but they need support.
Like Oliver, starving on pitiful rations, we
want more but in this case we have to make
it ourselves. There are no handouts. Energy,
enterprise and innovation are hard work and
depend on a genuine commitment to art.
The art community as a whole need to help
make the Heritage what we want it to be.
Barbara Murray

forthcoming exhibitions and events

The Bulawayo National Gallery, looking
beyond our borders, will show an exhibition
of paintings by veteran Botswana painter
Veryan Edwards in May. Also in May the
public will be treated to an exhibition of
work by Mozambican artists. This show
is part of an exchange project which will
also feature evening events at the gallery
involving dancers and musicians from
Mozambique. And in June, the director is
putting together a show of work by Young
artists, ten from Harare and ten from
Bulawayo. The Bulawayo Gallery is also
running a varied programme of events such
as poetry readings, jazz, art videos and talks.

In April, the Harare National Gallery will
hosting an exhibition of work by French
artists including Anton! Tapies, Henri

Michaux, Andre Masson, GiacomettI,
Alex Calder and others. Work by Austral-
ian artists in a show entitled Aids in Art will
also be on in April. In May. BAT Students
will exhibit, and USIS will sponsor an
exhibition of work from Bob Blackburn's
Print Workshop including etchings,
lithographs, monoprints. collographs etc.
The National Schools Exhibition opens
on .Saturday 1st of June.

Gallery Delta will be hosting Graphics '96
— line and form in April, to include work
by Sarah Pratt, Arthur Azevedo,
Shepard Mahufe, Gillian Rosselli,
Bert Hemsteede, Harry Mutasa and
Mary Davies amongst others. Work by
sculptor. Richard Jack, will bring the
show off the wall.

Mid-April will see the opening of a show of
work by the group of young painters that
have been nurtured under the wing of
Gallery Delta for the last few years. These
artists include George Churu, FasonI
Sibanda, Hillary Kashiri, Luis Meque,
Justin Gope, Albert Wachi and Stanley
Mapfumo. Their work has been able to
develop immensely over this period and the
exhibition will enable us to see the results of
their ongoing struggle.

In June. Pierre Gallery will be holding a
group show of work by the teachers of the
Harare Polytechnic Art Department includ-
ing Sharon Dutton, Chico
Chazunguza, Bulelwa Madekurozwa,
Jane Shepherd, Kate Raath, Di
Deudney, Mike White an others.

barawell printers

Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe

Gallery Delta, the publisher and the editor gratefully acknowledge
the following sponsors who have contributed to the production
of this issue of Gallery magazine:

ass

Anglo American Corporation Services Limited

TiNTO

The Rio Tinto Foundation

APEX coapOBJiTiON or zhmbabwe limited

Joerg Sorgenicht
Friedbert Lutz

/IRISTON
Crystal Candy

Contents

June 1996

2 At crossroads

by Andrew Whaley

7 Empire's offspring 2

by Antiiony Chennells

1 1 Zambian graphics
by Grazyna Zaucha

14 Richard Jack: looking beyond differences
by Barbara Murray

1 7 Letter from London
by Margaret Garlake

20 Reviews of recent work and forthcoming exhibitions
and events

Front cover: Keston Beaton, Giant Ant, 1996, 27 x 53 x 16cm,
found objects. Photo credit: Alan Allen

Cover (detail) and back cover: Hillary Kashiri, Gateway. 1996, 24 x
38cm, acrylic on paper. Photo credit: Hillary Kashiri

Left: Albert Wachi, Body Music, 1995, approx Im tall,

springstone and metals

Publisher: Derek Huggins. Editor: Barbara Murray. Design & typesetting:
Myrtle Mallis. Origination: HPP Studios. Printing: A.W. Bardwell & Co.
Paper: Express from Graphtec Ltd.

Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not be reproduced
in any manner or form without permission.

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the writers
themselves and not necessarily those of Gallery Delta, the publisher or the
editor

riptions from Gallery Publications, c/o Gallery Delta, 1 10 Livingstone
Avenue, RO. Box UA 373 Union Avenue, Harare. Tel: ( 14) 792135.

Richard Witikani, Domestic Workers at Rest, 1996,
110 X 80cm, mixed media

George Churu, Nyau, 1996, 112 x 85cm, oil on canvas

Tackson Muverzwa, Prayer, 1996, 137 x 91cm, oil on canvas Shepherd Mahufe, Tired, 1995, 108 x 82cm, mixed media

"... artists can be expected to change
direction without warning, at great danger
and in breach of the highway code."

Andrew Whaley looks at the context of the developing
identities of a group of Zimbabwe's young artists

cro

It is not possible, not yet, most likely not
ever, to put a dozen artists in a box and
come up with a few handy epithets that
explain them all. The artists whose work
made up the recent Changing Directions
exhibition at Gallery Delta are refusing to
fit.

"It aggravates me," says Hillary Kashiri,
who, at six foot three at a loose stretch,
would be difficult to squash into any kind of
box, literal or metaphorical. "I feel like
challenging that labelling." Viewer,
beware. This artist at least has a 'Handle
With Care' warning.

Hillary Kashiri is more vociferous than his
art colleagues about being strapped down
by generalisations about where he comes
from. In trade lingo, the description goes
something like this: Here are young black
painters (yes, they are described as black)
and a few sculptors who have resisted the
mainstream impulse to hack at serpentine,
who went through the BAT art school, who
emerged with a modicum of hope and who,
by the virtue of their own bootlaces, thick
brushes and a despair with stone, have
found they can make work that meets the
changing perceptions in the art place or
manifestly change perceptions through their
art. Theirs was a direct challenge to the

hegemony of stone sculpture. They have
survived. Zimbabwe Stone has become
ammunition in their slings.

But the questions that faced Derek Huggins
at Gallery Delta three years ago when he
was trying to stoke up a reception for these
young black artists out of local art school,
remain unanswered: Who are they? What do
they stand for? Are they good enough?
Responses then were not so much hostile or
even sceptical; it was simply a question of.
Where do you put them? How can they be
described?

Not surprisingly, the artists themselves have
had to face these questions much more
acutely. They are, in one sense, a core of
new indigenous artists working without the
impermeable shield of a stone sculpture
movement. By the same token, they have
been able to avoid the overbearing
spirituality of stone sculpture — the 'mabwe
machismo' — that insists ad nauseam every
sculptor is a prophet, every work a
revelation. These artists have had to explore
realms of spirit, philosophy and self-
expression much more tentatively; building
a vocabulary into a language. And in their
own improvisations, the results have been
faulty, clouded, gifted and epiphanal. These
artists have had little hype to hang onto and

no guarantees that they could ever earn
recognition or money. In this sense, they
could not afford stridency and, perhaps, they
did not feel they had much to shout about.
The hand of patronage also restrained them
from the protruberant forms of
indigenisation that characterises a vocal,
indigenous business elite.

There has been no direct attempt to
appropriate this new core of black painters
onto political platforms. Perhaps this is still
to come. Yet it is precisely the artists' sense
of difference in a largely white-owned and
white-supported painting world that has
spurred them on to new expressions — a
raging internal dynamic that is constantly
redefining itself. In a -majority culture the
painters still provide the strains of a
minority. The tendency has, therefore, been
towards individuality. With so little
consensus as to where these painters belong,
the pressure for clarity, for the chance to be
seen and understood has prompted rapid,
zig-zagging changes in direction and focus.

In embryonic form, these artists embodied
the New Directions at Gallery Delta. In a
more mature version, they are Changing
Directions. But to grasp the meaning of the
whole when individuals are changing
direction at speed and without warning is

Luis Meque, Me and My Land, 1996,
108 X 83cm, mixed media

Hillary Kashiri, /Wu/cuws/, 1996,
112 X 81cm, acrylic on canvas

lii<e analysing why the 'tshova' ahead of you
indicated right and pulled over left.

Art, like God and emergency taxis, moves in
mysterious ways. But if you're inside an ET
and have watched the driver tlick down his
indicator to turn right and then he deliberately
pulls left, you will know — from the inside
— that the reason is mostly quite logical and
that someone has called from the boot to be
put down here. Which is what the driver
does. He obeys calls from within. He will
not care that anyone behind him has just
accelerated on the inside to within three feet
of an oncoming calamity. The point being
made here is that artists can be expected to
change direction without warning, at great
danger and in breach of the highway code.
This is their right to life, their liberty and their
only pursuit of happiness.

This brief digression which seemed
completely off the point has really hit the
nail on the head. If there is any common
link between the artists changing directions.
It is not that they are black or received
training under the National Gallery's BAT
workshop (which is as evident as saying that
ET drivers must get a licence at the VID); it
is that they have held on to the notion of art
as way of life, of desire, of work — made
possible certainly by the emancipation of
which the BAT workshop in the 80s was a
crucial detail.

Three years ago. form dominated content.
The artists tended to paint life as set pieces,
the equivalent of theatre viewed through the
proscenium arch. Survival in the market
place has helped to change that. Ideas have
loosened up. been honed. A growing
acceptance has brought daring, clarification
and. most tellingly, a sharper articulation.
This is a process in which a messy uprooting
accompanies fresh insights. Tensions more
rapidly assert themselves even within the
fires of a single work of art. Choices
multiply under pressure. Confronted by the
bewildering possibilities of themselves, the
artists have not shrugged responsibility; they
have not run for safe cover. In fact, their
work becomes increasingly a wild array of
disclosures fuelled by discovery.

Listen to the artists' names: George Churu,
Justin Gope. Misheck Gudo. Hillary Kashiri.
Shepherd Mahufe. Luis Meque. Tackson
Muver/wa. Fasoni Sibanda. Ishmael
Wilfred, the painters; and sculptors. Keston
Beaton, Crispen Matekenya, Stanley
Mapfumo and Albert Wachi. In alphabetical
order, they read like a school register. In
reality, they have strong individual qualities,
a latent sense of ditterencc.

Keston Beaton, a sculptor and at 32 a virtual
granddad to the BAT pack, sees the grouping
of young artists together as "somi'thini;
unique" . For him, it is a "ftiinily ciffiiir". "ll
is history," he says. "We grew oiii oftluit.

We have carried it over into life." The
gallery workshop was a grounding. Being
black and a painter is a common source.
The extended family may be broad,
problematic, even diffuse but it is also an
umbrella. "There is no way that I could
make myself an exception," he says.

The analogy with the old emergency taxi
(pirate, tshova. ET or whatever you call it)
may not be so entirely fanciful. These artists
are not only products of sanctions, war.
closed economy and structural adjustment,
they are also "children ofemerf^ency". as I
heard writer Chenjerai Hove once describe
the way our self-censoring minds battled
with three decades of Emergency Powers
regulations, presidential edicts and
constitutional tinkerings. These artists
essentially use water-based paints, poster
paints. Oil is a real luxury. Some use PVA
which they buy in hardware stores. They
use fat household paint brushes and have no
qualms about painting freely on bolts of
brown cardboard rolled out of Hunyani
paper. Costs once determined this, but it has
become a kind of style, a rebellion against a
so-called established order.

In a context where painters feel themselves
to be out of known history — or maybe in
the business of reclaiming lost histories —
the repossession of voice and expression is a
powerful stimulant, simply because self-
discovery is so cogently allied to an entire
society manifesting itself.

Their problem is not to seek one voice or
style but to find the discipline that will
contain many possibilities competing for
expression. The artist may be torn between
the urge to jot down anything and everything
and his caution at needing to find an
essence. This is a battle between expressive
urges and a desire for distillation.

Hillary Kashiri ob.serves the tension acutely.
Politely brushing off the hand of patronage,
he realises the quandary of the artist who is
himself the subject of conflicting attentions;
who falls prey to contesting ideologies; who
has been claimed by others. "/ have been
owned." he confesses. "/ have been. But as
y(ni grow and mature, you look into yourself.
I had to stand up and say: Who am I
painting for? What am I? I've got to be
myself now. I feel as artists we have to look
into ourselves first — before art''

It is only through art that the self, which pre-
existed art. can be reclaimed. That which
was once purely, abundantly expressive must
be re-discovered via the relative world ol
expression. This suggests that art is an
acknowledgement of Original Sin in a
Christian worid, a realisation that part of
ourselves which was whole, has been lost.
But the process of re-discovery changes
what was there in the first place and begs the
question that it was ever there at all. In our

Zimbabwean context, the parallel between
Original Sin and colonisation is clear. But
does this assume that colonisation, like sin,
was pre-ordained, a miserable /«/7 accompUl
Or that a post-independent artist is forced to
come to terms with the fact of history?
Whether the artist's battle is with the stain of
sin or with the taint of colonisation or both,
work changes everything. What the artist
imagines can be restored of the pre-
colonised self is transformed by the act of
seeking. Thus. Witikani is not painting a
traditional hut in a field of grass. He paints
what later you see is a hut. from the path as
he walks, from his point of view, at a pace
that feels rhythmic and right. Like the other
painters in this disparate group, his work
represents a return to self, one that is not
burdened by the screech and trauma of an
outsider's view of the colonised. The
painters, like Witikani. are making no claims
for a dramatic return to tradition or
bottomline spiritual virtues espoused by a
body of male sculptors. In many ways, these
painters cling to the little values, honest
assessments, understatements, a feminine
principle that stresses tiny bursts of light and
emotion — the miracle of re-inventing self.
These painters, much more than the
sculptors who are famous, are overthrowing
the dominant creeds and overweening
teleologies of our times. And they are doing
it right in front of our eyes.

They struggle against censorious attitudes,
disbelieving families and their own fear of
stalling before expression has taken shape.
Miraculously — and this has only happened
in the last two years — this bunch of artists
has begun to get away from us. from
themselves. The emergency artists are up
and running and flouting the rules of the
road.

Ishmael Wilfred is an artist who goes his
own way. He pays no heed to rules of form
or line or composition. Yet his own
combination is often bewildering and quite
brilliant. Wilfred obeys the voice from
within. Difficult to comprehend from the
outside, his works are luminous tales of
survival. Riding, with its strutting,
triumphant riders has the exuberant quality
of jockeys in a race but it is only when you
see them as witches on hyena-back that they
become witty, dangerous flyers. Wilfred's
taste for the ghoulish comes straight out of
dreams. Cannibal After a Head is the
painter's fascination for a story he read in
the paper. There is a sense of interpretation
here. But in Two Tokoloshe — where he
struggles with form to quell the demons of
the night — and in Red Cat. which is a one-
on-one battle with life and consciousness,
Wilfred engages his dreams.

Red Cat was a real-life prophetic dream. He
knew that the alien animal meant trouble —
and a n'anga confirmed the fear. "Where in
life have you ever seen a red cat?" In his

case, it was the signal that he was ill. A
cancer had broken out in his face and
Wilfred has had to have most of his jaw
removed.

For the artist, painting Red Cat was not just
soothing therapy; it was an exorcism. I
asked him: Did he feel better when he had
painted if He answered: "}'«."
emphatically. Was he now better then' I
asked. He said he was. Did this mean that
by painting he had painted the red cat out of
himself? His nod was final: "Out." he said.

The interesting thing is that the painting
superimposes the dream. Its reality becomes
more demanding and tangible than the
dream itself. I asked Wilfred what he felt
about the painting now. He said that the
thought of the red cat still pained him but it
could not trouble him. But when he closes
his eyes and imagines the painting
everything fades except the red cat which,
although only a small part of the picture, is
branded red hot on the memory's retina.

By uprooting these dream messengers and
planting them in paint. Ishmael Wilfred finds
clarity in the turbulence. The red cat which
stalks the dreamer can be studied for the first
time. It has to be explained and, in so doing,
it becomes the mulch for story and myth
which the artist must speak about. Wilfred
simply wants to "pass the message onto
them." Through paint he can unearth "things
I could not speak about."

The artist as story-teller is probably a key to
much good art. In the emergence of these
young artists the desire to tell a story is keen.
Luis Meque, hailed as leader of the BAT
pack, has realised the economy of story-
telling, reducing recent pieces to a few
slashes, a black cloud, a furious presence, a
mood, a swipe at a woman, some whiplash
of anger. This is the frustration at not being
understood, at not understanding. Meque's
work, more than any of the others, is a shout
— as if, in the simple expulsion of air and
emotion, meaning is better expressed. The
feeling one gets from Meque is that he is
pretty cheesed off with nice, elegant
outpourings. He's broken out of a civilised
skin that kept him admirably composed and
unleashed a wizardry. He is able to get the
feeling, the pleasure, the pain or whatever it
is, and master it and siap it down. If he was
one of those karate performers, he'd be
breaking bricks.

A similar desire is there in Hillary Kashiri
but his painting agonises over the perfecting
of it. Unlike Ishmael Wilfred who has found
painting can be medicine or Meque who puts
feelings down in colour. Kashiri has not yet
found a way to reconcile the privacy of
subject and colour with public display. In
many ways, he is the romantic of the group
who sees dazzling light inside dark showers.
He wants to paint the storm where Meque

^^*%,' . \ ij

(top) Ishmael Wilfred, The Red Cat,
1996, 80 X 60cm, mixed media
(above) Ishmael Wilfred, Two Tokolshe,
1996, 59 X 39cm, mixed media

Keston Beaton,
Harp, 1995, approx.
70 X 60cm,
found objects

has learned to be it.
Kashiri is candid
about the struggle:
"/ am going through
a process. lam
growing up. I am
trying to make a
way for myself.
make a road where
there was no road!'

In opening up the way. the
artists face themselves in
front of a community that is
sceptical. As Keston Beaton, the
sculptor, remarks: "Family prefer
\ou being a hank teller to being an
artist. You have to bring yourself out
It's YOU who is an artist!'

In as much as anyone of these artists has
found the way. Keston Beaton has. There is
a kind, lyrical quality to all his work that
embraces common sense, poetry and
toughness. Beaton specialises in making
musical instruments, often wind instruments.
He makes insects as well — all out of found
objects. These are truly works of
reclamation requiring courage and
practicality. His pieces fly. They sing. "It's
almost the .tame as music!' he says. "If you
are an artist, you are trying to do the same
thing as being a musician ... You want it to
be a scidpture. You want to sound differently
— but in a visual way."

A way of seeing clicked into place when he
discovered the work of British sculptor. Ann
Carrington. Good examples unlock the craft
and focus the vision. With Beaton,
interestingly, it is a question of the artist
turning himself inside out. He talks
poetically about "inside and outside" as if
this is a metaphor for all the artist's lives.

"There are examples in history. Some were
as crazy as they wanted to be. others have
lost the way!'

And hii -if? He answers with no him of
the bom-again at his back (thank (iod): "/
O have seen the light!'

Beaton describes the artist's experience as
like a day. "In the middle of the morning,
it's the same sun as it was at dawn. It's how
to make the day out of your sunrise. You say.
let me start my day afresh. It's a matter of
making it a full day!'

For Beaton, man is. without a shadow of
doubt, in the middle of creation. He makes,
he does, he creates. Some days are "on-off'
but every day is a creation best made the
most of. And, if plain facts are wanted, the
spiritual path can never be left. Beaton's
works are not great sellers in the market
perhaps because they are viewed as whimsy
not as fine examples of the actualised self.

It may be interesting to end with snippets of
a conversation between some of these
individuals about their position as artists
among family, community, society. There is
Hillary Kashiri. Keston Beaton, a silent
Ishmael Wilfred and the young Charles
Kamangwana. a versatile artist at the edge ot
the road, trying to Hag down our artist's
'tshova'.

wheit you have a
drink with a fellow
artist!'

Beaton: "Some of
these guys we drink
with have no idea
what we do. We are
schizophrenic ...
criminal!' (He laughs.)
Kamangwana: "Nobody
really understands what
you are doing, what your
aims are. what your life is
like... maybe it's colonisation.
You have to be a white collar
worker to be taken seriously!'
Kashiri: "Until they see you in the
paper!'
Kamangwana: "I^ow the reverse comes,
because they think you have millions."
Beaton (chuckling): "Drinks all round!"
Kamangwana: "And they refer all their
problems to you."
Kashiri: "They think you 've got more than
they have. People relate to role models!'

The conversation veers into the absurd,
about how to detect an artist. Does an artist
look like he has the light in him. Mostly, the
artists agree that what's inside, that which
makes you create, is often camouflaged
behind a very dull face. People don't
suspect the artist in you. There is much
hilarity at this kind of pantomime. And then
we start talking about what is inside and how
difficult it can be to make sense of it.

One thing is clear, all these artists want to be
seen and heard. They crave exposure — for
themselves, sure, but also for the "lighf
they have seen or experienced. As Ishmael
Wilfred looked on. quietly, knowingly,
Keston Beaton the poet had this to say:

"7 want to gel exposed, not frustrated.
People have lived with slowne.ts and there is
no way you can rush it ... Yes. recognition ...
but I don 't panic. I don 't .thake or feel
insecure because I feel there's recognition
somewhere, some da\!'

Kashiri: "h is very difficult to talk about my Yes. there is. .'\ntl probably sooner than
work in our community. The best lime is anyone thought

Post-colonialism as it is used in cultural studies means everything which
happens after the first colonial impacts. According to this theory, post-
colonialism continues after independence since although the state is
independent, it has been radically altered. In this second part of his
article, Anthony Chennells looks at post-colonial influence in the work of
black Zimbabwean artists.

Empire's offspring 2

When the Jesuits trekked nonh from
Grahamstown to commence their Zambesi
Mission. Mrs Orpen. a recent convert to
Catholicism, gave them an oil painting
which they carried into the interior It was a
crucifixion scene where the crucified Christ
is shown surrounded by "Zulu Chiefs
kneeling and wrapt in reverential
astonishment" . ( 1 ) At the Jesuits'
Gubulawayo station, the chapel, as is
customary, was hung with paintings
depicting the fourteen stations of the cross.
An early visitor to the chapel was an
Ndebele aristocrat identified only by the
royal name Khumalo. The narrative which
the stations trace was explained to him but
when he reached the twelfth station, where
Christ dies on the cross, "a smile of
incredulity touched his lips". He said to Fr
Croonenberghs: "That is not possible. No.
Jesus Christ cannot be the Son of God."
And Croonenberghs notes that "the Cross of
Jesus will always be a scandal and a
madness in the eyes of human wisdom". (2)
King Lobengula commanded to be shown
around the chapel and he too was struck by
the station depicting Christ's death. After
contemplating it for some minutes, "he
began to protest against the infamous
barbarity of White people who had so
cruelly tortured the Saviour" but was
"deeply moved" when he was told that this
was the intention of God. (3)

These anecdotes surrounding the first
Western paintings publicly exhibited in
Zimbabwe are instructive of the competing
interpretations post-colonialism's various
constituencies can make of the same sign.
Mrs Orpen's painting was completed within
the months following the great Zulu victory
at Isandhlwana and cannot be read simply as
another expression of the Christian hope that
all humanity will bow to Christ. In the
context of 1879. her kneeling Zulus have to
be seen in directly colonial terms: Europe
has at its disposal the ideological apparatus
to awe and astonish people whom British
arms cannot vanquish. In Matabeleland, the

crucifixion is interpreted through a value
system which Europe likes to think is not its
own. A God who allows his son to get
crucified is unsatisfactory to an aristocrat of
a society largely shaped around military
hierarchies. The old noble is certainly not
going to kneel beneath the gibbet of an
obvious failure. Since there are presumably
no Zulus in the stations' crucifixion, the king
cannot learn the lesson which Mrs Orpen's
painting is designed to inculcate. Instead of
recognizing European power, he is shocked
at European barbarity, and it is only after
Croonenberghs has offered a theology of the
cross that the king acquires an understanding
which is correct in Croonenberghs' terms.
Lobengula's long silence implies that he
recognises the symbolic economy of the
Atonement and that only from death are
biiih and resurrection possible, that suffering
is creative.

Different responses to the same image speak
to the instability of the image. Culture and

temperament allow the viewer to refuse the
intention of the artist or the belief system out
of which art grows.

In this case we can be more precise in
identifying the source of that instability. The
cross is mediated through a number of
interpreters: Mrs Orpen. appalled at the Zulu
victory in Natal; Fr Croonenberghs.
providing an orthodox Pauline reading of
what the cross means; the Ndebele king and
aristocrat, testing the adequacy of the cross
against Ndebele ideologies and prejudices.
Croonenberghs' hopes as a missionary serve
to filter meanings and to control our
responses.

Finally there is my intervention. I have
brought together scattered references to two
different paintings and out of them have
made a single narrative. My late 20th
century scepticism at the stability and
permanence of beliefs has biased the
narrative which I have constructed out of

Senserina Phlllimon,7/7e Birth of Jesus , (undated
c. 1965?), 20 X 29cm, pencil and crayon on paper

Thomas
Mukarobgwa,
Adam and Eve, 1 964,
70 X 100cm, oil on
canvas (NGZ: PC-
9400-0189)

-A'

ji^^MlL^

Jesuit missionaries, two crucifixion
paintings, and the Ndebele rulers.

In the tlnst part of this article I spoke of the
double consciousness of Europe's settlers as
long as they regard the metropolitan centre
as the source of cultural certainty. (4) For
the colonised, however, the problem of
centre is more acute. Some racial memory,
however inexact, connects whites with
metropolitan cultures. For the colonised,
metropolitan culture has almost invariably
been imposed on them against their wishes.
Its presence in their lives cannot be seen in
the traces of a previous existence.
Colonialism nevertheless demanded that the
colonised accommodate metropolitan
practices and justified the demand because
of the colonisers' belief that the metropole's
knowledge is superior and its cultural
practices morally normative.

An obvious site for this claim is religion: the
religion of the metropole is offered as
rational and truthful while the colonised's
religion is designated as superstition and
idolatry. Even when the colonised adopts
the new faith, he or she is a neophyte, who
must undergo a long period of testing before
being allowed to speak with authority on
behalf of the new spiritual order. During
Africa's de-colonising decades,
Christianity's role in coloiusation was a
frequent target of African nationalist
polemic. Walter Rodney, for example, notes
thai, '7'/" scrviiifi rolonialixm. the church
often took up the role ofcirhiter of what wci.t
culturally correct." (5) Nineteenth-century
missionaries conflated Christian morality
with the social practices of middle-class
Europe and America, and a measure of
Christian conviction was the familiarity

converts demonstrated with alien social
customs.

Post-colonialism has been particularly
concerned to show the way in which this
imposition of the coloniser's customs was
resisted. The Khumalo aristocrat weighed
the cross against his cultural preconceptions
and found it wanting. But this was not so
much resistance as the cultural reflex of a
privileged conservative. The king found in
the painting a confirmation of European
caielty. The most effective form of
resistance has been when the colonised
appropriates the idioms of the new order,
whether they be guns or ideas, and turns
them back against the metropole. In
Anglophone Africa, religion has been the
most accessible idea within imperialism, if
only because in the 19th century the
missionary lobby in London was so strong
that few politicians wished to tangle with it.
Not surprisingly then, in Zimbabwe the first
black writers and painters of the modern age
were Christians. They were also usually
nationalist politicians. Mrs Orpen was
wrong in anticipating that a submission to
Christ would be a submission to Britain.
Zimbabwe's Christian painters may kneel
before the cross but they do not kneel in
order to admire white culture. They have
both appropriated Christianity and allowed it
to become another facet of the multiple
facets of Zimbabwean culture. (6)

There are many ways in which the scnuotics
of colonial religion can be appropriated.
The Black Christ is the most obvious of
these. In painting Christ as African. Africa's
artists do what European artists have done
for a thousand years; Europe proclaims its
shared humanity with Christ by making Him

racially and culturally European. Africa has
confidently done the same.

A local cultural appropriation of Christianity
can be seen in a drawing from the Serima
school by Sen.serina Phillimon. The Birth of
Jesus is set among the rocks and villages of
the Mashonaland landscape although their
literal reproduction is less important than the
pattern of repeated curves which the rocks
are made to describe, and which recurs in
the tree shapes. The landscape is reduced to
.semi-circles and they and the triangles of the
pitched thatched roofs of the homestead
recall the patterns on Shona baskets, pots
and walls. The human figures are the
familiar agents of the nativity story but the
artist has domesticated them within the
decorative patterns of Shona material
culture.

Thomas Mukarobgwa's Adam ami Eve has
already been reproduced in Gallerx but it
lends itself to a more detailed analysis than
space allowed on the previous occasion. (7)
It is a landscape with figures which the title
identifies as the Eden of Genesis. The
painting is shaped around strong diagonals
which stabilise the two figures at its centre.
Between the figures, the green tangled
branches of a tree refer to the Tree of
Knowledge. The taller figure — the Adam
of the title, the right-hand figure has a
woman's body — emerges Irom the left ot
the painting, from a patch of sombre colour,
criss-crossed with dead branches which
contrast with the living colour of the central
tree. The most striking feature of the
painting is on its right. The green section at
the base is moulded to suggest both top and
side of a steep hill and the sense of its height
is accentuated by the blue section which

borders it to the right. Beyond the bkie, and
on the edge, is a rectangle of Hght colour
veined with blue. It seems a landscape, seen
from above as one sees Nyanga's lowlands
from the top of its escarpments, crossed with
rivers whose sources lie beneath the flanks
of the hillside.

However else one reads this painting, its title
insists that it is addressing the origin myth of
Genesis but it is also appropriating it.
making it Zimbabwean by locating the
human agents of Eden within a Zimbabwean
landscape. Perhaps more is being attempted
than that. Is there not a re-writing of the
Genesis story itself? In a story concerned
with the Fall, 1 cannot read the great height
on the right without finding the Fall
metaphorically present in hillside and valley.
But if the section at the right of the painting,
which is suffu.sed with light, lies outside
Eden, to reach it seems gain rather than loss.
The single river which forms the waterfall of
the top left hand comer has been replaced
with many streams. Light, water and
multiple possibilities seem to lie in that far-
off valley.

Christianity is a powerful centre of
contemporary Africa's spiritual life but
Africa's cultural productions will frequently
be informed by a spirituality which owes
nothing to Christianity. Landscape as a site
for spiritual presences can be seen in Chris
Chipfuya's Motinrain Landscape. Like
Mukarobgwa's landscape, its different
sections provide a sense of heights and
valleys. A mountain in the centre of the top
quarter of the painting can. as one shifts
one's gaze, become a field viewed from
above. Each discrete area is outlined with a
thick brush stroke so that one sees
differences before noting how each section
fits together. Separation and inter-
connectedness are simultaneously
proclaimed. At first glance, the red. brown,
blue and green at the centre bottom of the
painting seem merely to repeat the
suggestion of ploughed field in the top right-
hand comer. But the zig-zag lines crossing
the bottom section affirm that on this part of
the landscape humanity has put its mark.
Tower and wall begin to insist on their
presence. They not only provide the outline
for this section but recall Great Zimbabwe.
The man-made city has a central place
within the landscape and it makes its own
contribution to the landscape's spirituality.

Chipfuya's painting is more than landscape
then. It is in part a theological statement
about the function of land within a Shona
consciousness which here at least is not
touched by Christianity. Shona spirituality
affirms the wholeness of all creation:
everything belongs and everything has its
place. Included in that everything are the
patterned walls and tower. This is more than
an amorphous celebration of nature's
sacredness. The creativity of human society

(top) Chris Chipfuya, Mountain Landscape, 1996, 51 x 66cm,
watercolour and textile Ink on paper

(above) Chris Chipfuya, Zimbabwe Pre and Post Independence,
1996, 39 X 60cm, watercolour and textile Ink on paper

Hillary Kashiri, Kumasowe, 1996, 40 x 52cm, acrylic on paper

expressed in the greatest of Zimbabwe's pre-
colonial monuments has a place within a
spiritual order that is both natural and social.

Chipfuya's Zimbabwe Pre and Post
Independence addresses another
manifestation of the artificial. A
conventional enough landscape provides the
top frame of the painting: trees, distant and
near hills, painted with browns and dull reds
which recall Zimbabwe's recent droughts.
Beneath it, however, straight diagonal lines,
in colours which derive little from nature,
dominate the picture. On one level it is
another mountain landscape, with the
straight lines suggesting fields viewed from
above. But the lines, in the modernity of
their colours, insist on their presence both as
artifact and as a new source of order. Their
colours refer to flags and, within the
rectangles which they form, the brightest
colours of nature are contained. If the linked
parts in the previous landscape address the
harmony between humanity, the soil and the
spirit world, in this painting it is the shaping
power of the new nation which is
triumphantly foregrounded. Order and
exuberance have replaced that dry frieze of
rocks and trees.

Colonised Zimbabwe and its liberation are
often, in our literature, referred to in terms of
drought and rain. This painting implies
something more ambivalent than those
simple oppositions can contain. The fact
that the lines are so Western in their coloring
complicates any reading which suggests that
at Independence Zimbabwe recovered its
authentic being. Instead the lines signify an
independent Zimbabwe inscribed both with
its pre-colonial and its colonial histories. In
politics as in Christianity, Zimbabwe has
appropriated something foreign and used it
to construct its contemporary self

Christianity has not remained the property of
the mainstream churches which have their
local foundations in 19th century missionary
work. When I saw Hillary Kashiri's
Kumasowe at a recent Delta exhibition, I
was struck by both the painting and the title.
The painting shows a circle of the granite
boulders which are so prominent a feature of
our landscape but here they are not offered
with the solidity of rock on earth. Instead
they protrude from water on which they
seem to lloat. The date shows thai this was
painted after one of the best rainy seasons in
years and the hard dry colours which create
the rocks refuse to dominate. Instead it is a
painting which celebrates wetness: sky and
water blot out the horizon so that there is a
constant interchange between them. Any
danger that the wet will oppress is avoided
by the light in the top left-hand comer which
balances the dark blue in the opposite lower
corner and, between these oppositions, there
is the constant movement of water.

1 Simply to read this painting as a celebration

of an abundant rainy season conveys some
of its quality. The title, however, offers
other clues to enhance our reading.
Kumasowe is a favourite meeting place of
the Apostolics who, despite their various
divisions, testify in their ritual to their
Christian base and their refusal to allow
Christianity to be an expression of Western
domination. The Apostolics meet out-of-
doors, a symbolic rejection, in the days of
segregation, of a land carved out between
black and white. Not only is segregation
rejected: Maranke's Apostolic church
regarded itself as occupying the spiritual
space between a white-dominated church
and traditional religion. Wherever the
Apostolics are there is the church and where
they worship, a simple arrangement of
stones on the ground marks the divisions of
the New Temple. The rocks in the painting
of this Apostolic site delineate a natural
temple. As important to the Apostolics as
their mobility is their belief that they are the
source of a new baptism. In the same way
as they reject buildings for worship so the
water for their baptism is drawn directly
from the rivers of Zimbabwe. In Kashiri's
painting, an absence of a distinction between
sky and earth, the fact that this water has not
been made available by technology,
proclaims that this water flows directly from
heaven. Here is a place of worship and a
means of baptism which God and Zimbabwe
make possible.

Colonialism is a fact of history and everyone
in Zimbabwe is caught up in its
consequences. I have spoken of belief the
belief of missionaries but also the religious
beliefs of Zimbabweans which may derive
from Christianity or from a faith that land is
held on behalf of the ancestors for those who
are yet to come. Belief can constitute
subjects other than the spiritual.
Zimbabwe's freedom and its potential as a
nation inform the second of Chipfuya's
paintings and a secular conviction is given
the vitality of an apocalypse. In the
founding of their churches, the Apostolics
challenged the right of the settler state and
the missionary churches to stand between
them and God. Confident of their own
merits through Christ, they defied colonial
mediation. But have we now. 16 years into
our own independence, recovered the
authentic identity which colonialism
transgressed? The answer must surely be
no. In the 90 years of colonialism in
Zimbabwe, new material realities were
created and out of them grew corresponding
states of consciousness which are
reproduced in our cultural life. Ours is a
culture which is constantly rejecting
es.scntialist identities. Consider
Zimbabwean nationalism, the Apostolics, the
Liberation War. the claims and counter-
claims of what constitutes indigenous. ,Sam
Levy's village (a monument to a cultural
nostalgia whose subject has been displaced
from England via southern California before

emerging, triumphantly tacky, in the middle
of Africa), Harare's Carlton Club, formerly
The Copacabana (names to brood on as one
listens to the club's authentic Zimbabwean
music), and the lovely colonial buildings
which house Gallery Delta and the
Bulawayo Art Gallery.

In a post-colonial age, all cultures are hybrid
and necessarily so because any culture is
shaped from the accretions of history and
post-colonial history grows from many
different roots. Double or indeed multiple
consciousness becomes a weakness only
when its diffusions are regarded as a source
of shame: when the white Zimbabwean sees
it as interfering with an authentic European
identity say. But it is not only the white
African who is affronting history when he or
she searches for an authenticity which
cannot exist. As the pictures 1 have discussed
in this article suggest, even when black
Zimbabweans are celebrating a nationhood
won through war, they use, and quite
correctly use, among other idioms and
perspectives, the idioms and perspectives of
the coloniser to make their claims and
assertions. In the act of appropriation,
however, these cease to be the intellectual
property of the coloniser. Not only is
multiple consciousness not a weakness, it is
the only way in which black or white can
apprehend the past which has created our
complex and constantly changing identities.

Noics

1 . Fr Law to Fr Weld. 2 1 April 1 879. in Gubulunuytt and
Bt'Mmd: Letters and Journals of the Early Jesuit
Missionaries to Tximhesia 1 1 H79- 1 HH7 ) ed. Michael
Gelfand. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1968, p 67.

2. Letter from Fr Croonenberghs. 16 October 1880. in
Joitmey to Gubtdawayo: Letters of Frs H. Depelehin
and C. Croonenberghs. 5J. 1879. ISSO. ISHI trans,
Moira Lloyd, ed, R.S. Roberts. Bulawayo: Books of
Rhodesia,1979. p.lLS,

.^, Letter from Fr Croonenberghs, 27 November 1880.
ihid. p .135.

4, Galleiy no 7 (March 1996). p .1.

.S. Waller Rodney. How Europe Underdeveloped

,t/ni n. 1972; rpt, Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House.
n.d.l 1983). p 278,

6, Accounts of two Christian art centres can he ttunid in
A,B. Plangger and M. Diethelni eds. Serima: Towards
alt African Expression of Christian Belief. Gweru:
Mambo Press, 1977: and David AC. Walker. Paterson
of Cyreiie: A Biography. Gweru; Mambo Press. 1985.
For Christianity and writers see Flora Veil- Wild.
Teachers. Preachers. Nim-Believers: A Social Hi.^tory
of Zinihahwean Literature. London: Hans Zell. 1992
and Harare: Baobab. 1 993. pp 1 7- 1 9. 45-52. For the
way in which guerillas during the war. depending on
their backgrounds, used Christianity or

traditional religion as nispiration see TO, Ranger.
■"Holy tncn and niral communities in Zimbabwe.
197(1-1980" in W,J, Shiels ed. The Church and War.
Vol 20. Oxford: Blackwcll, 1983.

7, Gallery no 5 (.September 1995). p 16,

Edilor's note: In pan one. "Empire's offspring ' in
Gallery no 7. reference was incorrectly made to Fanon.
The writer referred to was. in fact. Foucault,

Grazyna Zaucha, art historian and curator of the Choma
Museum, investigates the growth of graphic art in Zambia

, Zambia

identities In print

Zambian Graphics: A Retrospective
Exhibition of Printmaking in Zambia
opened at the Choma Museum, Zambia, on
9 March 1996, featuring 60 works of nine
artists from various private collections.
While emphasising individual
achievements, the exhibition is at the same
time, a testimony to the successful
introduction of this art form in Zambia. A
general tendency towards figurative
representation is apparent but a more recent
trend towards abstraction and experimental
work is also evident. The exhibition shows
clearly that the artists are not so much
concerned with breaking new ground as
with using the Western techniques in order
to explore their own identities.

On display are the works of exponents such
as Cynthia Zukas. practising graphic artist
since 1964, and Henry Tayali, the first
formally trained black Zambian artist.
These are boldly counterpointed by the
mainly black and white prints of the Lusaka
Artists Group, Bert Witkamp, David
Chibwe, Fackson Kulya and Patrick
Mweemba. The new directions are
reflected in the works of Andrew
Makromalis. Lutanda Mwamba and Patrick
Mumba.

There are various interpretations as to
when, how and why this particular art form
became embedded in Zambia. Two
explanations of the beginnings of the
Zambian graphics are particularly popular.

(top) Bert Witkamp, Beauty is a Cure
for Madness, 1980, 15 x 20cm, linocut

(above) Henry Tayali, Madam and the
Rains, 1982, 40 x 23cm, woodcut

One opinion has it that printmaking became
a major art form in Zambia due to
difficulties in obtaining art materials. This
interpretation alludes to the economic
problems which Zambia started to face from
the mid 70s onwards. It cannot be denied
that the production and dissemination of
certain art forms might be constrained by the
economy. However a clo.ser look at
printmaking reveals that techniques such as
etching, wood cutting, lino cutting and
screen printing involve specialised materials
which may be expensive and not easily
obtained. Leaving aside the complicated
requirements of etching and the relative
simplicity of screen printing, even wood and
lino cutting require base materials, knives,
printing inks, papers, rollers and a relief
press. Therefore an argument based solely
on economics does not offer a sufficient
explanation.

The second opinion as to the emergence and
popularisation of graphic art in Zambia
accords overriding importance to the Art
Centre Foundation, together with the
influence of the two artists most closely
associated with it, Cynthia Zukas and Henry
Tayali. The Art Centre Foundation (ACF)
was established as a national body
responsible for the promotion of visual art in
Zambia. To this end. the Foundation
maintained the national collection of art and
organised annual exhibitions. Its direct
contribution to the development of
printmaking consisted of providing a 11

working space for artists at the Evelyn Hone
College in Lusaka.

The role of Cynthia Zukas and Henry Tayali
as protagonists of printmaking in Zambia
was significant. Cynthia Zukas. educated at
the universities of Cape Town and London,
practised linocutting, monoprinting and
fabric printing. Etching became her main
medium of expression in the early 7()s and to
dale she remains the only Zambian artist
practising it on a professional basis. Her
works, such as Leaves and Walking Home,
show empathy with nature and feature
interpretations of the life of Zambian
women. Cynthia Zukas made it possible for
other artists to produce prints by importing
an etching press and making it available to
them.

Henry Tayali studied art at universities in
Uganda and Germany. On his return home
he was appointed University Artist at the
University of Zambia and until his death in
1986, he played a leading role in the
promotion of art in Zambia. Primarily a
painter, Tayali made woodcuts and
occasionally screenprints from the early 70s.
His Mother and The Madam and the Rains
are reminiscent of the German
Expressionists in their deliberate use of
dynamic lines. To aspiring artists, Henry
Tayali provided the first role model of a
successful black Zambian artist practising
printmaking.

To date, the importance of the Lusaka Artists
Group (LAG) in the development and
popularisation of graphic art in Zambia has
hardly been acknowledged. In spite of its
short existence between 1976 and 1980. the
LAG played a prominent role in the history
of printmaking. In this respect the presence
and influence of Bert Witkamp and his
relationship with the LAG must be
recognised. Bert Witkamp came to Zambia
in 1975. He was a Dutch artist and art
teacher with a thorough working knowledge
of printmaking and good organisational

skills. Inspired by the philosophies of the
60s and outspoken in his anti-establishment
approach, he became instrumental in
organising aspiring Zambian artists.
Together with David Chibwe, Fackson
Kulya. Patrick Mweemba and others, he
formed the Lusaka Artists Group.

Witkamp believed that art was a social
phenomenon and that communication was
its main function. Therefore it should be
made accessible to as many people as
possible. Printmaking, with its essential
feature of multiplication, was less exclusive
than painting or sculpture and could be made
affordable to one and all. The linocut was
chosen as the most "democratic" of all
techniques. Similar to woodcut, it was
simpler in handling and had the added
appeal of being more modem. The linocut
was pert'ectly suited to bold and simplified
rather than naturalistic effects which was an
advantage to artists with no formal training.
If the materials were not available, they
could be improvised, particularly with
regard to inks.

A unifying factor amongst the members of
the LAG was the common concern to live
from the sale of their art. They did not
indulge in 'art for art's sake": they had to
make their living out of it. The figurative
mode of expression they chose to
coinmunicate with, found a market and
became popular, allowing the artists, over
time, to develop more personal styles.

The works of Bert Witkamp, David Chibwe,
Fackson Kulya and Patrick Mweemba on the
retrospective exhibition, form a recognisable
group in their use of mainly black and white
linocut. Bert Witkamp's prints show a
marked metamorphosis over the years, from
elaborate, decorative representations such as
Beauty is a Cure for Madness towards
simplitlcd but meaningful images as in Tlic
Shape of I lie House. For others the
surtounding life is their main source of
inspiration. David Chibwe is clearly

(1) Bert Witkamp, The Shape of the
House, 1986, 25 x 23cm, linocut

(2) Patrick Mweemba, Three Blind
Men crossing the River, 1 979, 1 5 x
19cm, linocut

(3) Lutanda Mwamba, Namfumu II,
1990, 33 X 20.5cm, screenprint

(4) Patrick Mweemba, Mockery, 1980,
23 X 17.5cm, linocut

attracted to an objective and detached
documentary style, his prints showing a
fascination for market and social scenes as
in A Chcit in the Park and Craftsmen al
Work.

Fackson Kulya and Patrick Mweemba give
priority to subjective, intuitive, sometimes
naive, but always very personal reactions to
reality as in Kulya's The Hitl of Music.
Disregarding conventional realism, they
distort shapes and colours but never beyond
recognition. Fackson Kulya also excels in
humorous representations executed in a
detailed way as exemplified by the print
entitled Rushing out of the Bush with the
Nose in the Hand hut that Big I Saw It.
Patrick Mweemba. on the contrary, prefers
cleanly defined solid forms, and uses line in
a characteristic and masterly manner as in
Three Blindmen Crossing the River and
Mockery.

During the few years of its existence, the
LAG met regularly at the Evelyn Hone
College premises in Lusaka, made available
to them through the Art Centre Foundation
and over the years, the workshop at the
Evelyn Hone College came to be known as
the property of the Art Centre Foundation.
The ideals of the LAG were pasted over.

Cynthia Zukas and Henry Tayali served as a
resource for the LAG through intermittent
visits and interaction but their social
position and formal art education created an
invisible barrier that could not easily be
crossed. There is very little evidence in the
works of Chibwe. Kulya or Mweemba to
demonstrate that they were influenced in
any way by either Cynthia Zukas or Henry
Tayali. Apart from occasional experiments,
neither their techniques nor their personal
styles were adopted by the members of the
LAG.

Printmaking in Zambia did not halt with the
break-up of the Lusaka Artists Group. The

members dispersed but continued to create
their prints through the 80s. In the early 90s,
a new trend in printmaking set in,
characterised by the search for new means of
expression and communication. Artists such
as Andrew Makromalis, Lutanda Mwamba
and Patrick Mumba started to experiment
with the medium, stretching it beyond its
confines and bringing it significantly closer
to painting.

Andrew Makromalis. an artist and art
teacher, was trained in .South Africa and the
United Kingdom. Known for his
imaginative, free-form ceramics, he turned
to monoprints in the early 90s. producing
colourful, striking and unconventional
results as seen in Fireball and Centurion.

Lutanda Mwamba and Patrick Mumba
received their first art classes at the Evelyn
Hone College in Lusaka, later supplemented
by training in Britain. Both practise painting
and colour screen printing, working however
towards different results. Lutanda Mwamba.
introduced to printmaking by Patrick
Mweemba, has become one of the most
prolific graphic artists in Zambia. He has a
preference for descriptive and decorative
representations used to good effect in
Namfunui II. Patrick Mumba, primarily a
painter, explores reductionist and nearly
abstract imagery in prints such as The Mask.

Printmaking in Zambia cannot be seen as
simply the result of economic constraints or
the influence of an established body aimed
at promoting art. It developed consciously
as an art form due to the interaction of
several factors and is still in its formative
stage.

Note: Zambian Graphics is a travelling
exhibition, on display at the Chonia Museum
until 6 July 1996. Thereafter it will be on
view both within Zambia and across the
border in Botswana and in Germany.

(1) Patrick Mumba, The Mask, 1994,
49 X 34cm, screenprint

(2) Fackson Kulya, Rushing out of the
Bush with the Nose in the Hand but
that Big I saw it, 1988, 23 x 12.5cm,
linocut

(3) Andrew Makromalis, Fireball, 1 3
1992, 44 X 37cm, monoprint

The endurance of the human spirit is the central theme In
work by one of Zimbabwe's prominent sculptors.

Barbara Murray writes about

Richard Jack:
looking beyond
differences

Richard Jack,

Arching, 1994,

approx.

100 X 30 X 30cm, Jt^''

serpentine

For an exhibition catalogue in 1994. Richard Jack wrote:

"...Balanced fon7ts: chaotic fields.
Sharing peace and the fruit.
Meshing minds
The artist paints and sculpts."

Chaotic, meshing and balancing are three words that reveal a deep
trend in Richard Jack's work. Born in Zimbabwe, Jack moved to
Natal, South Africa, with his parents when he was quite young. His
father, an architect and painter, encouraged him to take up art as a
career. After studying graphic art at Durban Technikon. Jack worked
in advertising for a few years but found the work superficial and
meaningless in the conflict-ridden environment of apartheid. In
order to express himself and engage more seriously with reality, he
decided to work at art. Miro. the Surrealists and Picas,so impres.sed
him with their free use of ideas and media and he soon took to
sculpture combining a graphic African style with quirky mi.xed
materials. His first works were five large extraordinary road signs
using both rural and urban materials such as straw, sticks, poles,
drums, and aluminium, duco paint, steel and manufactured bits,
decorated with bright colours and geometric elements reflecting the
influence of African design.

Political issues were at the forefront of his mind; the conflicts within
the society; the varying beliefs and attitudes which he describes as
"schizophrenic": the search for a way. a sign along the road. His
work reveals a continuing attempt to balance and mesh the chaos of
his environment, the contrasting materials reflecting tensions in
society but suggesting the possibility of harmony and strength in
combination.

In 1981 on his return to Zimbabwe. Jack exhibited at Gallery Delta
where his mixed media objects caused a sensation. Employing a
myriad of materials and music, he created lively, composite creatures
of modern African/technological descent. Whereas in Europe and
elsewhere mixed media sculpture was often seen, at thai time in
Zimbabwe it was a little known phenomenon. Jack's work was to
have a telling influence on local artists who until then had been
trapped in the mindset of stone sculpture. The result was the
development of controversial, and still often disparaged, mixed
media sculpture in Zinibabv\e.

Looking back. Jack says:

"Formal training might have made it easier hut I have experimented
and found my own way. An artist is expressing the environment, the
lime and the society he lives in. I like the mixture of media, then you
are not controlled by your medium. You can put anything together

Arl is a continually changing thing so my work has no consistent
style. I don 't want to be categorised or restricted. If I get trapped in
doing one type I break away and start something new"

Jack sees the artist in Zimbabwe as isolated, "working on his own
intuition. What happens in Europe has little influence here, which is
not a bad thing. You don 't get confused by other people 's theories
and work." But on the other hand, "outside influence can be
good. Shona sculpture did at least establish Zimbabwe as a
country with an interest in art. Artists who go out bring back
new ideas. Tapfuma 's influence is good. He 's so outspoken,
working with people. Some of the younger sculptors are now
breaking away from the traditional. Dominic Benhura and
Garrison are doing interesting stuff. Nicholas Mukomberanwa
does some really good work. But there is a lot of repetition. I
miss John Takawira. His work was so powerful, he was such
an individual. The problem is the education here. There is
no self-e.xamination. no in-depth study of art. how and why
works have been created. Young artists here have to be taught
to think for themselves."

Having come to the conclusion that "politics is corrupt
everywhere" , Jack now takes a humanitarian stance — "other
elements of life become more important" . His recent works,
encompassing sculpture and print media, deal with elemental
forms. Detail is reduced to a minimum. His major concern is
the figure, capturing in simple strong masses a physical
rendering of the human essence,

"The human fonn is endlessly fascinating. There is no perfect

form."

Jack creates areas of subtle modulation, using indications of
bone and flesh, introducing the play of light over shapes and
surfaces. Contrasts of rough and smooth echo the movement of
the forms, working to reveal the artist's intentions. At times there
is a lapse into whimsical stylisation of the human form
introducing a certain coyness — the desire for harmony
subverting the balance.

Meditative and resilient. Jack survives and makes his living as an
artist in the context of Zimbabwe, looking beyond the chaotic

surface to the deeper levels of human existence. His work
covers a wide range of subjects and is in many respects
autobiographical. For example. Listening to the Wind and
Consolation relate to his mother's old age and recent death.
Between Two Halves concerns male domination, the sharing
of food, Adam and Eve, and "what happens round a table".

Other works, such as Back to Back which was made in
response to Mangope's futile attempted coup in South
Africa, speak to the political environment. Isolation,
displacement and homelessness are recurring themes, seen in
works such as Alone. Alexandria and Florence have a sense of
archaeological history, the vase and female form reflecting classical,
sensuous line, fragments of the past. Table and Still Life is another
recurring motif centred on his statement that "fruit and objects,
people and conversations, life is changed and revolves around these
things." Jack has spoken of the "contemporary cries of primitive
.spirits" — always there is concern for the human being caught up in
the vicissitudes of life yet the works convey a sense of
timelessness and inner stillness.

Constantly juxtaposing disparate elements, materials,
styles. Jack's work reflects the experience he lives.
The qualities of different materials, now largely
simplified to combinations of stone, wood and metal,
are effectively used to underline his concepts. The soft
warmth of wood may be contrasted with the hard
coldness of stone, and their organic natures juxtaposed

./ifC'~

(above) Richard Jack,
Florence, 1992,
approx. 60 X 20 X
20cm, serpentine

(left) Richard Jacl<,
Man and Woman (right
and left views), 1996,
56 X 34 X 19cm,
serpentine and wood

with the stiff formaHty of steel. His long experience with the
materials results in a craftsman's approach, iinderstanding ;md
employing the specificities of each.

Among Jack's recent work is //; ilw Eye of the Atoll, an anti-nuclear
statement. Two pieces of red mopane wood have been carved to
reveal the grain, their smooth surface polished to a warm glow.
They form a human chest split apart by the rising force from the
atoll. In contrast the dominant central element, forming spine and
head but also representing the nuclear cloud, is hacked from rough
grey serpentine and attached with steel. The resultant sculpture has a
commanding presence. Jack employs the opposed techniques of
sculpture and print to offer disparate views of his subject. The
simple but imposing forms of In the Eye of the Atoll are re-
interpreted in a print — a mass of sculpture becomes a series of
lines, adding an echo. This reduction to flat surface and scratchiness
of line .serve to enhance the solidity and anthropomorphism of the
sculpture.

The need to have his work shown elsewhere is strong:

"/ want a reaction. I'm trying to create a feeling, to get through to
people everywhere."

Part of Jack's frustration is his exclusion from foreign mounted
exhibitions of Zimbabwean or African art because he is white:

"People think that 'African' work must be from blacks."

He is an African and his work inevitably reflects African reality but
he thinks of his art as being international — "my work is about
people and society" — humanity regardless of country or race.
Richard Jack's approach is an optimistic one, based on a deeply held
belief in the potential for good in the human spirit, in the possibility
of bringing together different philosophies, customs, attitudes, in
meshing and balancing seemingly chaotic elements to create
harmonious combinations.

Richard Jack, In the Eye of the Atoll,
1996, 82 X 55 X 23cm, steel,
serpentine and wood

One of art's functions is to blow open windows in the mind. Margaret
Garlake sends news of the continuing discovery of new possibilities.

Letter from London

,-?^

Anya Gallaccio,
Preserve Red Beauty', 1996.
(Photo courtesy the artist
& The Henry Moore Institute)

A few days ago I received an envelope
postmarked Las Vegas, a city wliere I Icnow
no-one. It contained a balloon, bearing the
words "If I fish a fish / You cook it / Whose
fish is it?" I take this to be an art-work,
albeit a modest one (as well as a statement
of anxiety about gender relations). A
compensation for mailing-list junk is that
occasionally something serendipitous
happens, like a balloon.

The point is that in London people receive a
great deal of information about exhibitions,
most of which it is impossible to visit, while
art flourishes in many other centres and.
indeed, in places which are not centres at all.
'London', then, is not so much a place of
commercial opportunity and open doors
(though it may be that as well) as a wider
locus for invention, the redrawing of
boundaries and a constant reinvestigation of
art"s roles and possibilities. And this
creativity may not take place in the city at
all: it may simply act on the city.

The Bowes Museum, at Barnard's Castle in
far-away Co. Durham was the setting for an
imaginative show which foregrounded the
always sensitive issues of curatorial licence
and artistic autonomy. The Bowes is not like
other museums. The building is a 17th
century French chateau built in the 1870s in
northern England to house the private
collection of John and Josephine Bowes.
Between 1861 and 1875 they bought over
15.000 items which range from a crust of
bread said to date from the Paris Commune

to some rather nice Meissen porcelain, plus
furniture, paintings (often dubious) and
entire 'period' rooms. The Bowes' frenetic
acquisition may have had to do with a desire
for social legitimation, since he was an
illegitimate member of an aristocratic family
grown exceedingly rich on coal, while she
was a French actress. Relatively little has
been added to the collections since their
deaths, so the Museum remains largely a
time-capsule, a monument to prevalent but
uncertain taste and a singular lack of
discrimination.

Into it. two curators. Penelope Curtis and
Veit Gomer inserted contemporary works by
a group of disparate British and German
artists. In almost every case, the pieces were
selected extremely carefully from existing
work, for the interactions that they might
stimulate with specific locations in the vast
expanse of the Bowes. From the random
blobs of gold-painted plaster dotted around
the walls and floor of a rococco room, to the
little wax models called English Clergy-
posed in a late Gothic interior, the pieces
worked as commentaries, poignant, witty or
ironic, on the existing collection. It's fairly
predictable that Damien Hirst's pickled
sheep should nudge up to a two-headed calf;
less so that both should occupy a room
devoted to local industries; this particular
sheep has not been much discussed as
representative of the late Victorian rural
economy. Upstairs, in a room containing
inter alia a sedan chair and some indelicate
French 1 8th century paintings, were
Catherine Yass" back-lit colour photographs

of the curators, contemporary versions of
John and Josephine, responsible for 're-
writing' the 'text' of the collection. As so
often, the pieces that worked best were the
most discreet. Pressed between two sheets
of glass forming a false interior window.
Anya Gallaccio (she who a few months ago
spectacularly installed a ton of ice in a
disused pumping station and waited for it to
melt) arranged brilliant red flowers, to decay
during the course of the exhibition; in a
space entirely filled with Josephine's own
mediocre paintings. Gavin Turk placed a
paint roller and tray, faced by its own cast in
bronze.

Exhibitions which are interventions into
locations with strong, existing identities are
not unusual. It is, however, extremely rare
to find curatorial authority exercised with
such acutely intelligent imagination and
insight. Because of this, the artists agreed to
allow their works to be sited in situations
which they had not envisaged, to convey
messages not of their makers' devising.

An organisation called Space Explorations
took a different approach, on a smaller scale.
when they organised an exhibition in a
London tower block awaiting demolition.
Derelict factories, warehouses and office
blocks are regularly snapped up for short-
term use by artists as an alternative to scarce
and inaccessible commercial gallery spaces.
'High-Rise" used six floors and the basement
of a block next to the new British Library:
one artist to a floor, working to a clear
directive, each one to produce one piece I /

♦♦♦♦

Carl Andre, S/x /Wefa/ Fugue (for Mendeleev), 1995, 1 x 1080 x 1080cm,
aluminium, steel, copper, zinc, tin, lead

intimately linked to the space. The roof,
with spectactular views of the leafy,
rainwashed city and Library, held a line of
logstacks and a tape of bird calls, wonder-
fully appropriate to its windswept situation.
One floor down, the stripped-out interior
space of the concrete skeleton was closed off
by a transparent yellow screen which
transformed it utterly, with minimal means.
And so on. This was another kind of
curatorial intelligence at work, which
elicited punchy, impermanent pieces which
will survive only in a photographic record.

London is top-heavy with galleries but,
though it is still difficult to find a space to
show in, it is even harder to make it into the
pages of the art magazines in the form of a
review. Selling is another matter and no
easier, but not invariably related to reviews.
As John and Josephine demonstrated, items
of uncertain taste may be good commercial
propositions. Very few of the thousands
who exhibit in some manner every year will
earn their livings froin art; only a miniscule
number will become household names, like
Hirst. Many artists and galleries are well-
respected in the trade but remain totally
unknown to a wider public.

In an effort to compel attention, private-view
cards are reaching heights of invention not
seen since the 1960s and emerging as a new
(multiple) art-form. One of the London art
colleges has printed its degree show
invitations on cotton handkerchiefs, with one
comer tied, naturally, into a large knot.
"Admission by luiJidkeivhief." A bookshop-
gallery called workfortheeyetodo, in
Spitalfields, an area best known for Indian
restaurants, has sent out postcards bearing
the text "No free reading" and captioned "A
sign in the newsagent at Dul>li)i Bus Station,
1996". This is known as a 'teaser': the
appeal to curiosity is too strong to be
resisted.

A young artist called Darren Lago gave his
recent show the title 'How long is a piece of
string / 7, as long as the Parthenon'. The
invitation carried a plan of the Parthenon
and a poem by Belloc: "Henry King /(who
chewed bits of String / and was cut off early
in Dreadful Agonies)" . The show itself, held
in a former factory/workshop, consisted of a
piece of string which stretched the length of
an otherwise empty space. (We can lake it
on faith that it was half as long etc ... ) It
takes a certain chut/pah to do this; unlike the
Wretched Child of Belloc's poem, Lago may
well survive — artisticall\ spcakmg.

Much less witty was a bizarre lilllc c\cin in
a gloomy basement gallery where the rotting
left-overs of a dinner served to a clutch of
artists, dealers, editors and so on, remained
as the focus of an 'exhibition'. (Given the
near-arctic state of the eariy summer, there
was no hygiene problem. I I urulcr>.l,iiul thai

(top) Reno Patarica, Vasen, 1994 (Photo courtesy the artist)

(above) Daphne Wright, Still Life - The Greenhouse, 1995
(Photo courtesy the artist)

the menu involved pigeon and rose petals
and that conversation was sticky. The card,
headed "Dinner", showed the seating plan,
and the point of the event seems to have
been a somewhat distasteful reassertion of
the authority of the art world institutions —
galleries, magazines and personalities.

On the other hand, artists are wonderfully
inventive in circumventing institutional
systems and the barriers raised by too little
money and too much competition. For those
who work with text — and few visual
traditions have a firmer historical pedigree
— the Internet is an open door Maggie
Ellenby, who has hitherto displayed art-
related aphorisms in a rented window in
Rosebery Avenue, near Sadler's Wells
Theatre, has taken possession of a new web
site at http://www.hyena.co.uk/windows93-
95. It takes a lot of persistence, ingenuity
and patience, let alone talent, to get a show
in 'London"; serious young artists write,
teach, organise exhibitions for other people,
as activities interchangeable with making
art.

However, there remain 'great names'.
Cezanne, alas, is gone: in Oxford we had a
much reduced version of Carl Andre's recent
retrospective from Germany. Unfortunately
his work, which is destined, if anything is.
for a white cube, and a very large one at that,
sat uneasily in the Museum of Modem Art,
which has rough walls, a highly grained
parquet floor and some very low ceilings.
Nothing, though, could do much to diminish
the impact of the huge floor piece. 5a Mela!
Fugue (for Mendeleev) 1995. Grounded in
the Periodic Table, it consists of 30cm
squares of copper, steel, tin. aluminium, zinc
and lead, arranged in a chequer pattern to
display every possible combination of the
metals. Rigorously formulated, conceptually
elegant and — as a by-product — visually
beguiling. Si.x Metal Fugue is worth a long
journey, let alone a detour.

There can be no doubt that, however ill-
served by the fabric of Oxford's MoMA.
Andre belongs to the centre: to see only a
fraction of his work is to realise that he has
been of immense importance during the last
20 years in extending notions both of the
physical nature of sculpture and its intellec-
tual affinities. MoMA is not, of course, a
commercial gallery: a handful of these in
London's West End (Anthony d'Offay.
Waddington's. Annely Juda) share its
international stature and its star artists. For
most of the rest, it's a matter of stretching
the string as far as it will reach and being
realistic about the fact that art's a hand-to-
mouth process — rather more literally so
than we may previously have supposed.

Reviews of recent work

Tomy Ndebele, Mqamulazwe Design

Veryan Edwards, Ochre Medley

Isu Lobuciko and Botswana
Thoughts, National Gallery in
Bulawayo, May/June 1996

Point of intersection: Veryan Edwards was
bom in Hong Kong. Tomy Ndebele in
Tsholotsho and Voti Thebe in Bulawayo.
The three work within the visual arts as
workshop facilitator, teacher and
administrator respectively. They are all
practising "mid-career" artists, Edwards
based in Gaberone, Thebe and Ndebele in
Bulawayo.

By chance, they find themselves exhibiting
concurrently at the National Gallery in
Bulawayo. Thebe and Ndebele are showing
jointly in the upstairs Marshall Baron
Gallery and Edwards downstairs in the
Anglo-American Gallery. This is not the
first occasion that the three have met.
Edwards is the founding chairperson of
Botswana's Thapong Workshop, attended by
Tomy Ndebele in 1994. Edwards was at
Zimbabwe's Pachipamwe Workshop at
Gyrene in I9H9, while Thebe has been to
Pachipamwe on four occasions and Ndebele
on one. It is through the workshop network
that many artists in the region have got to
know each other and have formed important
links.

Veryan Edwards is a colourisl, works non-
figuratively and has a preference for large

formats. The gallery glows with her current
exhibition, washes and stains in vibrant
yellows, reds and blues creating an
environment, an aura all of its own. The big
canvases permit Edwards to assimilate the
imagery and sensibilities of the vast
Botswana panorama as well as seeking
meaning beyond the confines of the physical
and visible. She notes in her artist's
statement that:

"Concerns in ahslraction tend to be
metaphysical: the nature of reality, the
relationship of person to world, person to
person, the nature of person. This creates a
mood that relates in part to the original
source-experience on which the paintings
are based and to my state of mind/being
during the process of painting. The process
of painting takes over from the original
impetus, with the formal concerns
necessitating relations of colour and form ...
As artists we try to bridge the gap between
the visible and the invisible ... We live a
brief candlelight existence amongst
mysteries we struggle to comprehend: we
become. Stand aside and let the paint
speak: marry inlcllcci and intuition."

The importance of such articulations within
the catalogue notes cannot be understated as
they help us to read the work and to gain
insights as to the artist's inlcniion.

Edwards' paintings are generous in terms of
their dimensions, colour and feel. The
viewer is left with the impression that this is
an artist who is not only in possession of a
unique vision but who has also discovered
the appropriate medium and technique with
which to express it. Botswana Thoughts is a
cohesive body of work which
uncompromisingly focuses its energy on the
philosophical and formal issues which
motivate the artist. The textured Experience
ofOz. the subtle Ochre Medley, the bold A-
Maze and the innovative World View and
Namib Vista are all gems.

The talking point of the Voti Thebe/Tomy
Ndebele show is undoubtedly Thebe's
installation Death is Life, Life is Death. The
piece is situated in an enclosed space. It
refiects upon the fact that death is the final
and inescapable act of life itself. Mankind's
vanity and the class differences which Imger
even as we troop off to meet our maker are
symbolised by three small coffins in the
form of a Mercedes Benz, a Volkswagen and
a plain cardboard box. The coffins are
accompanied by an arrangement of bones
placed next to a scribbled poem by
Qaphelisasa Nhlanzi ("What are bones for?
To keep your flesh erect, otherwise you 'II be
a lump"), a blanket, a double wooden bowl
containing macimhi and mai/e meal, drums,
broken pots, murals and more poems by

A not-to-be-missed retrospective exhibition
of work by llo the Pirate (Battigelli).

master of black and white, photographer
extraordinary, opens at Gallery Delta in July
encompassing photographs from 60 years
living and working in Europe, Saudi Arabia,
America and Africa.

Voti Thebe, Death is Life, Life is Death

Thebe himself. The floor is covered in plain
canvas.

The enclosed space is provocative and
aesthetically bold, but the viewers are left to
make up their own minds as to the intent and
purpose. This is fair enough, but some
observers felt that the piece presented the
germ of an idea without being sufficiently
developed.

The promise of the installation, however,
serves to reveal shortcomings in the rest of
the Isu Lobuciko exhibition. Whereas the
installation is adventurous and challenging,
the opposite applies to the legion of
25 X 40 cm framed paintings arranged in
monotonously neat rows. Where the
installation alludes to art as an intellectual
process, the rest of the show is let down by
being predictable and staid. The small size
of the work mitigates against its potential to
explore the concepts being expressed or to
allow the materials being used to assert
themselves in formal terms. It is puzzling
that the artists have chosen to scale down so
much when both have worked much larger
in the past.

Where Botswana Thoughts is unified in
vision and technique, Isu Lobuciko lacks
coherence in that the styles of each artist
switch, change and jump around to the

extent that it is often difficult to discern a
common drift in the work. Within the 57
paintings on view up to ten distinct styles are
detectable (varying from the Mzilikazi
school style to pointillism and non-
figuration), diluting focus and giving the
impression of a large group show rather than
a two-person exhibition.

Thebe's new series of white paintings are his
best work {Amazolo Ezolo. The Bird and The
Flying Ants) and Ndebele's ability as a
draughtsman asserts itself in You Are All
Welcome and Qaphela. Ndebele's work with
the most potential, however, is his oil on
canvas series comprising Mqamulazwe
Design, Togetherness and Images of Life and
Death (that theme again!), but all scream out
for more space.

The convergence of the two exhibitions
gives the opportunity to compare the work
of three established southern African artists
side-by-side. The contrasts are stimulating
and clarifying. Above all, they point to the
fact that we need to see more good
exhibitions from outside our borders in order
to pinpoint our own strengths and
weaknesses and to occasionally knock us
from our complacent plinths. Stephen
Williams

d forthcoming
events and
exhibitions

In August Gallery Delta will feature works
by Zimbabwe's prominent artists including
Jogee, Lieros, Back, Meque, Bickle,
Dixon and others.

Installation is the main feature of exhibitions
in July at the National Gallery in Bulawayo.
They will show three installations, one each
by Gail Strever-Morkel from South
Africa, Mark l-laddon from Britain and
Nikunja from Switzeriand. In August,
Bulawayo will host Furniture and
Furnishings featuring one-off art items, as
well as a show of German graphics and
paintings. September sees an Art and
Craft Fair, work by George Nene and the
travelling Annual Schools' Exhibition.

A one-person show by painter IVIishek
Gudo and the Longmans' Women
Visual Artists' Exhibition open towards
the end of July at the National Gallery in
Harare. In August, work by students from
the Harare Polytechnic will be exhibited
as well as paintings and graphics by
Yugoslav artist, Branko Miljus. Two one-
person shows will open in September.
Kaufman Ndlovu and Fani Kofi, as well
as the Bulawayo Furniture and
Furnishings Exhibition.

A one-person show of recent work by Paul
Wade will open in late September at
Sandro's new gallery in Belgravia.

For those travelling to or living in Britain,
75 paintings by Robert Paul will be
exhibited in a one-man show at the Victoria
Gallery in Bath opening on 28 September.
This is to be the first exhibition of Paul's
work in the country of his birth and
hopefully, within the declared post-colonial
parameters, he will receive the recognition
he deserves. A book on Robert Paul's life
and work, including approximately 24 full
colour reproductions, will be published to
accompany the exhibition.

Commonwealth Art and Craft Awards

Closing date I September 1996
Contact the Editor, Gallery, for details.

bardwell printers

'.^;:.

^ The art rai^ne from Gallery t)eltfi ''^f

"\..

Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe

Gallery Delta, the publistier and the editor gratefully acknowledge
the following sponsors who have contributed to the production
of this issue of Gallery magazine:

Anjslo American Corporation Services Limited

TmfS

The Rio Tinio Foundation

APEX COBPOBATION Or ZIMBABWi: LDOTED

Joerg Sorgenicht
Friedbert Lutz

/4Rl_STON
Crystal Candy

-f.

Tanganda Tea Company Limited

Contents

September 1996

Stephen Williams: a broad, deep and lasting impact
hy Derek Huggins. Voti Thebe, Andrew Whaley,
Rashid Jogee. Jeremy Brickhill, Styx Mhlanga,
Steve Harpt and others

Mountains of the Moon: Tulipamwe 1996
by Neo Matome

Digging deep

by Brian Bradshaw

Reviews of recent work and forthcoming exhibitions
and events

Front cover;

Back cover:

Left:

Assemblage by Eric Liot (France), Tulipamwe
Workshop, Namibia, 1996 (photo: Neo Matome)
Sculpture by Eric Pongerard (Reunion), Tulipamwe
Workshop, Namibia, 1996 (photo: Neo Matome)
Stephen Williams, Star II, 1985, 95 x 1 15 x .5cm,
welded metal and paint

Publisher: Derek Huggins. Editor: Barbara Murray Design & typesetting:
Myrtle Mallis. Origination: HP? Studios. Printing: A.W. Bardwell & Co.
Paper: Express from Graphtec Ltd.

Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not be reproduced
in any manner or form without permission.

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the writers
themselves and not necessarily those of Gallery Delta, the publisher or the
editor.

Subscriptions from Gallery Publications, c/o Gallery Delta, 1 10 Livingstone
Avenue, P.O. Box UA 373 Union Avenue, Harare. Tel: (263-4)792135
Fax: c/o (263-4) 753186.

a broad, deep and lasting impact

In the Bulawayo Siinddy News of 18 June 1995. a jdunialist wrote:
"'After the initial excitement surrounding the opening of the New
Gallery in Bulawayo at Douslin House, one had the feeling that the
whole place was slowly falling asleep ... lethargy reigns ... Against
this background has been the recent appointment of Stephen
Williams as Acting Director of the Gallery." By 29 October 1995.
the same journalist was able to report; ""The art gallery is now a very
busy place ... monthly attendance figures have jumped from just over
1000 to 7000.""

This was a remarkable achievement anywhere but particularly in a
small, relatively conservative city. The National Gallery in
Bulawayo (NGB) had. in four months, become a centre of cultural
activity. Brightly coloured flags were designed and hung from the
balcony proclaiming to passersby the presence of the National
Gallery. Innovative exhibitions were initiated including a display of
cartoons and Flight Lieutenant Barnabus Sibanda's Ziincopter and
Zim Mirage which were set up in the gallery courtyard. Exchange
workshops with neighbouring countries and one person shows by
young Bulaw ayo artists were held. Large detachments of school
children, art teachers and teacher trainees regularly visited the
changing exhibitions. Slide talks and lectures occurred. Videos
could be seen. Visiting artists from outside the country were invited
to put up installations. Jazz bands, classical ensembles and rock
groups preformed in the courtyard. Poetry readings were given and
a drama consultancy began to operate from one of the studios. The
library was revamped and promoted to the public, art students and art
teachers at nearby schools and educational institutions. Weekly
advertisements began to appear in the Bulawayo media informing
the public about exhibitions, events, new books, activities. The NGB
Newsletter was redesigned and the content improved to make it
interesting and provoking reading. An enthusiastic group of
volunteers came in to do promotional work such as fundraising
leaving the staff to carry out their duties. Correspondence was
initiated with regional and overseas art institutions. Support was
obtained from embassies, leaders in business and political circles.
The shop was reorganised and began to include Zimbabwean
literature. All of these activities were carried out with a streamlined
and now highly motivated team of staff. Glitches in administration
and finance were sorted out. Coirtputers were obtained with funds
raised by the Friends of the Galleiy. and put to good use. Catalogues
for exhibitions took on a professional appearance. Artists from
Bambazonke Harare were beginning to talk of going down to
Bulawayo to exhibit. There was an influx of people involved in all
branches of the arts. The NGB had become a place of geniality,
interest, excitement and action; a focus for culture in both Zimbabwe
and the region.

A notice in the NGB Newsletter of March 1996 announced that "Mr
2 Stephen Williams has been appointed Regional Director with effect
from I February 1996. Mr Williams has been acting in the position

since May 1995." The arts community of Zimbabwe breathed a sigh
of relief. At la.st Stephen had come home, had found his place, won
his official appointment and could really begin to use his many
abilities. It had been a long journey, one which has now been robbed
of its fulfilment.

Visiting Stephen's home one is made aware of his involvement with
art. In the flat Matabeleland garden stand sculptures, his own and
others, collected over time. In the house, the walls are covered with
paintings, including the last large canvas he completed. Dreams of
Mlialalsue. divided vertically into dark and dull textured gold, the
junction crossed with thorns, and incorporating seed pods and metal
fragments. In the garage, his "studio", slashes of paint, reds, browns,
orange, yellow, gold, straight on one side, random on the other, line
upon line, month upon month of residue, cover a twenty foot long
wooden "easel" on one wall. On the floor more colour, on the end
wall a ground and gleaming sculpture made from a flattened petrol
drum top; the motorbike. In the shed at the back, canvases stacked
against the wall and in the drawers of a paper chest, more evidence

(right) Stephen Williams, 1990
(Photo courtesy the Botswana
National Museum and Art Gallery)

(below) Stephen Williams, Dreams
of Mhalatswe, ^994-96, 183 x118cm,
acrylic on canvas with mixed media

(opposite) Stephen Williams,
(title unknown), 1978, etching

Stephen
Williams

Stephen Williams, Regional

Director of the National

Gallery in Bulawayo, artist,

teacher, writer, promoter,

catalyst, administrator

and friend, has died,

aged 47, as the result

of injuries sustained

in a motorcycle

accident. Our

loss is

incalculable.

Ga/Zery will, in

a future issue,

^-«-. publish an

appreciation of

Stephen's

contribution to

Zimbabwean

art through his

painting and

sculpture. This

article brings

together the

memories of a

few of Stephen's

friends and col-

M ,->jKr leagues in tribute

of Stephen's commitment. The earliest works are pencil, conte or
charcoal sketches of people and environments, student studies of
nudes, watercolour landscapes. In another drawer, silkscreen prints
from the time of the liberation struggle. Two simple self portraits.
one alone, one with his children. The rest of the drawers spill over
with landscapes, in watercolour. oil and acrylic — great swathes of
sky, open stretches of dry grass veld, earth and the distant horizon; in
many, the identifying gestural strokes, free, generous and alive with
energy.

Stephen was an artist in love with the African landscape. He grew
up in the flat open places of Matabeleland where earth is barely
divided from the wide skies by a faint and distant smudge,
sometimes a barely discernible difference of colour; the ground
marked by scratchy brush and scrub bush, dry branches, thorns, seed
pods, bones, dirt paths and roads, and scattered scraps of metal, the
leavings of human, animal and plant existence. The colours of the
hot African bush filled his eyes and heart.

Stephen had come to this country in 1956 at the age of eight. He
emigrated with his parents from Barry. South Wales, to Bulawayo.
Southern Rhodesia, where his father had been a flight instructor with
the RAF during World War 2. He completed his schooling in
Bulawayo and began studies for CIS. But this early choice of career
was disrupted by political developments in the country. In 1969.
rather than serve call-up in the Rhodesian army, fighting for a
government whose policies he detested. Stephen left for Britain. He
got factory work, travelled to the USA, and completed two terms
study at the West of England Academy of Art in Bristol. Returning
to Bulawayo in 1971. he held his first one person exhibition at
Naake's Gallery and became a close friend of Marshall Baron,
abstract expressionist, musician, lawyer and political activist. It was
a relationship which had a lasting influence on his life. In 1972 he
travelled to Malawi and Mozambique, completed his CIS and went
to Botswana to work for a firm of chartered accountants. While
developing his management, administrative and financial abilities, he

continued to paint, having a solo exhibition at the National Gallery
of Botswana in 1973.

The pull of the wild places of Botswana and his love of landscape
led to a year spent collecting insects, working briefly for tsetse
control and painting watercolour landscapes in the Okavango.
During this time he realised that if art was to be the passion in his
life he should do a degree in fine art and he enrolled at Natal
University. Then, not having completed his degree, he spent a year
working as a station foreman in Serule. Botswana, painted his
"Tyrannicide series" and broke his arm in a motorcycle accident. In
1978, he went to Michaelis School of Art in Cape Town to complete
his degree, also travelling to the Transkei and Lesotho.

Stephen's restless search and energy during these years formed a
basis for his future. With his love of discussion and his gentle, easy-
going nature, he made friends everywhere he went, absorbing ideas
and influences from the many cultures he came across, reducing
barriers and tensions, creating understanding. His art became
strongly political. In the conservative context of Bulawayo in the
late 70s, at the height of the bloody and vicious racial war, art was
one way in which disagreement with government policy could be
expressed. A series of large square canvases appeared, one a vibrant
red square cut with a giant X within a solid black border expressing
much of Stephen's abhorrence of the divisive and destructive war.
Another work, an etching from 1978, at the time of the election of
the interim government, another ploy by the whites to retain power
through a puppet coalition government, reveals his attitude.

On independence in 1980, Stephen returned to Zimbabwe and
immediately set about contributing actively to the community both in
political and cultural ways. He took up a post as lecturer in painting,
drawing, graphics and history of art at the Bulawayo Technical
College, was one of the judges for the 1 3th Annual Schools'
Exhibition, executed a mural for the Ministry of Manpower and
continued his own painting. In 1981. he exhibited work in Maputo

,\.

(top) Stephen Williams, The Veteran Nationalists,
1983, sllkscreen print

(middle) Stephen Williams, Lenin and Rebecca,
1982, silkscreen print

A (below) Stephen Williams, Bourgeois and
Proletarians, 1983, silkscreen print

and London, and moved to the United College of Education where
he taught art and sociology. This led to a decision to study for a BSc
(Special Honours) in sociology at the University of Zimbabwe in
1982. doing his dissertation on The Question of Unity in
Zimbabwean Politics. After the initial relief at the end of the war
and independence, the horror of the genocide in Matabeleland,
Stephen's home area, and disillusion with the new power elite
entered his work. His arti.stic ability was used to practical ends, as a
way to influence and contribute to change in society. Composition,
colour and content combined to express his deeply held convictions
that unity, compromise and co-existence are essential for life. Some
idea of Stephen's commitment to politics and art during this time is
described in the following extract from a tribute to Stephen written
by Jeremy Brickhill:

"I first met Stephen Williams in 1981 when 1 was still serving in the
Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZPRA). He approached
me through a mutual friend and invited me to meet him at the old
rambling house he rented in Hillside Road in Bulawayo. Stephen
had obviously read and thought a lot about politics and could talk at
length about political theory, but at our first meeting he came straight
to the point. T know you've been fighting for ZAPU.' he told me.
"and I support ZAPU too. I haven't been involved in the liberation
struggle before but if there is anything I can do now. just ask."
•Why ZAPU?" I asked.

'Because ZAPU's non-racial progressive nationalism is what I
believe we need in Zimbabwe, and well. I'm a Bulawayo boy!' he
answered smiling that serene smile of his. So started 15 years of
friendship and shared comradeship.

When Dumiso Dabengwa. Lookout Masuku and other ZPRA
commanders were detained along with hundreds of other party
activists I followed up Stephen's offer of help to ZAPU. His
response was characteristically unhesitating and reliable. Whether
we needed help with transport, or a bed for the night for someone in
trouble, or help with food or money. Stephen was there. He soon
became and remained a reliable rear base. In a time when fair
weather comrades and friends were running for cover. Stephen's
quiet courage and commitment did not go unnoticed. Unassuming,
generous and sensitive, he quickly became a trusted comrade and
friend among people who took great care where to place their trust
and friendship.

During this same period I and others were also involved in
establishing co-operatives among demobilised ex-combatants. Our
political ambitions to keep the socialist flag flying were however
undermined by our almost complete lack of business skills. My own
co-operative, the Memorial Co-operative Society (MCS) had
established a printing business, and like many other co-operatives we
were floundering. We approached Stephen for help and he quickly
agreed, moved to Harare and joined us as Production Manager.
Stephen's methodical approach was just what we needed to
counteract our guerilla-inspired Utopian socialism. Over the year he
worked with us Stephen .systematically reorganised the production
process, leaving behind the solid foundation that has kept our co-
operative in business until now.

As you can imagine, political discussions rather that profits kept us
going and Stephen loved the comradeship and never-ending debate.
He painted and designed too, and Joined our other artists in
producing a steady stream of agit-prop materials. Stephen's painting
during this period reflected his growing participation in and
knowledge of the nationalist movement. He contributed to the flow
of ideas through discussit)ns and painting, and very importantly for
us, through commitment. He was not just interpreting events as an
artist, he was prepared to be inxolved. I well remember Stephen
somewhat tongue-in-cheek, rephrasing Karl Marx in one of our
weekly political discussion meetings: 'Artists have always
interpreted the world, the point however is to change it"!

His participation in the co-operative movement gave him access in
conditions of trust and comradeship to the ex-combatant community
and enabled Stephen to introduce art to many people who had
previously believed art plays no part in politics or indeed in everyday
life. Stephen encouraged us all to see art not only as a reflection of
the world, but also as a means of influencing ideas and changing
how people saw the world. And so in those days it was not unusual
to see former guerillas at exhibitions in the company of Stephen,
arguing and discussing a painting or a sculpture.

In return, these former guerillas gave Stephen their dreams,
memories and experiences from which he was able to fashion new
images and interpretations. His silkscreen series Veteron
Nalioiwlisis undoubtedly owes something to one of those nights
when we reminisced around the fire, whilst Lenin and Rebecca and
Bourgeois and Proletarians surely emerged from the bubbling pot of
our feverish Marxism and attempts to implement socialist policies in
the co-operative movement.

It was during this crazy tumultuous time that Stephen and I spent a
great deal of time together Often Stephen would paint while I wrote
and talked with him. Occasionally we had to do something fairly
hair-raising and 1 quickly learned that Stephen was the sort of person
you could trust in a tight spot; always reliable and always calm.

We often went with comrades to listen to music, watch a play or
football. Stephen was popular with everyone and was welcome
wherever he went. His special friends though were two young
artists, Thabisa Masuku and Doolan Dube, both sadly now dead.
Stephen was their mentor, and as so many other artist know, Stephen
was a man you could always talk to about your struggles with your
work. So Stephen became part of our family, a family not unlike the
family of artists. (Like artists we also knew what it was like to be
swept down a raging stream, needing a trusted hand to hold onto.)
And now our trusted rear base, our comrade and companion is gone.
We are left with memories and paintings which are not enough, but
for which we are very thankful."

In 1984, Stephen was appointed manager of Mzilikazi Art and Craft
Centre in Bulawayo which gave him further opportunity to unite his
passionate commitment to art and socialist politics. Under Stephen's
able direction Mzilikazi became an important fine art training facility
for the region, educating some of Zimbabwe's well-known artists.
Always looking to reach beyond limitations, Stephen instigated
evening classes to provide opportunities for those in full-time
employment and at one time approximately 200 children from
schools that did not offer art as part of their curricula received
instruction in drawing and painting at Mzilikazi. His time in the co-
operative movement and at the university studying sociology had
developed and broadened his vision and he began to write papers and
articles which should become the underlying policy documents of art
and culture in Zimbabwe. In an article for Insight. Stephen wrote:

"The Mzilikazi Centre [has] played an important role in engendering
alternative forms of cultural expression, and, in a small way, helped
to bring about change ... From its inception it has had the primary
objective of offering skills training to school-leavers thereby
equipping them with the means to support themselves once they have
completed their courses. Additionally it offers employment to the
disadvantaged members of society in the pottery production unit.
This aspect of service to the community has combined with the
stated cultural objectives to provide a unique setting for artistic
production with a clear social perspective, rather than the pursuit of
art for its own sake.

Students were encouraged to paint what was happening around them,
to comment on and record the reality of their daily lives ... it [had]
the effect — as art is always capable of doing — of raising the
consciousness of both the artist and the onlooker by stressing
particular views of society.

... the Mzilikazi Art and Craft Centre was envisaged as a community
centre, intended to encourage the growth and development of
cultural activities and the discovery and promotion of artistic talent
amongst the working-class peoples of Bulawayo's western areas.
This ideal has been consistently adhered to, even under the most
difficult conditions and it is hoped that in the future the Centre will
be able to increase this contribution to the community."

Stephen managed Mzilikazi from 1984 to 1989, teaching and
encouraging the artists, and also making sure that their work got
recognition beyond Bulawayo by bringing it to Harare for exhibition.
During this fime he was appointed to the Bulawayo Arts Council and
the Cominittee of the Bulawayo Art Gallery. He was a judge for the
1984 Zimbabwe Annual Exhibition, attended the Issues for the Next
Generation conference in Toronto, visited Paul Goodwin in Milan,
organised a public sculpture exhibition in Bulawayo which caused
more stir than anyone would have thought possible, and had
exhibitions of his own work, painting, sculpture and ceramics, which
continued to reflect his experiences and his love of the open
landscapes of Africa. 1986 saw his work selected for an award of
merit in the Zimbabwe Annual, included in the Zimbabwean
exhibition to the USSR, GDR and Bulgaria and exhibited in a two-
person show at Gallery Delta. Derek Huggins writes:

"Stephen was a man of many roles all rolled into one. We at Gallery
Delta first met him in the early 80s and watched his career with
interest. Most of his paimings related to the landscape which he
loved. 1 recall a series of paintings of Matabeleland which tended to
abstraction — executed about the mid 80s — which glowed in their
intensity of light and colour. Later he painted abstract hard-edged
paintings with prominent zig-zag lightning-like markings. There
was his love of Botswana and the San people whom he visited. This
took him back to abstracting from the landscape and his exhibition
entitled The Botswana Landscape and Other Non-Figurative
Paintings at Gallery Delta in 1992. It was a good show in which big.
broad, expansive and abstracted landscapes with markings like bones
in the sand were prominent. Later in 1994, there was the show
entitled Time and Space in which his work explored surface and
texture, predominantly in gold and silver paint, and the effect of the
light playing over their surfaces. This he was developing in work
which has yet to be shown.

^ ^

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- • *

• • *

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Stephen Williams, Umbane Linyoka,
1986, 92 X 92cm, oil on canvas

Stephen Williams, (title unknown), 1987, 15 x 21cm, acrylic on paper

I last saw Stephen in Bulawayo a tew weeks ago; as always, the
clean-cut. virile, good-looking Stephen with the trimmed beard and
lithe strong physique. I remarked to myself that he was glowing. He
was assured and confident, busy but all under control. The Gallery
was looking perfect; his desk neat and tidy and all his information
slowed on the computer. He was warm and welcoming and genial.
He had everything within his grasp. He was happy. We had liaised
and worked together to put in a show for the young New Directions
painters and sculptors from Bulawayo and Harare. After the opening
we had dinner together at his home — Stephen and Neo, Rashid.
Veryan. Hilary and myself He was excited about the prospect of
future liaison and we talked about putting in a similar show next year
at Bulawayo and then taking it through in our cars to Gabarone and
then an adventure in the desert. He talked a little of him.self and his
plans for the Gallery. Stephen had a good mind and clear thoughts,
and he had the practical experience to go with it. He had a good
.sense of his own purpose, of his role as artist, director, promoter. He
realised that he had to encourage, to nurture, to support and promote
the young artists of Bulawayo. We were looking to him to break us
into the region, as much as him bringing the region into Bulawayo.
Already in a short time he had turned the Gallery around —
promoting music and theatre and lectures and attracting artists from
the region and from overseas. He was talking about three years to
break out the young artists of Bulawayo and I warned him that it
might take five to seven years. He was unsure if he had the lime ...
he had to travel to Sweden, there was the art critics' conference in
London, there was an offer from an American university to do his
PhD. But he was intent to stay at Bulawayo and inanage all. He had
the good of the majority at heart and would fit himself around it as
best he could. Stephen was a leader and a catalyst; he was an ally;
he was doing good things, great things and we were with him.
watching with interest and admiration and respect, and wanting and
expecting him to go further. Stephen saw his role and he was
matching it and excelling in it. There is so much still to do ... but we
have his example."

In 19S7. Stephen was founding chairperson of the Visual Artists"
Association of Bulawayo { VAAB) a body which he continued to
contribute to and encourage. He won a prize for sculpture in the
Weldart Exhibition of 1987 and then, having been awarded a
scholarship by the British Council, he left to study for an MA in Art
and Design Education at Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort
University). His thesis was entitled Perspectives on Art and Design
Education in Zimbabwe.

So by I9SS Stephen had a unique combination of qualifications:
CIS, BAtFine Art), BSc (Sp. Hons. Sociology) and MA (Art and
Design Education) as well as wide practical experience in many
fields and, above all, a passionate commitment to art. He would
have been the correct choice for the post of Director of the National
Gallery, however political powers decided otherwise and Stephen left
for Botswana where he became Senior Curator of Art with the
National Museum and Art Gallery in Gaborone. The workshop
movement was gaining momentum in southern African countries and
Stephen, who fully supported the concept of .such hands-on
experience and interchange of ideas, became founding deputy
chairperson of the Thapong International Artists" Workshop Trust
and attended the first Thapong Workshop \n Kanye.

His knowledge, personality and work gained him a strong reputation,
and m 1990 he was appointed Acting Director of the Botswana
National Museum and Art Gallery, a position which he held until
1992. In an article in Tlw /.chni's Voice, the newsletter of the
Botswana Museum and Art Gallery, Stephen wrote:

"Throughout Africa the study of national art has never been afforded
the prominence it deserves. Isolated aspects of African art have been
well documented but. in general, studies have centred on
ethnographic considerations which \ iew the visual arts in terms ot
objects and paintings rather than as a living and dynamic form of
expression. This attitude is apparent in the scarcity of national art

galleries on the eontinent in relation to (lie ninnber ot niiiseunis. The
roots of this situation can be traced to the colonial cultural policy
which viewed African culture as static and belonging to the past.
Visual art which evolved as a fusion of traditional and western values
was ignored.

The response to the project proposal in the SADC countries to date
has been overwhelmingly positive. Above all there is recognition in
the region that a new way of looking at the visual arts is vital in
order to counter an inexorable slide into the realm of commodity and
curios ...

... the visual arts remain relatively undeveloped due to the lack of
emphasis in the education system and to inadequate support for the
creation of art in general. It is towards the challenge of correcting
this situation that the newly constituted National Art Gallery directs
itself."

During these years besides rising to the challenges he had set himself
within the Botswana community, he attended the Culture and
Development conference in Copenhagen, launched an Mzilikazi
e.xhibition in Sweden, exhibited his own work in Stockholm, visited
London and Paris, organised the SADCC 1 0th Anniversary
Exhibition in Botswana and the Art From the Frontline exhibition for
the Glasgow Art Gallery, Scotland. He was appointed external
examiner for art for three years to the Molepole College of
Education, attended the Triangle Artists' Workshop in Pine Plains.
New York, and helped organise and attended the annual Thapong
Workshops. He was a judge for the Standard Bank Biennale in
Windhoek, lectured at Mpapa Gallery in Lusaka, and took part in the
Fourth Havana Biennale in Cuba. This list of activities can in no
way describe, though we can be sure of, his active and energetic
participation in all aspects of them.

In 1992, Stephen came back to Zimbabwe as Project Manager for the
SADCC Regional School of Art and Design (RSAD). This was an
enterprise dear to his heart and one for which he was well suited. He
and Neo Matome travelled throughout the region, meeting artists and
educators, visiting art institutions, talking to government and private
representatives in the arts fields, getting information and making
contacts in order to form a clear and practical foundation on which
the RSAD could be set up. The frustrations were many, not least the
complete indifference with which the project has been viewed by
Zimbabwean officials in the last few years. Despite lethargy and
opposition from his 'colleagues' on the project, Stephen continued to
fight for u hat he saw as a major initiative for the whole southern
African arts community. The completion of the RSAD report was
followed up by papers, lectures and articles, locally, regionally and
overseas, in an attempt to persuade officialdom to move on. In one
such article Stephen wrote:

"The rationale behind the regional art school project is the bringing
together of the different artists, traditions and cultures that make up
the region in a spirit of learning, research and the central
development of visual art in southern Africa ... The school is
intended to operate on several different levels — degree, diploma,
certificate, artists in residence — to make allowances for the fact that
many of the region's top artists do not have academic backgrounds, a
factor which should not exclude them from the school or deprive
students of the experience of working and learning from them ... the
true potential of the region's artists remains relatively untapped.

Areas such as the theory and history of art are still undeveloped and
the most crucial area of art education has been neglected in
comparison to other disciplines ...

The RSAD provides an opportunity ... from which could emerge a
new direction for art in the region, a new way of thinking about art
and a new spirit of regionalism amongst the artists of southern
Africa ...

Art education ... needs to be recognised as the wholly appropriate
and powerful developmental tool which it is capable of being ...

An overriding result of the lack of educational and art support
facilities ... is not only a diminished sense of cultural identity but
also an almost non-existent art market ...

There is growing recognition that art can in fact help transform
societies, and that culture has an important and valuable role to play
in developmental aims."

In another article for an exhibition catalogue in 1989, Stephen had
written:

"Many countries in southern Africa, still maintain stronger cultural
ties with their former colonising powers in Europe than they do with
some of their regional neighbours. It is in this context that the value
of bringing together art works and artists from these countries in
foRims such as this should be assessed."

Stephen's travels throughout the region in the early 90s confirmed
this approach and it was in this spirit that he returned to Bulawayo in
1994 to set up Artconsult with his partner, Neo Matome. He became
a valued contributor to Galleiy and the Zimbabwean Review, was
appointed to the board of the National Gallery in Bulawayo and the
committee of 'VAAB, took on the role of external examiner and
consultant for the fine art department of Chancellor College in
Malawi, travelled to Sweden and continued to exhibit his own work
both within Zimbabwe and abroad. Stephen was given the
President's Award for Distinction for overall contribution to the arts
in Zimbabwe as well as the Award for Distinction in Painting for his
large canvas, Ramalea, at the 1992 Annual Heritage Exhibition.

Stephen Williams, Ramatea, 1989-91, 200 x 150cm,
acrylic on canvas

In 1995, on the resignation of the Director of the National Gallery in
Bulawayo. Stephen was asked to take on the post of Acting Director.
Voti Thebe, whose career with the Gallery in Bulawayo stretches
back to the early 70s spoke about his relationship with Stephen:

"I met Stephen round about 76/77. when I was working at the old
Bulawayo Gallery. Each time he came in he would spend some time
with me. We would talk about this and that, about art and the artist's
life. When he was doing the survey for the RSAD he came to see
me, to ask my opinion, whether I was for the idea of this school. I
had my reservations. My own vision was to start from the grassroots
and go up. Stephen said, 'Voti, I accept your idea but we could also
start from the top and filter down and have another movement up
from grassroot level, meeting at a point. When they meet it is bound
to regenerate the whole arts community.' He thought that the time
was right to capture the intellectuals and the political leaders, to get
them dancing, that way art would go through the whole society.

Right from when he started as Acting Director there were changes.
He was a man of vision. He looked at the structures, at what was
happening, at the thrust of the exhibitions. He started trimming the
staff. It was painful because some of the people had been here for a
long time but they were not performing well. Now the Gallery is
running well. He saw the need to encourage the Bulawayo artists, to
nurture them, to show work with substance even if it was not of the
highest calibre, to support wherever there was something going on.

Stephen would come to me and we would sit down and discuss how
we could reach the people. We started jazz evenings, plays and the
like, poetry reading. It changed the whole concept of the Gallery. It
became a culture house. The Friends of the Gallery were worried
that this would take the focus off the visual arts but Stephen said let
the people come in and then we can point them in the direction of
art. Soon we had many more people coming in. The administration
in Harare would say "No, no, you can't do that.' But Stephen would
talk to them and persuade them.

Stephen believed that the Bulawayo Gallery should be autonomous
to some degree. The Gallery began to make its own decisions, to
show its own exhibitions and start its own activities. Buying for the
permanent collection was previously always done in Harare but
Stephen persuaded them that sometimes we should choose here,
from this region, that this Gallery should reflect the art of Bulawayo
in its collection. Our collection, since he came in, has started to get
a local flavour. There should be a dialogue between the artists and
the Gallery because without the artists the Gallery would be nothing.
Stephen was an artist himself so he could understand both sides, the
administration problems and the artists' needs. He made sure the
rents for the studios were low so artists could afford to work for art
not just for sales.

Stephen was always ready to try, to take a chance and see what
would happen; to bring in new ideas and artists. One thing I learned
from Steve was an openness to ideas. We had a stand at the Trade
Fair. Somebody phoned and offered a stand and Steve just said,
'Let's do it!' It was a first ever. He would grab the opportunity. He
used to say let's not use the well-trodden road, let's start another
track here, something new.

He was an encourager and he had a listening ear His office was
always a hive of activity, with local artists, with business and
government people, with people just walking in. You didn't need an
appointment. Someone could just walk in. Stephen was a man of
the people. He had a sharp memory for people, was easy to talk In
and he always made time to listen.

The relationship Steve built up with the public was very good. He
brought in new people, new ideas, kept in touch with all sorts ol
o people and involved them in the Gallery. People began to feel they
were a part of the Gallery. Working with Stephen has given us a
double dose of energy and morale,"

Stephen made a lasting impact on many lives. Styx Mhlanga, a
drama consultant using one of the NGB studios talked about the
opportunities Stephen had given him:

"Stephen changed the direction of my life. When he was at
Mzilikazi, he travelled to Canada and met some people who were
interested in grassroots' theatre. When he came back he went to
CUSO and proposed the idea of training actors. CUSO agreed to
fund so Stephen came to Bulawayo and persuaded people at the City
Council to work with them and the programme began of which I was
part. Because of Steve I became an actor and got involved in
producing theatre. It is what I am still doing now, what I love. He
was just like a brother Everytime I had an idea, I could tell him, and
one way or another he would give me a push.

He had this talent of making two opposite parties come together, of
finding a compromise, of defusing a situation that was dangerous.
He is the guy who understood what is happening on the other side of
the town, and people from all sides, all ages. He was a person that
was rich — he was both an artist and a good administrator, two
qualities that are rare in one person. Guys that are good artists are
usually terrible administrators. And if you find people who are good
administrators they are usually not sympathetic to artists. Artists can
feel exploited when someone who doesn't love art tries to
administrate. When you went into his office you never came out
disappointed. He would not give you something that would
disadvantage other people, but make sure that the solution was good
for everyone involved. He got everybody to work together If he
said no. he would give you rea.sons that would make you happy.

There were these artists who were from Beira on a workshop here.
Stephen encouraged me to meet them, to go to Beira also and get
involved in drama there. He was good, wherever he travelled or
when any visitors came, he helped people to make contact. He was
always looking for new avenues he could open.

People that can understand the community, all the different sectors,
that can make them feel the Gallery is their place, those people are
few. You have to make people understand what the Gallery stands
for and to accommodate them within that. Steve could put a
different angle, a different perspective on things."

Rashid Jogee, painter and longtime close friend, found it hard to talk
about the important place Stephen had in his existence:

"Stephen acted as a stabiliser for me, okay. Because Stephen was
there I could have these greater freedoms. Now I'm even worried
that they don't exist anymore. He used to say 'Its a great life if you
don't weaken.'

I met Stephen with Marshall, when they had an exhibition at
Naakes". We had this great similarity, we liked the .same kind of
music. 'Cause one thing we had in common, me I love Neil Young
and Stephen also, he loved Neil Young, we used to sing those same
songs together I first invited Stephen to my flat when I was
painting, experimenting. I had received my call-up papers, it was
76. and I really thought I was going to die in the war. I thought I
would use up everything I had, all my life, all my paint, in one day
and then the next morning I would pack up and go to the army. So 1
painted my whole fiat, everything, and then I got hold of a phone and
I said, "Hey Stephen, it's Rashid, can you come and see my
exhibition.'

When Marshall passed away I was in the bush. I returned all alone
to my flat, started up my painting, started my life again, Stephen
appeared. He used to pitch up in the yard where I was painting, on
his bike. We used to talk about everything. So Steve and I, as a
partnership, we survived the war When it got so bleak and dark, I
can't explain how black il was here in Bulawayo, it was so dark, just
before handover, Stephen and I were still painting.

Stephen used to come and go. His visits were momentous and then
he'd throw me a pack of Gauioise and off he'd go. At crucial
moments he'd arrive. Even with the racial division and everything,
the ventures and the strivings that we had to make to reach each
other, they were great.

Stephen was my teacher. I quote Stephen Williams: 'Even if you go
and study basketry tomorrow well and good, whatever you can learn.
learn it.' Steve told me. "The basis of art, my friend, is drawing.' He
said. 'Rashid take life drawing as the most serious subject.' And he
was totally correct. I can't deny it. Our frustration, our argument
was really the same thing, Stephen and I okay. Stephen used to say,
'The abstract art school was born in the 50s. We're now in 1996 and
we're still trying to provide an argument for what we're doing.' He
was a teacher to me. He taught me to paint. In many ways he taught
me to do it. Just by encouraging me. Then in my own painting I
found my own methods, the things I wanted to paint. Well he
propagated that in many ways, his whole image, even if he didn't
have to do anything. He just had to sit in the chair and be there,
Stephen Williams. He was an idol, an image for me okay. And
that's why I'm complaining, losing my nut, I'm a painter but I need
other painters to see and look upon, to dazzle me, or to lead me to
new horizons.

Stephen was a great workshop person. He was everybody's brother.
He was everybody's son. He was everybody's nephew, I tell you
that. I had already coined a phrase for Stephen as manager of
workshops. I called him the invisible manager, okay. This guy is
here but he's not really here, he's invisible.

I tell you I don't want to think too much when I think of the void, the
consequence, what it means, hey I get very, very depressed. If you
are living art, you like to see art live, to see its process acted out.
Stephen was a painter himself, he had his own struggles. We had the
same discovery, that you had to destroy things totally to get reborn.
Stephen has achieved things for me. Here is a man who changed my
life. I tell you honestly, he changed my life. Even in me, there is
some of him that's living in me, he's changed some things in me
because of that interaction, that contact. He was very powerful. We
need people to take control. We need some leaders. His objectivity
was there, I don't mind working under him. Even when there was
chaos, that objectivity was there, it was as solid as a rock because it
was true, it was right."

Running through Stephen's life was another passion, motorbikes.
Below are some parts of Steve Harpt's Requiem for a Biker:

"Stephen wasn't a bike fanatic but he did appreciate being able to get

out into the bush on a bike. I first met Stephen in 1981 at the
Haskins motorcycle shop in Francistown, working on his Yamaha
XT500 before a trip into the Makgadikgadi Pans. The trip was 6
days travelling in vehicles and bikes via Gweta to the Boteti River
which was in full Hood. That was August 1981, one of the last years
of the massive migrations of animals to the Boteti. On our way out
from the river, the area was literally covered with wildlife from one
horizon to the next.

On that trip I had no bike but by December 1 had an XT500 of my
own and that was when the fun really began. Stephen and I would
get together whenever possible. We would always take time out for
at least one jaunt into the rural areas on our bikes or down a small
track he made or out to the Matopos. He was a good rider and
normally got there before me, although speed was never really the
point. Rather it was the freedom from all that we did on a daily
basis. It was being out ... on the loose ... the fresh air ... the
excitement of being able to go anywhere!

The trip thai had the biggest impact on us was one to Kubu Island,
across Sua Pan from what is now the Soda Ash Plant. The island is a
large rocky outcrop covered with baobabs. We thought we had it all
figured out ... just 50kms due southeast from the spit. We had photo
maps, a compass and an odometer. What more could we need?

When our bikes finally came to a muddy sinking halt, we had
travelled 45kms and the island should have been clearly visible. It
wasn't. After stepping back and reassessing the situation, we
decided that we were in fact stuck in the bowels of the southern part
of Sua Pan with only two very faint points of land visible. In a
radius of 360 degrees, there was absolutely nothing to see except two
worried boys up to their axles in hot sticky mud. Things were
looking about as bleak as they ever had in my life. Why did we only
bring 10 litres of water we asked ourselves. And the heat! The mud
was almost too hot to dig out from the wheels. It would collect
under the rear mud-guard until it was packed solid and would then
act like a brake on the back wheel. When the bike stops, it sinks.

Stephen decided we should head for the faint point of land to the
northwest. The routine was to dig out as much of the mud as you
could and then try to get the bike moving, in first gear, pushing and
running alongside. As it gathered momentum you'd jump on and see
if the surface of the pan could accommodate your weight. If the bike
was sinking, you'd jump off again and start running until you picked,
up more speed. But we were both fully loaded with gear so once
you managed to get on the bike, it was just a matter of time, a
kilometre or two, before the 'brake' would start to operate again and
it was back to digging and running.

Stephen Williams on a trip
through the Sua Pans,
Botswana

5:?

,-^

Stephen Williams, Terra Incognita 8, 1994, 151 x 200cm, acrylic on canvas

After a couple ot hours of this we were exhausted, thusty and
covered with salt. Just a little bit of water to rinse the salt off our
faces? No. we couldn't afford to do that. As the land loomed closer,
we stepped up our efforts. Stephen was first to arrive at the large
baobab on the eastern side of the island while I was still digging out
for the last time. When I reached him. we were like kids, jumping
up and down, hugging each other, shouting 'We're still alive. We're
still alive!' We were still short of water but things were definitely
looking up. We spent the night next to the tree, cooking on a fire,
reliving the day we would never forget.

The next morning we contemplated the way out. We had two.
choices: up the western side of the pan or travel along the sandy road
which goes from the island to the Nata-Maun Road, about lOOkms
either way. We chose the pan and after about half an hour travelling
we found a large pool of water. It was the end of our small
emergency. Water, our last essential need, was there in front of us.
We washed up and took some photographs. The rest of the day was
as it was supposed to be, roaming along the edge of the pan,
checking out this or that, stopping for a shot of whisky, or just racing
out into the nothingness.

Riding on the salt pans is like being in a plane above the clouds or
drifting in the ocean. As far as you can see there is simply nothing
except the pan. With no reference points, you may think you arc
travelling in a straight line but that's rarely possible. At best, it's a
slight arc which leaves you far from the mark after 40 or .SOkms. It
is a rare feeling ... setting up camp in the middle of the pan where
there is absolute silence, watching the moon rise, riding with just the
moonlight illuminating the way. Setting off again in the morning ...
for the pure pleasure of it.

Experiences like this provided Stephen with inspiration lor his
painting. All around his hut were photos of the pans renunduig him
of the colours one sees there. Stephen tried to get other people to
participate in art and experience the joys that came with it. I think
1 Q his own art was actually secondary to promoting the field and
generating excitement.

So why ride a bike'? I don't deny that there might be an adrenalin
factor or that riding a bike is a way to thumb your nose at the ultra-
civilised road the world seems to be going on. But basically it is for
the pure enjoyment of getting outside ... going somewhere you
haven't been before. The freedom it affords is something you never
forget."

There seems no way to convey what Stephen meant to so many
people. He was a man with a gift for life and for art, and he shared

and multiplied those gifts with everyone he knew. We are lucky to
have known and loved him. Andrew Whaley writes:

"Stephen is my introduction lo Bulawayo — a gatekeeper to a city.
The Bulawayo that he lets me glimpse is old. even a little
grandiloquent, but it exudes a fervour that is exciting. I am keen to
experience some of it. this knowledge that he carries just by coming
from Skies. What I later learn from Stephen is that he represents
something quintessentially Bulawayo. or rather an enlightenment
that we now recognise as the civilising heart of Bulawayo and its
countless artists in performance, paint, pottery, metal, wood and
sandstone. I want lo know all of it and Stephen in a way that
personifies the sandstone city tor me. slows me down. In good time.
Stephen is not in a rush and he will not instantly di\ulge its secrets.

For as long as I have known Stephen, he has defended the interests
of a city that seemed perniancnily under seige — from its first
setllenients. federation days, through UDI. into independence, posl-
indepcndence. unity days and today when it seeks siniph water.
Stephen has supported any move to bring life to the old cily. an\ way
possible of bringing its citi/ens together.

In the National Clallery in Bulawaso. he had the perfect mould and
it's easy to forget just how simply he slipped into the cast, how
perfectly it suited him, how effortlessly he seemed to be a part of its
creation. In any shape an art future had in Bulawayo. Stephen
seemed to be superimposed onto it years before it began to blossom
into the ci\ ic structure we see lodav.

The times I lia\e known Stephen — when he is not llie noni;id
pursuing a career at university, here or overseas, or being the
regional art diplomat or setting up art networks in Gaberone. Harare.
Stockholm, or zooming off into the Kalahari on his bike, or up
Africa in a Land Rover with Paul Goodwin or wherever he went —
he's at home in Bulawayo just getting on with it. He turns the
Mzilikazi Art and Cral't Centr.' from a hobbled municipal outlet
which churns out turd-brown and sinus-green earthenware into a
vital institute which puts colour into the pottery, .some funky design,
holds art exhibitions and gives the welded metal sculptors an
oxyacetylene boost into the limelight. The moment Dumiso
Dabengwa is released from prison, he grabs him to open a show of
young students at Mzilikazi. sometime in 1*^86.

He turns the old stone Hillside house he bought for a song into a
great home full of earlier Stephen figurative works and always a fine
selection of music which he brings back from his many travels. He
has friends from all these places who come and visit and somehow,
Bulawayo is a magical place to all of them. Stephen resides in its
allure, its bite, its edge of desert exhiliration and the city's little
tristia. I can't think of all of this and not think romantically about
the place — and Stephen, on his motorbike zooming off into the
bush or braaing meat and talking out the back of his house, under the
stars, somehow always conducted a long, romantic love affair with
Bulawayo perhaps also because he could get away.

Stephen is a link back to Marshall Baron and a way forward with the
San paintings of Botswana. In between there is a full and
remarkable association with so many painters and sculptors — Paul
Goodwin. Reuben Crowe, Berry Bickle, Rashid Jogee whom he
always called Zimbabwe's greatest painter, Voti Thebe, Charles
Msimanga. Tomy Ndebele, Sam Songo. Joseph Muzondo. Mary
Davies plus the international artists. Stephen is the first
Zimbabwean to go to a Triangle Workshop in New York and he loves

the cut and thrust of the Americans, the critiques and of course the
complete understanding of abstract, and he despises the utter lack of
understanding of the Americans for African contemporary work.
Stephen is in Sweden at workshops, and in South Africa. He sets up
more workshops in Botswana. He is a steaming networker.
meticulous and even ruthless at times and he gets, a lot of the time,
what he wants.

Stephen has put out many feelers all over the globe but his root taps
into Skies and, yes somehow, it is still there. It is hard to dissociate
Stephen Williams from the present, impossible to lock him away in
the past. I am not being coy when I say that, in a lot of ways that
Bulawayo knows about. Stephen lives."

Those who take on a leading role in southern Africa's cultural sphere
have many fights to fight and a great deal of commitment is
necessary. The visual arts still have a weak foundation compared to
other arts such as music, dance and theatre, and huge efforts have to
be made to win support and recognition for their role in the
development of the society. Stephen leaves behind not only his
example but also a wealth of writings about the arts, art education,
and the role of the arts in our community in its historical context. It
is time to take them off the shelf and re-read them with an eye on the
possibilities for action — theory is of no use unless it can be made to
work for the good of the people. Great efforts must be made to keep
up all that Stephen has put in motion.

Stephen Williams dedicated himself, with love, energy, intelligence
and hard work, to art in Africa: to creating environments in which
people could find their place and develop their talents; to a
community in which art and artists could flourish. We are privileged
o have known him. even though it was for far too short a time.

Stephen Williams, Culture in the Time of Drought, 1992, 54 x 72cm, watercolour

Soft sculpture by Anita Dube (India)

Mountains

of the moon

Workshops provide a stimulating environment
in which artists can meet, create and exchange
ideas. The Botswana painter
and writer, Neo Matome,
reports from Namibia

From 1 1 to 25 May 1996, the Tulipamwe
International Artists' Workshop took place in
Namibia at the incredibly atmospheric Zebra
River Lodge run by Rob and Marian Field.
The lodge is located in the heart of the Tsaris
Mountains, approximately 250kms south-
west of Windhoek and 90kms from Sesriem
and Sossusvlei. The dramatic surroundings
are reminiscent of a moonscape with their
craggy, granite mountains, infinite sky and
endless rocky vistas. During the intense
two- week period of the workshop when we
were looked after and fed like royalty, this
isolated environment with its harsh beauty
became a focal point and source of
inspiration for the invited participants.

In all, 25 artists — painters, sculptors and
printmakers — from diverse backgrounds
took part. Fourteen were Namibians and the
rest came from France, Zambia, Germany,
India. Kenya, Reunion, South Africa, Spain,

(top) View of workshop site at
Zebra River Lodge

(above) Participants at a group
critique

(above) Job Jonathan

(Namibia)

working on his installation

(below) Textile
by Voti Thebe
(Zimbabwe)

BolswaiKi. L'nilcd Kingdom and
Zinibahwe. A strong spirit of camaraderie
prevailed throughout the course ot the
worlcshop thus enabling the artists to freely
interact with each other. There was also a
good supply of materials ranging from
paints, printing inks and fabric dyes
thrt)ugh to sculpting tools, stone, wood and
found objects. The workshop was
punctuated by "walkabouts" or group
critiques whereby each artist was given
feedback about his or her work by the rest
i.i\ the group. In the evenings slide shows
of artworks by the different artists were
held so as to provide insight into how each
participant approached his or her imagery
and to stimulate discussion about the role
and value of art in society. The night
occasionally rounded off by singing to
guitar accompaniment, around a fire, under
the stars.

In terms of the output of the workshop.
some of the most interesting art was
produced by Anita Dube. an Indian artist.
She created soft sculpture, made from blue
velvet decorated with sequins and silver
thread, resembling a stretched animal skin.
The idea of life and death existing
simultaneously in the baiTen Namibian
landscape inOuenced the work. It
challenges us to examine our hopes, fears
and understanding of life and death by
presenting us with the paradoxical image of
death beautified. By so doing. Dube subtly
alludes to the concept of hope and rebirth
through reincarnation. .She also highlights
the notion that mortality is an integral part
of regeneration in the circle of life.

The unique Namibian en\ ironment played
a marked role in the work of a number of
the artists at Tulipamwe, more so after the
awe-inspiring trip to Sossusvlei. Eric
Pongerard. the sculptor from Reunion, was
inspired by the vastness of the land and sky
in Namibia. The striated structure of the
surrounding mountains as well as the
division of the landscape into two by the
road running through it made a strong
impression on him. This imagery is
retlccted in his column-like stone
installation pieces which have qualities
evocative of the work of the renov\ned
British artist. Andy Goldsworthy.
Cioldsworthy produces art using natural
elements found in the environment such as
leaves and ice. Unfortunately Pongerard's
piece lost some of its appeal when it was
moved from its outdoor surroundings and
installed at the National Gallery in
Windhoek.

The young Namibian painter. Shiya
Karuseb. tackled an issue which is
increasingly becoming a permanent feature
of city life in southern .Africa — that of
street childien. His strong figurative
imagery portrays despondent looking
youths with no hope for a future: a legacy
forced on them by poverty, irresponsible
parents and society turning a hliiul eye.

The intense blue that dominates the canvas
conveys an aura of bleakness and anguish —
a reflection of the mounting social problems
created by homelessness. Two other young
Namibian artists who produced interesting
work are Nita Ndongo. a sculptor who
\\ orked in stone, and Job Jonathan who not
only painted but tried his hand at making
installation art.

The South African artist, Philisiwe Sibaya.
added another dimension to the workshop
u ith her inspirational prints. .She
enthusiastically shared her know ledge and
skill with everyone. After Tulipamwe. she
hosted a printmaking workshop for the art
students at the John Muafangejo Art Centre
in Windhoek.

Painter/sculptor Voti Thebe from Zimbabwe
experimented with different media including
wood, stone and soft sculpture. He
produced a beautiful handpainted fabric as
well as an impressive circular minimal wood
piece partially stained with colour. Though
somewhat different in texture and form, the
sculpture had a certain resemblance to a
piece by Gerry Dixon I had once seen at
Gallery Delta.

Eric Liot, the French artist, produced two
sensitively assembled pieces constructed
from mixed media. The one artwork, made
of rectangular units of wood and metal held
together with wire, brought to mind the
piece by Marsha Pels, the American artist,
mentioned by Stephen Williams and
reproduced in Gallciy no 7. His artworks.
like Liot himself, are imbued with a sense of
humour.

It is evident from the variety of work
produced and the communication channels
established during the Tulipamwe
Workshop, that art is a universal language
capable of crossing cultural barriers and
changing attitudes. The visual arts therefore
play an important role as a barometer of
social change. In light of this, it is our
responsibility as southern African artists,
black and white, male and female, to
constantly challenge ourselves to go beyond
portraying safe, conventional imagery by
experimenting with new, innovative ways of
expressing our vision. We need to create art
that is multifarious and enquiring because
we are society's conscience.

The benefits of international art workshops
such as Tulipamwe are far-reaching.
Through workshops a healthy cross-
fertilisation of ideas takes place and artists
from diverse backgrounds are able to
establish links with each other, share
techniques and experiences. These regional
workshops are of particular value to
southern African artists who tend to work in
isolation with little stimulus. Tulipamwe is
thus an important medium for fostering
cultural exchange, understanding and growth
in the visual arts of not only Namibia but the
southern African region as a whole.

(right) Painting
on the plight of
street children
by Shiya
Karuseb
(Namibia)

(below)
Painting
Influenced by
the trip to the
dunes at
Sossusvlel by
Neo Matome
(Botswana)

Brian Bradshaw, Vukutu, 1996,

120 X 150cm, oil on canvas (Photo courtesy

Everard Read Gallery)

Unable to interview
Brian Bradshaw,
painter, ex-Director
of Zimbabwe's
National Gallery and
former Professor of

Art at Rhodes
University,
South Africa,
Gallery sent
some questions
Brian Bradshaw
writes from
Belmont, UK:

gr^^^v^ao^^w

WK^mtm

^^5^^^P^h»-!f_i^^^' AA

diaging
deep

Reflection (momentary)

Recent work Recently went to N. Namaland. No flowers. No Tourists. Touching S. of
Namibia. Wonderful. Very Hot. 39°C. Red Desert. Red Rock. Whoever
described Africa as Darkest! In fact it is Brightest. Vibrates. Absorbs. I move
about and get the feel of a place. A whole place and more than place. The Red
Earth, Bomvu, is more than a colour (as the Himba know). The fire and dust.
The Great Earth. The Power that is Nature. Not here the passive tinkle-tinkles of
domestic Mediterranean light-and-shade which bred pointillism and Colour
Theory playing on Gardens and pink-blue flesh. Here is the heat of Being.
Conflict. Strength undiluted. The Great Past enfolding Present. Embracing.
Gripping. Hammering a heat which is not for leisure-pleasurers lotion-browning.
AFRICA! where Sun bites Earth. Bruises Rock with brutal Force. Pressures
without and bums within. Alone, but not alone. Meeting — UNKULUNKULU!

A person — must have been American — visited (I think) southern Africa.
Caused quite a stir among ART-CIRCLES (those things 'tis said that the Great
Bird disappears up). His name — I think — was Greenberg. He said that Art had
taken all it could from Nature! No more left! Nature was dead! What about
human nature? Was that dead too? Did he say? Was he dead? — In his case,
certainly.

Intentions If I could describe in words, what I paint, why I paint, how I paint, there would be
no reason for me to paint. But there is a reason, and a need — and it's in the
painting. And the only medium would be OIL — and no artificial substitutes —
with colours compounded from Earth — and brushed, swept, punched, stabbed,
knived on the resilient surface of canvas. The physicality of Act is important.
The shaking off. the being rid of repeat technique — of any technique and think-
thought and art-applied consciousness and the digging deep to what must be
sought and, eventually, must be found — before peace is possible — or at least, a
rest in the mud. The physical paint — the vehicle — must never go dead — must
keep alive. The Nature of Paint — of oil paint — must be used and handled
within terms of its character

Subject, study "The proper study of mankind is man." Or is it — necessarily? Or maybe. Or
more appropriately, for man — woman. Naked i.e. Natural and therefore
unglamourised. But such attitude amounts to anything. The more alive — which
means moving — the belter. Posing is for photographs or paintings like
photographs. African animals do not pose. They shake off flies They conceal
themselves. They use camouflage. Land, Earth, Sky do not pose. It can be de-
natured by viewfinder into scape or scene. It can be Beauty-spotted like Princess
Di. It can be processed for industrial purposes. But Nature to qualify unto itself

musl be Natural and Free and Wild. With such Nature one inay freely mix and be
driven and compelled. There is no Time. Everything is Now. Everything is
Eternity. Senses are folded by the beat of sun and the roar of silence. I am in
company with Earth and Sky. There is no horizon or petty perspective. I am with
ALL that needs be and have become Myself and More and as far removed from
Science and Technology as possible. I make marks to help explain. Not look-see
marks but marks urged by all senses. These will point the way to work with paint
involving. Subject? What? There are many things even in one. Woman;
Leopard: Baboon : Bird. But never cosmetic. And the greatest of all. The
World. Earth and Sky. Cosmological. How does one define that — in the Art
Calendar? What category? Landscape?! Not really. I'm just a Painter.

Art scene This anywhere is groupism, togetherism in the social sense and scene.

Pretentious of course — as are all social scenes. The set and the setting : the
atmosphere : the theatrics : the cocktails and the poses-for poseurs and in-the-
swing-incorporates. Hollywood style trivialities. "How are you Daarling — I
just love that one. Naughty Gerald (he's the critic for the Daily Blab) says the
sky is quite wrong for the Transvaal. Could I pleese have another sherry."

African art Important to Africa — and the world. Not for museums and Interior Decor. Not
for Tourists — who in any case prefer the hectares of Junk especially produced
for them. The Real Art is powerful, meaningful and has a strong sense of form
containing the presence of Ancestral Spirits and breathed-on by God. It has the
essence of Bomvu — the Earth of Life. It is Tribal and Traditional and means
much to the People of Africa. Or it did. Depending upon how much the African
remains African and doesn't become a replicated junkie from Haarlem or the
White House. Thousands of its greatest works were destroyed by Missionaries.
European artists in the throes of modernism imitated and made use of African
Masks and, according to History, revolutionised Art. Picasso, Braque, Brancusi,
Giacometti. Modigliani. Matisse etc. In essence they were mostly interested in
the outer form which is unique in itself. Unfortunately much is now trivialised
for Trade (but no more so than art anywhere which is plagiarised).

AFRICA Since I have chosen to live in Africa more than half my life, I am more African
than European. By Africa, I mean Africa — not the quasi-Mediterranean of the
Cape, nor the good-life coffee-shops and pizza places. As the world deteriorates
(i.e. becomes Americanised) I become progressively more African. I find the
natural dignity, good manners and humour of the African more fitted to the
character of humanity than the crude, gormless, un-culture followers of the
Yankee plan who stalk the cities particulariy at weekends! However much things
change (and Coca-cola expands), the Land. Continent, Mountains, Bush and
Earth of Africa remain as vast, wild and true as ever. Tourist Trails and Safari
Treks which follow the New Trade Routes make no more impression on the Giant
of Africa than a mosquito on an Elephant. Leisure-pursuit-sports may help
destroy Beauty Spots such as Vic Falls, but minor concentraUon at selected
GETAWAY-GETWITHIT sites helps keep most places free of litter. On a recent
airflight to Europe I heard a South African tell British Tourists that the KAROO
was boring and best avoided. I would be happy if he tells everyone that and helps
keep all the best places clear and clean. Poor fellow, he was greatly taken by the
absurd quality of Inflight films! I became South African some thirty years ago.

Previous work My previous work has, of course, like life and attitudes gone through different
stages and developments. But not enormously — like this week to "Hard Edge"
and next to "Kitchen Sink". Painting has always been a quest. A personal
exploration. As simple and direct as is eventually possible. As unsafe, as natural,
as uncalculating as needs must be. First, Drawings — and Etchings — and then
more and more into Paint. First, Buildings — and then Men (Miners) and
Women and Birds and Dogs and Cats. And then Mountains of Wales. And Sea.
The rhythm and power of sea waves. Then more and more to Earth. And so, to
Africa. But always alone i.e. never encamping with schools and styles.

Artists t particularly admire

Ambrogio de Lorenzetti: Paolo Ucello; Hercules Seghers (etchings); Matisse;
Gericault; David; De Kooning; Derwent Lees; Old Crome; Vespignani (etchings);
Sheila Fell; Pederson; and Cedric Morris, who made his own paint (that great
Welsh Cormorant over his fireplace). Artists before the High Renaissance; Ikons;
Early Greek (Kourai); Early Greek Pots; Cycladic; Minoan; Etruscan; Early
Egyptian; Eariy Gothic; Early Celtic; Megalithic; Prehistoric (the masterpiece of
Lascaux); Bushman Rock Paintings; Tribal and traditional African — Hausa,
Himba, Baule, Senufo, Dogon, Bambara, Dan, Yoruba, Fon, Ibo, Shango, Pende,
Masai. Makonde, Tuareg, Shona, Zulu.

One of the greatest paintings I know is hidden at the end ot a rock passage in
Matabeleland. The tunnel so small one needs to wriggle through. The work is
near to one"s head i.e. close to the ground. About 12 or so inches high. A running
hunter/warrior. Patterns of water energy mix with his image. The artist painted
him hundreds of years ago in such a place and position for necessary reasons. He
will remain so. As intended. With purpose intact. And as far as 1 am concerned —
undiscovered. It is a great work. As art. it is alive. And remains Living Legend.

Art-International

Completely different is Modern Myth massively sponsored for various reasons,
like all selective news and propaganda. News Agencies collect news and
newspapers select. The Press needs to sell. And the stories are written. Two
recent news items almost simultaneously revealed:

1 . The electronic bombing and selective shelling of Lebanese civilians in a further
invasion of Lebanon. Killing about 160 women and children. Ambulances and
UN compounds containing wounded and refugees also targeted. Deliberate
destruction of thousands of homes and of roads to prevent any attempted aid and
assistance. Such action compares with the Nazi SS practice of wiping out an entire
village because a single Nazi had been killed. It was aptly code-named "Grapes of
WRATH" and was condemned by all countries except the US of A. A UN
investigations team concluded the above events were correctly reported. The US of
A warned the UN team and threatened to replace the UN Secretary General.

2. The US of A is pressing for trials of selective war criminals in Bosnia! The
Western Press is loath to respond. But the aggressors are sometimes termed
victims — and the victims are called aggressors.

What is to be called Truth!" Are we to be concerned with Truth'^

As far as war crimes go what about those of the US of A' Was the dropping of the
A bomb — and the H bomb — Not a war crime? And the Napalm bombing of the
Vietnamese? And the electronic slaughter of 600.000 Iraqis in retreat? How can
massacre by technology be called Heroic War'^ and the General .in charge be called
"Hero"! How can US Diplomacy be congratulated' How can US Administration
be thanked for supplying further technological weapons of destmction?

It is a terrible thing that one country exerts such singular power. Especially when,
in its short history it has reached such depths of decadence. The World's Greatest
Democracy — as it is pleased to call itself — is actually a World Dictatorship, for
there are many ways of achieving totalitarianism. Is Art the only forni of truth left?
But not even there — we know by Art-Internationalism that standardisation and
deplorable uniformity of approach and new technology have taken over the Art-
World as well as everything else. Apart from massacres of the innocent there is
destruction of the individual. Everywhere is tuned to the same set of Rules.
Everywhere begins to look the same. Everybody begins to dress the same — to
eat. to drink the same. To behave the same. And Orwell's prophecy is ignored.

Since there are no bite-backs — except for the Somali people who sent the
almighty US Marines back into an untele\ ised sea departure — the World Media is
strapped, frozen, bought by Mickey Mouse. There ;.v no Real New s. No tangible
fact is allowed to come clean and forward. People are kept bemused and amused
by cellular phones and entertainment and even the dying are assaulted by
handshakes from junked-up pop stars or publicity-seeking princesses.

Brian Bradshaw, Eastern
Highlands. 1996, 60 x 120cm,
oil on canvas (Photo
courtesy Everard Read
Gallery)

Brian Bradshaw,
Red Dwala, 1996,
110 X 140cm,
oil on canvas
(Photo courtesy
Everard Read
Gallery)

So how is truth to be found? Except by the only way that truth can ever be
found. Not by computer but by oneself. In Art and by Art one always has to
reach truth by oneself. There is no other way for anyone to discover anything
except by individual effort (which is why the new system places highest
priority on elimination of the individual). Prize-winners in all aspects of
international (i.e. totalitarian) life are anti-individuals and community Reps —
those who cannot reach into themselves nor would not for the sake of comfort
and conformity.

It has all happened before, of course. The New
World is not that original. As Petronius wrote in
Nero's time:

"The cause of present decadence when all the
finest arts have withered — and painting has left
not even a faint track of former excellence behimi
— is money lust and dominance by usury. In past
times the Arts were vigorous and rivalry between
men was the wish to discover new things for
humcmity. Do not be amazed at the breakdown of
painting when a lump of gold replaces everything
the gods ever wrought''

We should perhaps expect to be confronted today
with a continuous Cat-walk Parade of Junk
Culture. We, perhaps, should not be surprised to
see doped-up DADA dragged back into Gallery
space — and skateboard contemporary trivia
clogging up achievements of the Past and honest
efforts of the present.

Henry Miller was an honest American. He wrote: "There are barely a half-dozen
names in the hisloiy of America which have meaning." Thoreau was one. He
escaped to the wood at Walden, away from the false skin of a country which had
no depth beyond its unnatural epidermis. He wished to live deliberately and
confront only the essential facts of life — deep with Nature — to draw the
marrow from its bones. To arrive at simplicity of structure and purpose in
Solitude. In Space. In Nature — and by Nature to be wholly involved. To mix
intelligence with Earth, in terms of Earth. To discover anew the great Past ever
present.

Brian Bradshaw,
Lowveld, 1996,
71 X 61cm, oil on
canvas (Photo
courtesy Everard
Read Gallery)

Walt Whitman said that he characterised American life as mean and vulgar.
Everything taught by America was false. Where man was declared to be Free he
was NOT. His life and work became Factory-systematised and its products like
rotting apples had to be quickly consumed or thrown away. We know from
experience the influence of this Junk Power We know the spread of fast Junk
food: Junk drink; Junk (award-winning) films; Junk (best-seller) books; Junk
Oscars and prizes; Junk politics; Junk criteria — and Junk Art.

We see that the US, having got rid of all vestiges of British Imperialism grabs for
itself alternative methods of world occupation — using Peace and Trade and Aid
wars to spread its 'special' Culture. Economy and Technology. We see that no
policy comes dirtier than " International' and no attitude more absurd than
Political correctness — the mark of Quislings. We find that the Western Press is
a tool for the US cause and that Art Ijecomes an International Game. Even
'terrorism' has a double meaning to fit US policy and hide its own multiple war
crimes. The Art and Culture of every country should be free-searching and
honest. Trade must not be allowed to dictate. The US Dollar must not be
Almighty. Good films (mostly French) should not be suppressed in order to
show US trash. Video weddings and video games are only some of the effects of
the Modern Myth, soft-sold as junk alternatives for Real Culture, Real Art and
the search for the Truth.

Advice for young artists

Don't believe everything you see in Gallery Space -
you see. Disneyland is nearer than you think!

■ or necessarily everything

Do not imitate. Art is NOT that easy. Don't look for Recipes and short cuts. Art
is No Game — pretending to be clever. It is hard and fulfilling WORK. It is not
divided into Traditional and Contemporary since it is NOT style and Academic
Manner. It is honest search. Personal, Individual Search.

It is the pursuit of Nature. Including Human Nature and one's own Nature. The
Nature of Man. The Nature of earth. The Nature of life.

Art is not sociological science or the Yahoo of social workers. It is not feminist
propaganda and fantasy. It is not sexist or political statements. It is not a wired-
up machine or a chopped-in-half something. Machine art or .science is for
machines.

Art is not Cat-walk-Fashion. It is not being so damned clever!

Know thyself. BE Yourself.

Art is the pursuit of a Life Time. There are NO Quick methods. Experience.
Personal experience is the only Guide.

Repetition is useless.

In its making uncertainty is necessary.

It is Not Cosmetic. Not making pretty pictures.

It must be investigative. Each work requires its own approach.

Don't think things in Advance. Don't get hookcd-on-formulae.
Don't think about the Golden Section. Don't think of A-R-T.
Don't get mixed up with Art Courses and Art Books and Art Circles.
Be yourself and do it yourself.
WORK.

AFRICA AFRICA is Ancient. It has traditions like the roots of a Giant Tree. It has Great
Space; Red enriching soil and clay; wild places and Pure desert and Rocks
stamped by Age. In Africa, Nature is supreme. It remains the last Truth of the
Old World. A changing world as tried and tested by Nature. Past and Present arc
always merging. There is more ol the Past than there is of momentary present.
They need each other to grow. When the last vestiges of the rotten tlesh cast by
the New World are cleared by the Vultures, the Cycle of life fit for Man, Woman,
Beast and Art will continue.

I paint to be deep with Nature. Within Nature. By Nature. To Join. Tomixuith
Earth. Red Earth. Bomvu. In terms of Alrica. 1 don't paint 'landscapes'. 1
paint AFRICA.

Tashinga Group,
Violence against
Women (detail)

Tendai Gumbo,
If We Had Known
Daitaziva

Women Visual Artists' Exhibition
1996, August/September, National
Gallery, Harare

The IdcuI point of the Women Visual Artists"
exhibition is Sisters, a paper cut-out chain of
dolls, lite-size, pale pink, each with a red
smiling mouth and a wavy skirt, hands
joined. The chain underlines the sisterhood
and inter-relation of all women's lives. The
innocence of this first impression is starkly
and horrifyingly at variance with the
handwritten stories of individual women,
many of them still only children, from
countries around the world — factual stories
of abuse, deprivation, degradation,
discrimination and violence. The effect is
shocking. Sisters is a powerful protest and,
significantly, it is the work of a non-
Zimbabwean. This society largely ignores
and covers over its treatment of women,
aided.by Zimbabwean woinen's passive
acceptance. Much of the rest of the work on
show reveals the breadth of this unassertive
attitude.

Sylvia Bews-Wright, the creator of Sisters.
invited viewers to add their own comments
to the blank dolls in her chain, and one
contribution from an anonymous "sister
from Latin America" went as follows:

I "Women 's lives are Inird Imt not tliis l^leali.

I Women still lauglt, dance and tell stories to

I their children — even in landmine-infested.

war torn, dirt — .... countries. Let's put

some hope and joy into this gloom."

Yes, lets's be 'real' traditional Zimbabwean
women and smile, and kneel, and ululate
while many of us are being abused!

There are some examples of protest from
Zimbabweans on the exhibition but the
protest is subtle, masked or often undirected.
Tendai Gumbo's Nehanda is a successful
work in tattered rag on sackcloth — a telling
memorial for a heroine of the liberation

struggle: it is the men,
the chefs, who vie with
one another to get a
place in Heroes' f^cre.
Sylvia Bews- Wright's
second work on the
exhibition. Chef, offers
us a rendition of one of
Zimbabwe's potential
"heroes'.

Amongst the textiles on
exhibition is Violence
against Women
produced by the
Tashinga Group (women
from the Harare Shelter
for the Destitute). It
depicts, in small
I embroidered panels,
^ various scenes of
^ domestic abuse. But the
~ viewer has to look

Tendai Gumbo, Nehanda

closely to even notice the violence and little
appropriate emotion is aroused. The detail
illustrated here is the most expressive of the
panels. The overall impression of the work
is one of cheerfulness, bright zingy colours,
delicate stitchery — the visual affect
working against the content rather than
supporting it.

Some categories of this exhibition,
particularly sculpture and ceramics, had few
submissions. Pip Curling comments in the
catalogue, " ... the selectors noted that
traditional women potters were sadly
missing. Pottery is a major craft in
Zimbabwe and it is disappointing that rural
women have not participated." It was
decided therefore not to award prizes for the
ceramics category. And. as very few young
artists participated, prizes for artists under
25 were redistributed in the open categories.
So where are those young female artists'
works'? Where are the sculptors and
traditional potters? Does the concept of
exhibiting pottery in a gallery in Harare have
any meaning for a potter in the rural areas?
Has there been enough information and
promotion for this event? There is obviously
a need to actively encourage artists to enter
this exhibition — a job for the staff of the
National Gallery.

There is no doubt though that those who
chose to enter represent a wealth of talent
within the female artists in Zimbabwe.
Lauren Amott (Love and Hunger) and
Eichardt Krog {Lunch Break) were given
awards in the painting section, Tendai
Gumbo (If we had known - Daitaziva) and
Granete Ngirandi ("Voo-Doo) for their
graphics, Abigail Dzingire (Cultural Design)
and Eunice Saleka (Life at Home) in the
textile category, and Colleen Madamombe
(First Maternity Dress) and Virginia

O
CD

Sylvia Bews-Wright, Chef

Ndandarika (Hiippx Family) received awards for
their sculptures.

Sibonile Ndlovu's liiglily recommended lively
fabric design Inkezo Ynkunathisa. with its richness
(if pattern and colour reminds of works by
Hundertwasser. Doris Kampura's five very
different entries in the sculpture, painting, and
graphics categories, reveal a versatile young
artist. My Inner Landscape by Anke Bohne, a
mixed media collage, uses feathers, pods and bits
of rubbish on the shores of a stonny beach to
create a moody work. This approach is continued
in her Junk Head made from metal scraps and
other discards of society.

Do women artists necessarily have to produce
protest art? Male artists are not decried if they
paint landscapes, daily scenes or abstracts. Do
women artists want to show their work in an
exhibition exclusively for women? Is there an
exhibition planned for "only' men? When does
affirmative action become patronising and
destructive? One highly esteemed woman artist
in Zimbabwe feels strongly that if a work of art is
good it will be exhibited regardless of the gender
of the artist and that this is what all artists seek.
But is the playing field level? Do women artists
have to work harder to get work exhibited? Are
galleries aware of women's reluctance to put
themselves forward, an attitude deeply ingrained
by Zimbabwean upbringing? It is a proven fact
that women have more difficulty getting
education and that a greater proportion of their
time is consumed by family and domestic duties
on top of regular income-generating work. Is
enough being done by art schools and galleries to
ensure that women artists get the same
encouragement and support as their male
counterparts? These are questions for everyone to
consider, particularly the National Gallery which
is our presumed leader in the visual arts field. If
the National Gallery is serious in its intentions, it
has some hard work to do. to clarify its aims and
to ensure that such a project does not backfire.
Jutta Jackson and Barbara
Murray

I Recordings: A Select Bibliography
- of Contemporary African, Afro-
I Caribbean and Asian British Art
' by Melanie Keen and Elizabeth Ward

(London: Institute of International

Visual Arts, 1996)

In her Inlioduction to Recordings. Melanie Keen
makes a reference which reflects on the book's
rather cumbersome title: "From this point on I
will use the word 'black' — with a lower case h

— to describe people of African. Afro-Caribbean.
.South East Asian and Asian descent while
acknowledging it as a contentious issue and that
other expressions may have been used in its
place" She might have added, too. that the
"British" in the title allows the inclusion of artists

— our own Tapfuma Gutsa among them — who
have lived there only temporarily.

The book presents a chronology of
exhibitii)ns held over the last 25 years, followed
by a listing of artists with their exhibition history
and related publications, and ends with a
bibliography of general texts. All of these will be
useful to researchers, historians and those of us
with a more than passing interest in the subject,
who have neither the time nor the opportunity to
trawl the Chelsea College archive on which the
book is largely based.

There are the occasional gaps, of course. Na.seem
Khan's 1976 study. The Arts Britain Ignores.
although not quite as comprehensive as it was
ambitious, should warrant at least a mention.
And whilst the book finds room to list Margaret
Garlake's Art Monthly review of Eddie Chambers,
it seems to overlook Chambers' own The .Unpack:
A History of Black Artists in Britain ( 1988.
funded by the Haringay Arts Council), which
although limited in its scope, was a well-
illustrated introduction to the subject for school
children and their teachers.

The main shortcoming of Recordings, though, is
the one imposed by the elusive and ephemeral
nature of the primary documents on which it
depends, and the shifting fortunes of the
institutions which showed the work. Having
worked at London's Africa Centre in the late 70s,
I was saddened — but not altogether surprised —
to read that it no longer has regular exhibitions of
contemporary art. However, when 1 recall the
busy and creative presence of, for instance,
Lubaina Himid in the Covent Garden of those
years, it surprises me that the entry in Recordings
contains no reference to her exhibiting prior to
198.^.

Importantly, the book does reflect something of a
coming-ot-age over the decades. The 70s and
early 80s were studded with mention of the Africa
Centre, the Commission for Racial LqualilN. Ilie
Minority Arts Advisory Service, the
Commonwealth Institute and the agencies of the
lamented Greater London Council. Today, the
ball is properly in the hands of the artists
iheiiiscKcs: the indefatigable ("luunhers. Kasheed
Araeen, and the Institute of International Visual
Arts for whom Keen and Ward compiled
Rcconlings. And safe hands they are, too.

Murray McCartney

Furniture and Furnishings,
National Gallery in Bulawayo,
August/September 1996

Why h;i\e a boriny chair when you can have
an extraordinary one' The human spirit
thrives on creativity and innovation and this
exhibition, the first of its kind for the
National Gallery of Zimbabwe, offers us
plenty of unusual ideas. Thought up and put
together by .Stephen Williams. Furniture and
Furnishings has stimulated artists and
provokes the viewer. The two large galleries
in Bulawayo were filled with examples of
creativity applied to conventional items: the
quirky, the beautiful, the humourous, the
poetic and the imaginative — and at the
same time useful and functional.

Two chunks of soft-looking chiselled
sandstone, girded by carved poles, hold up a
warm wood table top. A rough edged slab
of pale gleaming marble balances atop a
single black pillar. A wire creature about
three feet tall bends and strains to keep your
door open. Candles flicker in a variety of
holders made of curving wood, lumpy clay,
slim wire. A table made of dark wooden
sleepers and smooth marble with its own
miniature cast iron stove — an inspirational
place to write or work.

Contemplating the range of objects, perhaps
the best way to indicate the individual
creativity of the participating artists is to
single out one item of furniture: the chair.
There were many examples, one being Life
Hand Chair by Jeremy Mann in the form of
a large hand constructed of thin black
lengths of metal bent and curved into the
shape of fingers reaching about five feet up
from the palm. Depending on the cushion
which was unfortunately not completed in
time for the exhibition, such a chair could
provide a safe, enclosed place to curl up
with a book, almost a room of one's own.

Brian Williams, known for his sensitive and
lyrical treatment of wood, gives us a

Caveman C/ia/r composed of multi-hued,
.softly-.sculptured and interlocking
pieces. By the same artist is a witty
Hunter's Chair — a traditional swivel
-hair with a back support smoothly shaped
1 resemble buffalo horms. Brian
Williams' chairs are always, and
surprisingly, wonderfully comfortable.

A tall chair in green metal by sculptor and
craftsman, Arthur Azevedo, stands serenely.
Quiet and unassuming, with its simple lines
and elegant assymetry, it is a pleasure to
look at and sit in. By contrast. Time Chair
by Beny Bickle is a flight of imagination
that looks too delicate for human weight.
The curving wings and curling frame
provide the spirit with a vehicle for travel.

John Knight employs the ordinary, a shovel
and garden fork, to create a most unusual
Garden Chair. I can't vouch for the comfort

(top left) John Knight, Garden Chair

(middle left) Gracious Nyoni,
Old Stool

(bottom left) Brian Williams,
Caveman Chair

(top right) Arthur Azevedo, Chair

ol' this exhibit, not being brave
enough to try it! The same
artist also exhibited a wild
l.if;lii Shower, made with a
length of bright green
plaslie hosepipe curling up
t'roni the floor to end in an
aluminium shower rose
containing a light bulb above
vour head.

Berry Bickle, Time Chair

Gracious Nyoni offers a low

and comfortable Old Stool

carved from a single, chunk of

wood — simple, beautiful and

welcoming — a restful seat for

the end of a long day.

The choice is yours. And perhaps
to light your book or
conversation a
companionable lamp,
Walkiiii; in the Light, a
gently humourous creation
in the form of a scarecrow with a straw hat
for a lampshade by Ras Ian Knife.

In his introduction to the catalogue, Stephen
Williams writes: "Good designers enrich
life in a manner that is culturally and
environmentally sensitive and make a
meaningful contribution to the way people
look at and respond to the world ... Good
design should excite and stimulate our
aesthetic sensibilities ..." One of Stephen's
many talents was that of stimulating both the
artists and the public. In organising this
exhibition, he encouraged individuals,
including painters, architects, a 13 year-old
schoolgirl, teachers, sculptors, writers and
craftspeople, who had perhaps not
previously applied their artistic gifts to
furniture, and they challenge and reward us
with their work. Furniture and Furnishings
will be on show in Harare in September/
October and it is certainly an exhibition
worth seeing. Barbara Murray

Chrispine Mutsadyanga,
Figure

Fine Arts Students Past and
Present, August/September,
National Gallery, Harare

Walking up 1(1 the exhibition of works by
students of the Harare Polytechnic in the
east wing of the National Gallery, you
cannot help but be captured by Anke
Bohne's striking sculptured figure, part of a
mixed media installation. Entitled The
Mirror, the work consists of the figure and a
series of textile portraits hung like clothes on
a rack. For the figure, Bohne's materials are
metal and wire, plied into packed
expressiveness through every limb and form
of the body in its twisted, turning motion.
This structure is covered in stretched
stockings in varying neutral tones and hues
effectively invoking flesh, ending in a pair
of solid knee-high plaster boots finnly
planted on the ground. A closer look at the
sketchbook in the figure's hand indicates
that we perhaps breeze over people in
general too fast in life. Written in the
sketchbook is the instruction: "If you only
have vour own 2 HANDS look at the textiles/
the FACES with somebody together! Touch
them, turn them over!" Assertive and
dominating, this piece seems to suggest a
need to try to understand art. to confront and
recognise ourselves and others as depicted
by artists. Much of the other work does not
however ask any questions nor attempt to
actively involve the viewer.

A gentler and quieter piece is Zimbabwe
Yorufaro by Sam Mulabu, composed of
entwined wood, metal, wire, mud and hide.
The wire is worked into organic shapes,
woven spider webs, snail trails and
chongololo skeletons, and covered in a layer
of sandy mud. The merty figure drawn on
one of the wooden verticals uses the natural
sculpted hole to achieve a heady lightness.
The pale animal hide is turned with the soft
inside out, with just a hint of the hairy coat
revealed in a fold.

Chrispine Mulsadyanga's Figure shows a
sound and balanced composition. The figure
is weighted on the step-ladder drawn in
varying widths of lines and angles using
charcoal, graphite and ball point pen. He
has worked competently with both the
background and subject together.

The ceramic work was a letdown after last
year's show when we were stunned by the
workings in clay, the confidence with which
the medium was handled. The pots this year
are of an almost elementary standard.
Boring forms, crudely worked and
insensitively glazed, which reveal no
understanding or enthusiasm for the
material. It seems that last year's students
were inspired by the work of the visiting
Maori potter, Wi Taepa, whose free
inventiveness and robust approach to clay
was shared in a workshop at the Polytechnic.
Fvery eftort should be made to expose
students to fresh, creative ideas in this way.

Overall the exhibition displayed a good
technical knowledge of drawing, painting
and printmaking with an understanding of
their relative potentials. The painters show
strong confident brushwork and good use of
colour. What is needed is some experimen-
tation and letting go. Myrtle Mallis

Anke Bohne, The Mirror

forthcoming
events and
exhibitions

Following on from the exhibition of work by
prominent young painters Luis Meque,
Richard Witikani and George Churu
Gallery Delta will feature recent sculptures
by Gerry Dixon. On 5 November there will
be an unusual show entitled Explorations
which Will present fragments, writings,
sketches, paintings and other materials by
some prominent artists, giving insight into
their processes. Later in November, Delta
exhibits paintings and off-the-wall work by
Berry Bickle.

The National Gallery in Bulawayo will be
holding a commemorative Celebration
for Stephen Williams on his birthday,
17 November. There will be a limited
retrospective exhibition of his work drawn
from private collections in the Bulawayo
region and activities are planned to reflect the
multi-faceted approach he took to the
promotion of the visual arts. A more
complete retrospective is planned for 1997.
In October a workshop will be run by visiting
British painter Maryclare Foa and work by
George Nene will be shown. November
and December will feature the 10th VAAB
Annual Exhibition.

Sandro's at 17 Duthie Avenue will open in
early October with a one-person show by
Paul Wade. Entitled Balancing Act. the
exhibition will feature among other works a
group of 16 painted cubes which invites the
viewer to make his or her own 'painting" or
"sculpture" by rearranging the cubes in
whatever order or shape appeals. Sixteen
cubes offers a possible 2.8 million million
combinations on just the frontal plane alone!

From 15 to 30 November Pierre Gallery will
be showing an exhibition of sculpture by
Henry Munyaradzi whose work was
selected along with that of 29 other artists for
the International Sculpture Biennale in Paris
this year. Munyaradzi is the only sculptor
from Africa to have been chosen for this
prestigious exhibition. Following this in
December will be installation work by
Tapfuma Gutsa

The National Gallery in Harare will be
showing Furniture and Furnishings from
mid-September to mid-October. The gallery
will then close until the opening of the
annual Heritage Exhibition on a date to be
announced in early November. ^^

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The art magaz-ie from Gallery Delta

No 10

Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe

Gallery Delta, the publisher and the editor gratefully acknowledge
the following sponsors who have contributed to the production
of this issue of Gallery magazine:

lfY(fi

EDSIS

Anglo American Corporation Services Limited

TiKTC-

The Rio Tinto Foundation

APEX COM

Joerg Sorgenicht

APEX CORPORATION OF ZIMBABWE LIMITED

.4RIST0N

Tanganda Tea Company Limited

ETWORK

■An^

NI)(IK(I

.A^

allery

,^1

Contents

December 1996

2 Gerry Dixon on site

by Murray McCartney with notes by the artist

7 Ishmael Wilfred : Painting the spirits

by Barbara Murray

1 2 [lo the Pirate, photographer : an interview
with Barbara Murray

20 Reviews of recent woric and forthcoming exhibitions
and events

Cover: Gerry Dixon. Para Noire (detail). 1996, 228 x 123 x 22cm,
wood and grass (photo credit: Barbara Murray)

Left: Crispen Matekenya, untitled (detail from Blakiston School
Playground Project) 1996, approx 6 x 2m, wood (photo
credit: Barbara Murray)

Publisher: Derek Muggins. Editor: Barbara Murray. Design & typesetting:
Myrtle Mallis. Origination: HPP Studios. Printing: A.W. Bardwell & Co.
Paper: Magno from Graphtec Ltd.

Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not be reproduced
in any manner or form without permission.

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the writers
themselves and not necessarily those of Gallery Delta, the publisher or the
editor

Subscriptions from Gallery Publications, c/o Gallery Delta. 1 10 Livingstone
Avenue, P.O. Box UA 373 Union Avenue, Harare. Tel: (263-4) 792135
Fax: c/o (263-4) 753186 e-mail: gallery@delta.icon.co.zw

Trying to get to grips with one of the most
unaccountable of Zimbabwe's artists,
Ga//ery asl<ed IVIurray McCartney to engage
Gerry Dixon in conversation.
The artist has added his own comments.

Gerry Dix

"Nineteen xi.xn-two. si.\t\-lhree. on a diet of
Retsina and slimming pills. Boh an ' I doin ' a
street cabaret in Athens. Iiim on his mouth-
organ, me playing on my pith helmet - bam!
bam! bam! But Bob had to go. I mean,
there we are. flat broke, and he 's using his
last coins to buy an ice-cream. An ice-
cream!"

Gerry Dixon"s acid indignation isn't
something you"d like to meet on a dark
night. But the lightness of touch is never far
behind: "The next week. I'm in Beograd. and
what's play in' on the juke-box? Cliff
Richard! And all these people thinking that
they're rebels!"

Which leads, in our roller-coaster
conversation, to considerations of
communism, recollections — and they are
legion — of his antipathy to it. "I've been
anti- since my father and all his trade
unionism: sightless leaders, boring
controllers of life ..."

Outer sight

Dixon is 58 now, and looking a lot fitter than
anyone should look after a history of making
the 'free life' pretty much an article of his
existence. Those who would control it are
either vanquished, pilloried, abandoned, or
given a wide berth against the day when his
gentle wrath will light on just the tool to do
the job: a word, a look, a sculpture.

To suggest, though, as one Harare critic has
done, that this makes him the Don Quixote
of the contemporary art scene, is to miss two
important points. His ideals may be quite as
lofty as those of Cervantes' good knight, but
the villains of his piece are real enough.
Well, some of them are, at least: poisonous
vehicle emissions; nuclear weaponry; the
squander-mongery of space exploration; the
media manipulation of sound frequencies
and visual images. Others perhaps owe
more to the fertility of his imagination than
the rigour of his analysis.

More importantly, though, the tilting-at-
windmills school ignores a long and rough-

edged history. "There goes Gerry Dixon,"
they seem to imply, "characteristic flap-
eared cap making him look for ail the world
like Snoopy mocking the Red Baron." The
endearing hermit. The iconoclast with a soft
centre.

The soft centre had other beginnings. The
west London district of Southall — beyond
the reach of the Underground which hives
off north and south of it, tracking more
prosperous realms — had a particular
character in 1938. The arrow-straight
streets, fanning off The Broadway like fish
bones, were surrounded by airports, and
factories, and RAF ba.ses. Not only
industrial, but military-industrial as well, a
strategic target. And a for lad in wartime
Southall, the sirens and air-raids and
dashing-for-the-shelters went with the turf.

■7 grew up in surnnindings of fear." Dixon
recalls, "but it was more like 1 was watching
it. I went round collecting bits of bombs.
and shrapnel, and put them in little boxes.
The oldies were freaking out. but I don 't
actually remember any fear."

Family life was strained, and fractured.
Mother was hospitalised, sister was sent to
an orphanage, and Dixon himself to live
with his grandmother until his father re-
married when he was twelve.

"I fought everything. Changed .schools a lot.
Lived on the streets. Nineteen fifty-two. in
comes TV. fAost people putting up aerials,
even if they didn 't have a set — keeping up
with the Jone.ses. I lost my old man to the
BBC, and I've avoided television all my life.
Before TV everyone was on the streets in
London; then — overnight — nothing.
Police began appearing in the evenings:
'Shouldn't you be indoors. Sunny'.''

Umdon was the biggest city in the world:
something was going down then. We had a
strict hierarchy <m the streets, in-built
policing. Then comes TV. aggression.
negative newspaper reporting, boys being
pulled off the street. Nineteen fifty-five, a
friend gets beaten by the police with a
hasebtdl bat for no offence. A baseball bat

... we didn 't even know what baseball was"

At 16, he started an apprenticeship with the
engineering firm, AEC. "Wv main thing
was to avoid compulsory two year's army
conscription, and you coidd plead deferment
b\ studying. I did day-release, and passed
enough engineering e.xams to miss the
anny." Characteristically, he glosses over
the skills he learned; it's unlikely that his
laddish attitude and irreverent time-keeping
detracted much from his design and drafting
capabilities.

Away from the factory, life was a cocktail of
billiard-halls, dog-racing at Wembley twice a
week and jazz clubs.

■7 was an 'outer'. If you 're an < niter you 're
not into the general movie. The suburban
miters individually went to city centre: we
were into music."

Chasing the Trane

The hard-bop of modem jazz might have
been scripted for Gerry Dixon and his outer
pals. Listen to Thelonius Monk: '7 .v(;v, /)/av
Your own way. Don 'I play what the public
wants. You play what you want and let the
public pick up what you are doing — even if
it does take them 15, 20 years."

Or Nat Hentoff. on Coltrane: "The deadly
serious John Coltrane, groping for as many
possibilities as he can think of and combine
in each chord that rushes by, performs with
a hugely emotional 'cry' of desire thai has
been at the centre of jazz since the first field
hollers."

Meanwhile, back at the factory, Dixon was
stirring the corporate leathers with his views
— not positive — on the volumes of carbon
iiionovide that AEC vehicles were going to
pump into the atmosphere with their new
line of London buses. The technical director
had his own opinion: "Dixon. I think you'd
better go and work somewhere elsi'."

The somewhere else was Austialia. a long
way from England's stifling 'dumb'.
"Melbourne. Height of .■\uslralian

S:r^'^

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Gerry Dixon, Para Noire fdetail of the event), 1996,
228 X 123 X 22cm, wood and grass

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uneinployinenl. My dress was out of order. Every job intennew, I
blew iheir minds." Bui the country occasionally returned the favour,
by blowing his, lacing a succession of rough-neck adventures in
deserts and swamps with interludes of insight.

"7 met a kid who 'd never, at 12 years old. seen anyone else except his
father Presence? One hundred per cent! Changed my attitude to
city life forever."

"/ got into collecting bones. Painting them bright colours. Stringing
them up around the place."

1962. The last three months of a long and chequered two-year stay
were spent, following a bout of agoraphobia, in a Brisbane flat. '7
was there three months, and didn 't go out once. Started oil painting.
I'd phone for a ta.xi and tell the driver what paints to buy. and he 'd
bring them round. Paranoia No 1 — that was a great painting. The
rest I burned"

Time to move on. The boat to India, and the dope-fuelled trek west,
years ahead of the crowd: magic stories shining like jewels in a
compost of sickness and squalor.

Back in London, Dixon lived in an old ambulance, and listened to
John Coltrane until his money ran out. '7 was wrecked. Gone.
Derelict:'

"A friend pulled out an ad in the Evening Standard: Emigrate to
South Africa. Christmas Eve I go to the office to apply, and New
Year's Dax I'm there."

A crow in tlie crow's nest

"Arriving in South Africa ... it's like being in Britain with a PhD and
a thousatul pounds a moitth — just for being white!"

"I go to Jo' burg, because it's inland. I like inland. Got a job
straightaway: design engineer with Leyland. Then moved into
advertising. Maintaining an artist's attitude."

Johannesburg gave way to Cape Town; advertising gave way to
music. Dixon the autodidact, who a few years previously had
arranged for a librarian to mail him books at regular intervals during
an eight month sojourn as a labourer in the Australian desert, now
explored minimalist music. It was fertile ground for his creative
avidity.

David Toop wrote in his recent book. Ocean of Sound: "In the latter
half of the 1960s, reciprocal motion agitated and enlivened music.
Miles Davis. Sly Stone. Santana, Cream. La Monte Young. Jimmy
Hendri.x and Terry Riley all indulged in marathon trance grooves,
rippling with strange currents, often stretching beyond the limits of

endurance into boredom, hut hunting
ecstatic release through repetition."

In the Cape. Gerry Dixon began creating
sound composites which he described as "a
cross between the quality of Bushman drones
and Zen Buddhist chants ...". it was a short
step to giving weekly "concerts" of single
sine-wave music on his frequency generator

And it was during this time, when his mind
was focused on the transformative power of
music, that he had his synaptic encounter
with the mind of Joseph Beuys. "His Fat
Chair.' It altered my mind! Artist of the
century!"

Today — one monster Cape Town night-
club, one move to Zimbabwe, and one
nervous breakdown later — Dixon's regard
for the shaman of post-war Germany
remains undimmed.

Beuys himself was uneasy about the
shamanistic pigeon-hole to which he was
often assigned, and once said. "/ accept it
onh in the sense that I don 't use shamanism
to refer to death, but vice versa — through
shamanism I refer to the fatal character of
the times we live in. But at the same time I
also point out that the fatal character of the
pre.senl can be overcome in the future. The
future, to my way of thinking, is the
dimension that contains the point where
everything begins."

Gerry Dixon is no stranger to "the fatal
character of the times we live in": his
familiarity began in childhood and never
looked back. Nor is he out of tune with
Beuys" ontology ...

Beuys: "...there are no such things as
unshakeable principles, eveiything is alive
and in flu.x. ... the only unshakeable
principle I can think of would he .something
that is flexible to the nth degree, something
that is continually chatiging."

Dixon; "l^ayhe ... I go with the ' maybe' s ...
I don 't let doubts get in the way!'

What has all of this got to do with art? Not
a lot. according to Beuys. who once claimed
that; ■"/ really don 't have anything to do with
art — and that is the only way to really
contribute anything to art. I've always
wanted to get away from this conception of
the artist — one who makes drawings just to
he making drawings — because I don 't want
to be that."

But the impulse is there, and one can
imagine Dixon nodding his head in
agreement as Beuys continues: ""... it's an
impulse that is no different from human
impulses in general. How does someone get
interested in agriculture'.' I .suppose certain
experiences are important, as in any other
field. In the creative field, though, what you
always .seem to find is some sort of intention
that reaches out for some basic problem in
human life, which then becomes afield of
activity. With me, it 's that certain questions
— about life, about art, about science —
interest me, and I feel I can go farthest
toward answering them by trying to develop
a language on paper a language to
stimulate more searching discussion —
more than just what our present civilization
represents in terms of .scientific method,
artistic method, or thought in general. I tty
to go beyond these things ..."

How unhealthy can you get?

In the dusty yard beside his window-less
house. Gerry Dixon lugs over The Marine
from Marondera. a wooden figure shaped
like an inverted tear-drop, and slots it,
spike-down, into the tree slice which forms
its base. The Marine looks as if he would
be happier driven straight into the hard
brown earth, the more to regain his roots
and exaggerate his already phenomenal
unlikeliness, but portability is the
watchword, two days before he and his
fellows are relocated to Gallery Delta for an
exhibition.

Dixon's house isn't actually window-less,
merely glass-less. "All my work is for
money!' he remarks, walking through —
literally through — the French windows,
but the tone is less than convincing. Do I
realise, he asks, how much the American
people will spend on medical aid this year,
and goes on to give the answer without
waiting for a reply. He speaks in capital
letters. THRFF POINT FIVE: TRILLION
U.S DOLLARS. This, I'm told, shakes
down to the equivalent of ten thousand

(top) Gerry Dixon, The Marine from
Marondera, 1996, 106 x 40 x 46cm,
wood

(above) Gerry Dixon, Hot Seat, 1996,
42 X 108 X 42cm, wood

(left) Gerry Dixon, Ends Meet, 1996,
138 X 104 X 34cm, wood

(opposite) Gerry Dixon, Timeless,
1996, 179 x 62 X 34cm, wood

Zimbabwe dollars a month for every man, woman and child in the
United States. "How unhealthy can you gel?"

It's hard to regain a quotidian focus in the face of such astronomic
arithmetic, and under the arch-browed, cryptic gaze of The Marine
from Marondera. Who needs windows in this weather, anyway?

There's a raised stone platform on the land behind Dixon's house,
nestling inside a cluster of granite boulders like a meditation zone.
He slept there for several weeks while building the core of his new
home (who needs walls, either, for that matter?). Lying beneath the
stars, his mind was probably snagged more than once by the
intrusive knowledge of what else was kicking around up there in the
stratosphere. Dixon doesn't — doesn't dare, probably — spin off
the annual costs of space exploration, but the very thought of zillions
being spent on a "fruitless search for the meaning of life" is a
particularly chilling one to him. Not for the first time, his sculptural
ire and irony turns on NASA.

A previous response to the mis-spent zillions, exhibited last year,
was burdened down with the cumbersome title of One for NASA
(National Aeronautics and Space Administration — where the earth
is seen as a space station) STOP! (For 100 years). Ends Meet hits
its target with a deal more elegance. Through an abstracted, arced,
priapic rocket, an angled wooden spike is driven sideways. The fit is
cabinet-maker-perfect; the tension between the crystal-sharp spike
and the fat, lazy, plum-coloured projectile with its cocky little NASA
logo, lingers like one of Dixon's amplified sine-waves.

Will it slice even one day off the duration of the space race? It
doesn't matter. This is not agit-prop, not adolescent defiance, not the
work of an inky-fingered ban-the-bomb artist. This is irony meeting
its ironist: once the spike is put in place, the sculpture's work is
done.

By chance, Dixon lets slip during the exhibition that, yes, after all,
he probably has done his bit in terms of pointing up the more
excessive follies of the post-industrial world; that maybe it's time to
move on. But ... but he's an artist, not a strategist, and it would be a
foolish punter who'd bet a cent on a Dixon 'maybe'.

NASA and Medicare aside, his canon remains a refuge for
serendipity: wood and stone talk to him still, as they ever did. This
conversation with his materials both reflects and determines the
geography of his life. Even when the windows are glazed, the inside
of Dixon's house will never be far from the outside; and even when
the sky is out of sight, as he sets another pot of coffee on the kitchen
stove, the tree from which the counter is hewn continues to breathe
life.

In the past, his material has spoken to him in the tongues of monsters
and wild beasts. Lions have emerged from his suburban
undergrowth; leopards have grown out of tree-stumps; elephants,
even, have visited him and declared, "You're doing fine!"

Either the muse of the ark has left him, or the imperatives of home-
making are exerting an uncharacteristic sway; for this latest
exhibition he has conjured up two remarkable pieces of sculpted
furniture.

Hot Seat is chance at its best. One can imagine the artist squatting
down on this random log during a break from labouring in his yard.
Something disturbs his rest — an idea? a bird's .song? a chord
breaking from the loudspeaker? — and the moment has to be
immortalised: a saddle is seared into the timber where his bum sat,
and twin markers score the position of his legs.

A more elegant and resolved tree-transformation is the lofty scarlet-
timbered throne. Timeless. The dominant colour itself is unnaturally
Dixon-brash, but is redeemed by the delicate threads of yellow
bleeding down the natural cracks in the wood. And any thoughts

that even this specimen is a trifle echt-
iitilitarian for the outer from Southall. are
tlismissed by the whimsy of a giant finger
shding up the side of the chair-back.

And for those with money to bum. there was
Para Noire, a thatch-haired scarecrow-
standing sentinel in the gallery garden on
opening night. As dusk fell on the
ceremony. Dixon torched the scarecrow's
hair and art combined with drama. Half an
hour later, when the guests had turned their
attention away from the mask-face, now
sporting a halo of black, feathery curls,
drama gave way to magic as the face
spontaneously ignited and threw flames out
of its mouth and eye-holes. What was that
about "All my uork is for money"?

Two last words on the excessive follies of
the post-industrial world: Fish Report.
Exiled to the garden, in all its pink and silver
grotesquery. this work wasn't allowed to
sully the gracious interior of Gallery Delta,
and even some of the artist's most ardent
fans gave it a brisk and derisive thumbs
down.

Dixon's response, for all that he affects to
care little what people think of him. or his
art. was almost visibly pained. "Bui it's a
fish." he explained, bewildered that any
explanation might be necessary, "and it's
choking. On pollution ..."

How unhealthy can we get?

Gerry Dixon, Message from Jupiter,
1996, 70 X 43 X 18cm, wood

Artist's notes

iinivcisity tor one, and certain systems.

Part one: It was a cold wet hot dry summer
winter's day when Murray came to interview
me. It was with some interest that I read his
article concerning me: artist. Murray being
well-versed in modern trends seemed the
ideal writer. Maybe I am too before and after
for even such a bright mind so Tm down to
writing a bit on myself to compliment
Murray's article. Follows my pea-ramble:

From his conveyed vision I feel like a 'done
the drug scene". Right? Wrong! And lots of
70s idiom thought leaves me feeling like a
southern African version of David Toop (I
couldn't think of anything worse — right
now that is). David Toop is Britain's
esteeming self interest still making up its
own version — like knighting Cliff Richard
and not mentioning Cyril Davies. Boring, oh
so boring. I left and left again to escape this
snippy collage London media invents of its
firsts with fir.sts. Nevertheless it's that which
only puts its money into these interpretations
and they probably will look a bunch of
tosspots forever as the 20th century thins into
the soup.

In standing against the blistering insistent
wind of the past and never indulging in
paddling the river to make it run where it will
surely run, I feel my sinews twang in
complaint. I will not give approval to the
hypocritical fay blindness of the 'I want to be
in the middlest of shampoo ads'.

Rattling on is the boniest position left for
such a spit on two wheels. It's a small fact of
human reality that if you seek you will find
BUT the information overload of the sinking
century leaves floundering cripples, haddock
to haddock, many having lost the sole that
seeks.

As for art — this is art. It's allowing
thought waves a wig stretch at a canter
Doesn't do any harm and a bit like curing
biltong or smoking kippers.

Part 2. Sweetness

Nevertheless it was deemed domed and
dahlias get greenfly so not to worry, god is
definitely round the next bend. TV was good
at getting the world channelled though highly
focused on the benefits of having FREE
CHOICE IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY.
Which briefly means: If you buy one of the
more than 5000 varieties of shampoo now
available we will use a small portion of that
money to sponsor the next show dedicated to
convincing you that our interests are more in
your interest than the likes of nasty
unscrupulous despots like Gerry Dixon.
"Who the hell does he think he is anyway!"
Certainly not that person!

Rare chances at literary exposure give my
persona its quick burst of buck up ammo to
de-tensify its disposition. This is only the
second fime in 40 years past that a possible
risk of exposure has been offered. So I vent
on. In-vent-on. Invention. Intervention —
in lemmingsville. Unbeknown to all is the
fact that I, what is called, *love* life and all
that fills it. Though not that which seeks to
depopulate it or pigeon-hole it, like

Part 3. Suggestions as to good manners and
a prayer that the padlock controllers are
quicker to see they're locked in an air-tight
compartment with slowly rising poisonous
substances and slowly reducing life support
items like fresh air and water. Dredging
companies working the estuaries of Europe's
largest rivers are faced with the astronomical
problem of what to do with the mud dredged
up. It is so toxic it has to be disposed of
same as radio active waste. And the.se
waters are running continuously into our
oceans.

So, as we here in Africa have been labelled
3rd World (as in 3rd class), we could if we
were nimble over the next 20 - 50 years alter
the concept to World MKIII version, by not
following the filthy tracks of the World
MKI. As the obsession locally is following
the filthy tracks in as apparent an orderly
fashion as possible we may not lead the
world in any way. But thankfully we are
able to BE with some sweetness in this de-
tensified part of the human jungle.

Question: Why is it a person like me. who is
busting with go and viable life support
economic ideas, why am I never given
access to finance (or even a telephone)?
Answer: I don't know the right people. I
wasn't bom to the right family. I am honest
and speak my mind.

Whatever; it's tedious. So kids. It's not
what you know. It's who you know. And
just about all the world's problems come
under one concept: Culture's coming to
terms with MODERN. Over & out.

Gerry Dixon
October 96

Most of us assume that
people in a society share
a similar conception of
reality. Art, however, can
reveal just how different
individual understanding
of experience is.

Ishmael
Wilfred:

Painting
thie spirits

Ishmael Wilfred,
Man and the Cannibal,
1996, 80 X 59cm,
PVA on paper

On casual acquaintance, Ishmael Wilfred is a
young Zimbabwean who is 27 years old,
living and working in Harare with his wife
and one year old baby. The son of
Malawian parents, his father, a cook on the
Watson's farm in Banket. Wilfred grew up in
a common Zimbabwean situation and went
to the local school. The farmer's wife did
painting and decorated bowls and table mats,
and there were paintings on the walls of the
farmhouse. Young Wilfred became
interested in drawing and began to copy
pictures and advertisements from magazines
and newspapers. Mrs Watson encouraged
this, giving him paper, pencils and paints.

On leaving school after passing "O' level.
Wilfred decided that he wanted to be an
artist. However his father strongly
disapproved as he thought that a man could
not earn a living as a painter. He persuaded
Wilfred to work as a builder's mate on the
farm, mixing cement and carrying bricks.
Not willing to give in so easily. Wilfred
searched through the telephone directory and
began writing letters to various galleries in
Harare. A few replies came back, all
negative. At last an answer came from the
National Gallery saying that they had an art

school and that Wilfred could enrole. So in
1989. he began painting, drawing and
printiTiaking at the BAT Workshop under the
tutelage of Martin van der Spuy. Kate Raath.
Paul Wado and Phibion Kangai. He
completed three years, doing mostly figure
studies, landscapes and street scenes. After
leaving the BAT. Wilfred got a job doing
sign-writing for a store in Harare but with
the onset of ESAP. jobs were cut and he
found liiiuscif without work.

Wilfred had all the while continued his own
painting and printiiuiking. exhibiting at
Gallery Delta on the annual .Students' and
Young Artists' show each year and
sometimes having work accepted for Delta's
yearly graphics exhibition. He was one of a
group of young painters who were working
consistently but who had not yet found their
own individual voices. It was tough going
and .sales were few. To add to his difficulties
during this time, a cancerous tumour began
to grow in his jaw and he had to undergo
several operations. The harshness of life
sent him searching for reasons and he found
himself turning to African spiritual
explanations in which he could believe.

In 199.'i Ishmael Wilfred brought some
paintings, mostly rural scenes and cityscapes
but including two very small monoprints, to
show Derek Huggins at Gallery Delta.
Despite their size, the two monoprints were
strong, different from any of his previous
work in content. On questioning the artist
about them, a deep belief in the spirit world
of African culture was uncovered. Knowing
Wilfred's ability with paint and brush. Derek
Huggins suggested that he should explore
these beliefs but in paint rather than print
and using a larger format. This was a
turning point for Wilfred who had been
reticent about expressing such private
subject matter except in very small format.
The works began to pour out of him
developing in content and execution and
resulting in the 20 paintings .selected for a
recent three-person exhibition entitled Man.
Myth and Movement at Gallery Delta.

In order to iniderstand the ideas expressed in
Wilfred's work we need to go back to a point
of crisis in his life. "/ Inul a diviim. Il uyi.v
sdiiirlhint; llnil I could iiol iiiulcistiiiul.
Then' is a person, sleepinii. Jreamini; all
these things around him, had spirits around
him. somethinfi that is ^oini; to happen. We

don 'I have the magic to sec what is really
happening. In the dream, a tooth came out
and there was a white thing growing inside.
A dream that something was going to
happen to me. I dreamed people came to me
and I had to eat rotten flesh. In the morning
I was not hungry. / was 25. I started getting
sick."

Frightened and bewildered, it was only later
that he realised that the nightmare was a
portent of the tumour which began to form
in his jaw. At first the tumour was not
painful but "it would breed at night",
steadily increasing in size. Eventually
Wilfred went to the local clinic from where
he was referred to Parirenyatwa Hospital in
Harare. A doctor, without explaining that it
was cancer, told him he should have the
growth cut out. The operations that
followed removed the lower jaw and cut into
Wilfred's lip making talking and eating
extremely difficult. Each time, the doctors
told him the growth was completely
removed, but it would grow again and he
would have to return to hospital. The inner
turmoil in which Wilfred found himself
forced him to question life and fate; why
such a thing should happen. He turned to his
grandparents and to books on African culture
and there he found many explanations for
the course of his life. At last, just prior to
his fourth operation, Wilfred consulted a
witchdoctor who gave him some medicine to
protect him from witches. He has been in
remission since that operation.

Ishmael Wilfred is an artist who lives in a
world profoundly affected by spirits, where
the envy and hatred people feel for one
another take on living forms with dire
consequences in day-to-day reality. Evil
spirits (witches) work on people, causing
them harm, sickness and sometimes death.
The power of these spirits is great. Their
witchcraft works in strange and non-
understandable ways but it is effective — as
Wilfred says "it works like remote control".

Through his paintings. Wilfred has found a
channel for expressing these manifestations
of evil and the ways they work. It is not a
defined world but one in which spirits
become visible through animal or human
form; a world in which energies,
phenomena, incarnations and auras occur
The colours used evoke an African spirit
world, bright and strong yet ambiguous,
flesh and yet not-flesh, creating a powerful
impression of a personal view of reality.
The paintings are dominated by reds
(danger, blood, raw flesh), blacks (darkness,
evil, the unknown, the feared, the night),
greens and yellows (auras, lights, rotting
flesh, the unnatural); some forms waver and
meld, others aggressively attack, loom or
threaten; the areas or lines of distinction
between one form or image and another
suggest possession, unnatural proximities
and uncertain boundaries.

Sitting on Doctored Corpses is a small
predominantly green painting in which a
hunched figure, intent on its business, glares
round, with burning red holes for eyes, at the
viewer. The work depicts an evil spirit come
to claim a body from its grave. Wilfred
explains that when a person dies by
witchcraft, the people responsible for the
death come back to dig the body out for use.
But if the family have put some medicine
from a witchdoctor on the body to keep it
safe, the killer sticks to the body in the grave
and cannot move. Then the family can see
that these are the people who killed their
relative.

At the Mountainside and Man and Cannibal
reveal another aspect of the African spirit
world. Cannibals are the embodiment of
evil. They wait in remote places for people
to devour, often women looking for wood or
small children hunting. If cannibals chase
and grab a child, they take it to their hut and
keep it quiet with medicine (so that the child
does not cry or feel hungry) for several days
before they eat it. Cannibals live
everywhere, in the countryside and in town.
"Cannibals are evil spirits who take a
human body and do evil. They have no
mercy. You can just feel that this person is
strange, has got something. You can see in
the way they talk, the way they look. When
you are asleep they come. Red means
something dangerous. The eyes of those
people, you cannot look at them. He is sort
of an animal, sort of a person, you cannot
understand how"

Two paintings. Rising Spirits and Ghost
Appears show dead people coming back to
life in the form of spirits. In African belief,
all dead people can return as spirits. They
can help and protect their families. "Some
spirits can lead you to a better life." But
more often the spirit returns to haunt a
family member who has not done his or her
duty, or who is not living a good life. "The
evil spirits were evil before they died and
they come back to frighten people who did
hann to them during life, or their children or
grandchildren." People go to the grave and
pray, make offerings and live well in order to
keep their ancestors' spirits content. Ghost
Appears shows "a spirit of a father or
mother who is angiy that the child didn 7 do
well .m it comes back to frighten people to
do what they ought to do. The cross is just
the sign of the graveyard. I am a Christian
but the spirits come and go and do what they
want anyway. If you have an evil spirit, the
ghost can hurt you. If you have no evil spirit
in you then the ghost will just pass through.
The ghost can beat you up if you are evil. If
you pass through a graveyard at night you
can see a light coming out."

Hammerkop Bird is a "bird that can see the
future, how a person 's future is going to be.
The figure is a skeleton. If the hammerkop
sees a person alive who is going to die soon,
it will go to the home of that person and it

will whistle three times and they know they
will die soon. To Africans, a hammerkop is
not good. Like a vulture. In African beliefs,
if you see a vulture something bad will
happen. I have only seen a hammerkop in
pictures. If you see one something will
happen in your family, in African families.
The witchdoctor will use a hammerkop to
see people 's future''

In his painting The Love Snake, Wilfred
describes his vision of one of the common
charms used in African society.
Witchdoctors have many charms and
medicines that can help a person with
everyday problems in their social lives,
careers, family situations and their health.
These are similar to the number 13, the four-
leaved clover or rabbit's foot, herbal drinks
— the lucky or unlucky charms of European
myth. "Even at work people use charms. If
someone wants to take someone's job then
they use charms and the person can vanish
or be sick. This happens." The love snake
is a particularly potent charm used by
women to entice men. "Evety man who
passes cannot go without talking to her. No
matter how old or ugly the woman is, the
men will go with her. even young men. The
prostitutes use a love snake to get rich. It
happens." A visit to Mbare market where,
amongst the mundane vegetables, tobacco,
clothes and tools, stallholders offer herbs,
necklaces of bones, skins, skulls and other
parts of various animals, and other
medicines, confirms the commonplace use
of these charms.

Head on Landscape is Wilfred's impression
of the scene after a witchcraft killing.
"When a person gets killed by evil spirits he
gets his head cut off' and it is just left on the
landscape. The body has been carried away
to be used." On being asked whether the
pale yellowish head is that of a European.
Wilfred says it is not. It is an African head.
The colour has been used to create the
atmosphere rather than approximate reality.
Europeans are outside this realm. Like most
religious beliefs, this interpretation of reality
is only visible to those whose awareness is
awakened. And apropos this painting, a
newsclip in today's He redd tells how a man,
arrested in possession of a human head, led
police to several 'graves' containing
dismembered parts of bodies.

A notable feature of most of Wilfred's work
is the absence of violence. It is not the
violent act but rather the fear surrounding
the object or event that .spills into the
painting. For this reason some works might
seem unusual but pleasant to a viewer who
does not encompass the artist's vision of
reality. Riding is one such painting showing
two human figures on what appears to be a
bicycle travelling through a bright yellow
background. "Two spirits are riding, you
may see them as if they are riding on a
bicycle but they are not on a bicycle, you q

don 'l know what you see. These are evil

spirits riding ihruugli the night. Old people.
This happens. People can ride. We don 7
have'the magic to see what is really
happening. You see things and it makes you
feel it is evil but you don 't understand. It is
evil spirits around. It is hatred around
people."

A series of paintings depicts the various
animals used by witches to carry out their
evil work. The Hyena is one animal often
used in witchcraft. "In African belief, if you
see a hyena, you run away from the place.
You don 7 see hyena often. They use the
hyena to ride on. They become one when
they ride together They ride on you too but
you are not sure, you think you may be
dreaming, but he has come to you in the
form of a spirit. When you wake up you feel
something has happened." The figure
behind the red hyena is "the spirit, the owner
of the hyena." Red has been used to indicate
danger, the unusual, a creature to be feared.
This colour is used again in The Red Horse:
Here the animal is trapped, it has been
caught by witchcraft. "They have caught it
so they can ride on it, it is a horse but not a
horse. In African culture when you see
something you have not seen before, a red
horse, then you htow it is something
strange, sotne witchcraft is happening."

In Black Head. Red Horse again we are
shown the witch, the owner, the evil spirit
ihat looks like a person, and the horse. The
background is the land. The horse is flying.
The circles around the head and horse
indicate magic objects tied on.

Ishmael Wilfred, The Hammerkop, 1996, 28 x 32cm, PVA on paper

In The Battle with its frenetic swirls of reds
and dark blues. Wilfred paints his
impression of evil spirits fighting each other
"People trying to get their rights, people
fighting, to be a leader, they just fight even
tlunigh it is something you cannot fight for
You see people of the same religion fighting.
Instead of talking together they are fighting.
Evil fighting evil. They are even animals,
birds, just fighting." It is a world beyond
control, one which a person must accept and
try to avoid if possible.

About Selfportrail after Operation Wilfred
says: "The operations were very painful. I
lost a lot of blood. I had gone through hard
times. After the fourth operation, I had
consulted the witchdoctor who said this time
I will be okay. He told me a witch had made
me eat .something to make it carry on
growing. He said that if a persim is sick the
enemies come and bring something evil and
the person will always get sick again. The
witchdoctor gave me some medicine to keep
the evil away. Because of my dreams it may
he someone doing some evil to me.
Witchdoctors can help you fight the evil
spirits or they can give you evil spirits.
Western medicine is practical. If there is no
African disease, no witchcraft, then the
1 Q Western medicine can help ytnt. Sometimes
a sickness is just sickness and then Western

Ishmael Wilfred, The Love Snake, 1996, 28 x 32cm, PVA on paper

Ishmael Wilfred, Black Head, Red Horse, 1996,
58 X 38cm, PVA on paper

Ishmael Wilfred, The Battle, 1996, 63 x 45cm, PVA on paper

medicine can heal you. If there is witchcraft
then only a witchdoctor can cure you, if
their medicines are strong enough. If I see
something happening that I don V
understand then I go and tell a witchdoctor
and they advise me what to do. Cancer has
changed my life. People don 't recognise me
now. They ask why I have changed and I
say it is just part of life."

Through his paintings, Wilfred wants
"people to understand that this is really
happening to African people. I grew up in a
Christian family who explained evil as
caused by Satan. I didn 't really believe that.
When I started to have problems I asked my
grandparents and they explained about
witchcraft. My beliefs are Shona because I
have grown up here. But the belief in the
evil spirits and witchcraft is in every African
culture. Witchcraft is witchcraft, it doesn 't
matter if it is Malawian or Shona.
Witchcraft works, it doesn 't matter what
tribe you are. If someone wants to make me
sick he takes magic and he knows this road
that I use everyday. He talks to the
medicine and says if that one passes let him
be affected. Other people can pass and
nothing happens to them. But if the chosen
one passes the witchcraft will work on him.
I don 't know how it works but it works."

Wilfred refers to books on African culture
"because then I can read what has really

happened to other people but seeing is
believing. I have seen some very strange
things. One night, after midnight. I woke up
and I heard someone sweeping. I looked out
the window and in the neighbour's garden
there was an old woman in a black gown.
She was sweeping. She wasn 't moving, just
sweeping ancf sweeping. And I looked
closely to see if I was dreaming or if it was
real, and definitely I was not dreaming. It
really happened. It is part of witchcraft.
The next morning my mother told me that
there had been afiineral down the road. So
something was happening, even if people
don 't believe. That woman is still there.
When I see her I am afraid, just the way she
looks at me. You never know who hates you.
It is very strong. A lot of people hate. There
is no reason. Sometimes you have to leave
because you know some evil thing will be
coming. Sometimes something pushes you to
do something that you shouldn 't do. If you
get in fights, get hurt, it is evil spirits
pushing you. God can help. If you listen to
others and you go to church you can avoid
trouble. In African culture, if you don 't
listen to the elders you get into trouble. The
elders have got a lot of experience and they
are trying to help you. Even the bible says
listen to your elders and your days will be
long. If you don 't listen your days will be
cut short."

Ishmael Wilfred uses PVA on paper. He

works quickly and after some hours he
comes back to it. Oil takes too long to dry
and the mixing of wet PVA gives the effects
he seeks. He does a small sketch sometimes
but often he says he sees "an image in the
environment, floorboards, the clouds.
Wherever I step I see images for art. I walk
art, talk art. eat art and live art."

"Somebody asked me: If I buy the painting
is the painting going to affect me? My
paintings cannot harm you. It is only the
artist's impression. My work is a way of
expressing my feelings and beliefs about
life."

"Paintings are an expression of myself.
Paintings are an explanation of my life.
Perhaps in the future I will make paintings
on other subjects. Now I feel I must paint
this. People paint in different ways and
everybody has got his or her own feeling on
what he or she is doing in the painting. A
person may be painting his experience, or
the community in which he lives. Some
people paint their surroundings and some
people paint what 's happening. I paint
because I want to pass a message on to
people about something that they don 't know.
So that they get to know what is happening
in the world. These paintings are a warning
about the evil spirits. That they are really
there and thev really work"

During his recent retrospective
exhibition at Gallery Delta,
llo Battigelli spoke about his life
and work

llo Battigelli, aged
10, working in his
uncle's studio

(opposite page)
Vecia with her birds
and home, S.
Daniele, Friuli, 1962

BM: llo, tell me about starting photography
when you were 8 years old.

IB: It was not of my own will, to start with,
because my father had a brother who used to
be a photographer He opened up his own
studio in 1910 in Italy. He made also his
own camera. He came for summer to my
town and saw this little chap, very alive, and
said to my father, "Can I get your son, llo,
to come to me. I will send him to school and
then I will teach him photography. He can
be my helper." So my father. I don't know,
he was very happy to get rid of me because 1
was a mischief 1 already had three, four
brothers and sisters, in fact we ended up
with 10 brothers and sisters. So my father
gave "Ye.'i" to my uncle, then 1 travelled by
train one night and 1 got to Santa Margarita
in the afternoon. My uncle called his wife
right away. "Can you go and buy him a new
pair of shoes. That is the first thing and
next morning you go to school." And then
he started to teach me a few things. First of
all it was cleaning the darkroom, dusting
things and helping him. When he used to go
around to take photographs, I carried the
tripod. The camera was an 8 x 10 with glass
plates and everything was heavy for him —
1 O those days everything was on foot, not
bicycling and cars.

BM: So when did you begin to take
photographs?

IB: I used to go early to the studio to clean
up and one morning somebody came in to
have a passport picture taken and my uncle
was not there. 1 was by myself. I must have
been about 10 or 1 1 or so, and so I said "K-v-
y-yes I'll do it." So, 1 remember the face of
the man laughing and 1 realised he must have
been so surprised at this little fellow, because
I never grew too much, a piccolino. He said,
"Fine." So we went to the studio. It was a
huge place about 10 metres by 15 with glass
on lop and glass on the sides. We didn't
have electricity in the studio but daylight,
and curtains on top that we used to move
according to the place where we wanted the
effect. So that's why we seem to always
have, in those days, the beautiful soft
photographs with a little bit stronger light on
one side or the other. Those were little tricks
in those days. So you need not only know
how to click the camera, you must have
something inside. You are born lo be a poet.
So then I did the photo.

BM: Had you never used a camera before
that?

IB: I used only to look at it. That was the

very first time. Well I was watching very
carefully all he did.

BM: Were you interested in photography
from the very beginning?

IB: No, 1 was not interested. I was
supposed to listen and ask questions. A
little boy. 8. 9 interested in photography?
He wants to play. Heh. heh. heh. And of
course inside myself I also thought if I don't
listen, if I don't obey, he will send me back
to my family. 1 was a little captive in the
palm of his hand you see. Anyhow I'd
passed okay, more or less okay, so to print it
is to see it. So then my uncle was very
happy and he says to me, "Fine I like the
enterprise of your own and from tomorrow I
will teach you all the things."

So we started and everytime some studio
photograph was to be done he used to come
to sit in the comer and watch. You know, in
those days, it was a matter of five or six or
seven, eight seconds of exposure and you
used to move the backdrops to make the
picture. We had an album in the studio with
copies of the photographs we used to do.
When a customer came in wc opened the
album and asked, "Which one would you
like lo have'.'" So one morning, this young

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lady came in and she says. "/ want a studio
photograph." And I said, "III I'll do it."
Then she starts laughing and only many
years later I tried to realise how she was so
surprised to see a little chap saying very
proudly, "I'lii going to do it." She must have
been 20, 1 don't know. So then she turned
the pages of the album and, my goodness,
she took up a decollete. In those days there
were a lot of pictures of ladies with naked
shoulders, soft, turning one side. And she
picked one with a very low decollete and a
veil. I looked and I start blushing, before I
even started 1 start blushing! I says to
myself, "How in the hell can I take a picture
of this young lady with naked, naked ...
impossible.'" Well anyhow 1 went to the
darkroom and with trembling hands I loaded
the films, the plates, and then I put her onto
the seat and then, still my trembling hands, I
set the little veil around her shoulders, not
too high, not too low, and I could see her
eyes full of great fun. Anyhow I did the
photograph. She collected. She was most
happy. My uncle was very happy and he
says, "From today you are allowed to take
portraits but be veiy careful when you deal
with ladies!"

During the day we used to do lots of
commercial work. We used to go round,
take pictures of buildings etchetera. He
taught me how to set the camera and how to
move to get the straight line, all the tricks in
photography that you have to do. And we
used to carry, to do landscape, a branch of a
tree with leaves to give a foreground. And
he was so kind, he always taught me as
much as he could. From that time I started
to do other things, weddings etchetera. I
used to go to the garden to photograph the
children. By then I loved it and my uncle
used to push me. Any magazines, he used to
show to me pictures, what is good, what is
bad, you know. I remember all the things he
taught me, like a father to a boy.

Then of course, after the war of Abyssinia,
Italy was flooded with taxes and there was a
moment of crisis. So my uncle had to close
the studio. He sold the studio to somebody
else because he couldn't make it and I went
to iTiy native town again. I was then about
15, 16. This man opened a studio but he had
to report to the army, they call you. So he
spotted me and he asked, and officially I
opened the studio on his behalf. I used to do
all the work. This photograph (Vecia with
her birds and home) is my town. You can
read, you can play music, you can play
violin, or the piano, you can tell stories. And
that is my life, every stone. This doesn't
exist anymore, the earthquake destroyed
everything. Unfortunately beauty has
always been connected with poverty.
Because, often people, they have nothing
more than to be able to make the best of the
little things that they have, the simple things.
So there is so much of life, to put into life,
I 4 love.

Then my father went to Eritrea, to Africa,
and he called us to join him. So with my
mother and my brothers we went to Africa.
It was very tough in Eritrea but I found work
with a firm that hud connections with the
newspaper and started to be trained in taking
pictures for publicity and sport and news. 1
enjoyed it very much and whatever it was I
did my best and I learned because I wanted
to learn.

Then of course I used to do freelance also
for the newspaper with a bicycle and a
camera. You have to carry two lights and a
stand and 20 metres of wire and go to the
party and hold the lights and take pictures.
When 1 think of those days you know it's
amazing, how I did it. I had so much
enthusiasm. Imagine, on a bicycle, the
camera, a stand, two lights, the wire and a
tripod! We were in Asmara, a big city.
Whenever they had functions we went. I
remember a day I went to a wedding and I
went to the wrong church. I waited for the
bride and groom. We had the monks there
and they were all my friends, so they phoned
to the other cathedral and the wedding was
there so I got on the bicycle, with my lights,
my tripod, my stuff and when I got to the
other cathedral they were already coming
down the steps! So what to do? So I said,
"Fermi, fermi momento!" I called the monk
in the church and I said, "What if I do so and
so and so? We got to take at least one
picture while you give communion." He was
very amused so he called everybody back to
the church. He put on the paramenti of the
priest. He called them to the altar and I took
a picture while they were having
communion. Heh heh heh. Everybody was
happy. Those things I used to do and they
obliged. Set the lights in the church with the
family waiting outside etchetera. And then I
laugh because whenever you go, you as
photographer, you can move everywhere.
They don't say don't move. You move
because you're looking for a spot. So I used
to observe what they do, what they did, the
furniture, the ambiente. That was very
interesting and I love it.

BM: How do you choose your spot? What
sort of things do you think of?

IB: Well, to be true, having had my uncle so
much teaching me, now to choose the proper
comers, to avoid the wrong backgrounds,
wrong lightings, it comes natural to me. So,
while I was there, the first thing I did, even
while I was thinking, I was already looking
where I could set my people, how I could do
it, how much I had to keep to give exposure,
and those things they come to you, but there
must have been with me a great desire to
learn. You know, because it is within me.
Always if somebody cross the road in ten
seconds, I like to cross the road in five
seconds. That has been always my way.
When you read books etchetera. you read
about people doing great things, and I said,
"/ can do it better than him" Not modest

I'm afraid. If I was modest I wouldn't have
been here now. I would be still serving,
moving things in the studio. So that is it.

And there of course the war came, and it was
not easy. Well in anycase, to be short, when
the war was over we were prisoners
officially. Then the English came and it
doesn't matter where you are, it was very
bad. There was no work. I did all sorts of
things to survive. Then they opened up
digging for oil in Saudi Arabia and they
needed manpower to do it. The Americans
made an agreement with the British and
about 3000 of us, still prisoners, all in one
box, went to Saudi Arabia. We had very
little pay, very cheap money, we lived under
the tents. So that's how I ended up in
Arabia.

BM: And you had your camera with you?

IB: No, I did not have a camera but I had
been hired as a photographer They took
four photographers. They had 3000 and
what they wanted they took and the rest they
sent them back. Like you buy a bag of
potatoes, you take the good potatoes. So we
went there, out of four we remained two of
us. I had all this experience and they put me
into the laboratory and I started work with
four, five cameras, speed graphics and
flashes etchetera, and of course. I knew my
job so they put me in the engineering
department.

And then I had a boss who was American.
One day he came with a special job and tells
me how to do it. And I says, "I'm sorry, it's
not working this way. This is how to do it
because... because... because..." And he
says, '7 am your boss. I tell you how to do
it." I said, "Yes, sir!" So I went to the
darkroom. I did it and it was worse. I did it
worse. And he was very happy. A week
later I was summoned to the head office and
all my 16 x 20 pictures on the table. So, the
director look at me and he says. "Did you
print these'.'" I said. "Yes." He says, "They
are all wrong." I said, "Yes I know!' He
says, "What do you mean you know?" I
says. "Yes I know. It is wrong here, wrong
here and wrong there." He looks at me with
a stone face and says. "Why did you do it?"
"Because my boss, Mr so-and-so, when I
told him that it was wrong to do it this way,
he told me that he was my boss and to do as
he said." So next thing the boss was fired
and I became supervisor. Then I started to
travel. Do you have plenty?

Of tape? Yes I have lots.

IB: Good. Heh heh heh. Because I can talk
until 1 2 o' clock tomorrow. So then I
became somebody because before we were
kept down. Anyhow I tried to do tny be.st,
also because I liked it. If the work is to be
done, you check each piece each time and if
there is mistake you do it again. And not to
take an hour if vou can do it in half an hour.

So I think they did appreciate and they
allowed me a few liberties sometimes. But 1
wanted to be able to move from one camp to
another. We had a camp at the beach with
an iron belt around. You couldn't move and
if you move out of it you must have
permission because the Arabs didn't want
any interference in the towns. You were not
allowed to go. So I said, "My goodness. I
want to take pictures." Because I felt it was
the first time it was possible in Arabia so I
must make some photographs. What can
you do? What can you do'

Then one day I said, "Took, I get
perinission" And I went to see the manager,
the president of the company in the other
settlement, and when I got there he wasn't
there. His wife says to me, "He is in a
meeting so why not wait?" When he came
he found me playing with his children on the
floor So I greeted him and I said, "My
goodness, you have rn'o lovely children and
I would like to take some pictures of them."
So he was very happy and he said, "Yes, why
not?" "But," I said, "/ haven 't got the
materials I need'' And he says, "We 'II get it
from Cairo" and a week later the paper
arrived. I did the photographs. He was very
happy. So he gave me official freedom to
do things openly within the camp.

BM: This one, Ilo, was this in the camp in
Arabia?

IB: Yes. I was there for eight years. That is
my studio.

BM: Why the 'Pirate' Ilo?

IB: You know, when I had the place made
into a darkroom. I said. "/ must get a name.
'Ilo Balligelli. photographer' sounds very
big. Or 'Ilo Baltigelli and Son '. like
Antonio and Sons." I says, "I'm not very
big, I've no son." So then we heard of a
story, in the bay near the camp, according to
legend, one of the last pirates came there.
The pirate is a boat with six or ten men that
travel along the coast and when they see a
village they anchor, they go to the village,
they try to steal what they can, they go
away. So I said, "Ha. a pirate" because
even the stories told, all are embellished.
"Lovely" 1 said, "Tomorrow morning I'm
going to be Ilo the Pirate.'"

So I build up the story. I have the flag, the
sign, etcheiera and everything came about.
This caught, it was a curiosity, a fable. If
you are a good clown, they accept you as a
clown. And my photography was good.
Matter of fact, there was an American
Commodore, he called me. So we went
there to his ship and the manager says, "The
Commodore wants you to take a picture."
And I says, "'Why?" "Because back in New
York at the base, he heard several times
from sailors that there was a pirate who
used to take photographs, very beautiful. So
he says I want to meet this pirate and see

what face he has and I want my picture
taken by him so when I go hack to the base I
can sax Ilo the Pirate look my photograph."
So he invited me to the ship for supper. I
went as usual with my ring, my scarf, my
shiil with all cuts around and the boots. I
went by car to the harbour and there was a
speed boat with a tlag and one lieutenant
waiting for me. He salutes. I stood next to
the flag and we drove to the ship and then up
the ladder and at the top there was the
commander and others waiting, all standing
to attention. Salute! So I'm a bit of an
actor, I cannot help it. I love it. Heh heh
heh heh heh. I love it, I always love it. So
he introduced me to each officer Each one
stood at attention, hand salute. And I
enjoyed it. 1 made it very slow so it lasted as
long as possible. Then he took me around to
show me all the boat, the engines etcheiera
and we went down to the quarters for
supper. ."Xnd then I said, "/
would like to take a
photograph." I took my camera
because if you tell stories but
don't take the picture, people te
you you say balony. So I always
took my camera to prove. And
then after supper, we go back to the \
tent and I said, "One hour ago I
shake hands with the officers and iun\
I'm back to my little tent."

BM: What is this one. Ilo?

IB: That is inside my studio. That was
the flag, that was the sign, all the picture:
on the door, the same as now.

BM: And did you write this: "A robber
perhaps. A beggar? neverV

IB: Yes, that was my motto. Because there
we were second-class people. Because we
lost the war we were treated, "You shut up!
You lost the war." And I said, "Not me. I
never lost the war." So I invented few
slogans. I never did beg in my life.

BM: And. "Photography is like
poeliy. but poets we must also
be." Did you also write that?

IB: Yes. You know you have
plenty of time to dream. Eight
years to dream, in the desert, with
nothing and the mind: doo doo da
doo da doo. Everybody has only
one life to live and I lived under a
blinking tent.

So then I want to take pictures of
Arabia. How to go to the villages?
How to be allowed to travel without
being stopped? Then I thought. "Why
not go to the emir?" So I went to the
emir. I greeted him, a little bit in Arabic, a
little bit in Italian, so they think I'm
bilingual you know, heh heh. And then I
said, "/ know you have children." "Yes''
"Oh I would like to photograph them." So I

(above) Outside his studio, Saudi
Arabia

(below) Inside his studio, Saudi i c

Arabia

(above) Mother and Child in Saudi Desert, 1947

(top right) A Camel Trio, 1948

(middle right) Drying Fish in the Sun, Bosphorus, Turkey, 1954

(bottom right) Pearl Diver, Persian Gulf, 1950

photographed the children and I gave him the
pictures. So slowly, slowly we becaine
friends. We used to hold hands together and
have tea together. Then I said, '7 know it is
not easy but is there some way I could move
sometime to lake photographs?" So he told
me to meet such-and-such a man and I
started to move around because I had the
silent 'okay' of the emir. A lot of the
pictures 1 could never get to do otheiAvise.
This one we saw the camels from a distance
and we followed and I took about 1 2 photos
across the sand dunes, always the camels.

BM: Ilo, the photo of the mother with the
baby, the eyes, how did you manage to take
that?

IB: In Arabia, already with the blessing of
the emir, we were travelling from A to B in
the desert. There, there are maybe
sometimes one hundred kilometres when
there is not a soul, just sand, then maybe
some few Bedouins, two, three tents, women
around, a water well. We saw this group of
women. Bedouin, with no man. And I asked
the driver to stop. He says, "Don 't be mad."
I says, "I'm not mad. I just i\alk." So 1 start
walking slowly, slowly, slowly, and then all
the women turned to me to see what 1 was
doing. In the meantime I saw this woman
with the child and my heart stopped. I said,
"Look at that." A woman, a child, is
eternally like the Virgin Mary with the child,
like every mother under the sun. It is the
same thing, the same thought, the same love,
the same condition and more because this is
very impossible to photograph, a Bedouin
woman with a child. So I come close, very
close. So I say a few things and then I click
few times and I got a beautiful photo.

In Arabia I fell on the springtime of my
photographic life, because it was forbidden.
Everywhere else you can lake pictures but
not there.

And some American wanted to buy some
Arabian horses and he came and says 1 must
take some pictures. So 1 went with him into
many palaces etchetera. Really otherwise it
was impossible to be a guest of an emir in a
palace then. That is the assistant to the emir
of the place where we went to photograph
the horses, so there we were official guests.
That is the palace where he lives. It was
such a magnificent place, gold, silver. But 1
didn't dare to take a photograph. The emir
was also the Minister of Justice, very fair,
but if things happened, the first thing he did
he pulled out his sword and "tok" and the
head rolled down. That is what we heard.
Whether it is true or not 1 don't know but
that is the story.

Becau.se 1 went to the emir and had tea with
him, I met people from different places and
they would invite me because they knew I
was a friend of the emir. So 1 went to
dilferent towns and saw different people.
Then I was given $10 a day to travel around

and take photographs and I began to save. I
had a friend from Palestine. He was a
refugee who worked with me and next I
said. "/ wani to go to the Holy Land." So
when I arrived in Jerusalem the whole
family of this Palestinian was waiting for
me. They gave me a welcome. They took
me all over the holy places. They told me
all the stories and I took hundreds of photos.
1 met different people. 1 was one day near
the stone, the Holy Sepulchre, and I looked
through and I saw two black eyes. "My
goodness," I says, "What black eyes!" The
friend says, "Come I introduce you." And
she was an Armenian lady who had come
for the festivities and we start talking and
she says she has come from Syria. And I
said, "/ shall come and see you." And to
keep that promise then 1 start travelling and
1 met her When she took me to her house,
she says to me, "Because there are the
family" etchetera, "we introduce you as a
monk from the Holy Land" So I got
dresssed up and everything and when 1 got
there, the mother came to open the door and
she addressed me as "Father" and she kissed
my hand, and the girl with laughing eyes
there behind. We went upstairs for sweet
drinks and cakes, etchetera. and they were
asking questions about the Holy Land and I
made a lovely lecture. All the children, 1
blessed them, put my hand, all the ladies
kissed my hand... heh heh heh heh. So the
mother says, "You better take this reverendo.
this Father to the monasteiy on top of the
hill that is veiy famous." So next morning,
there was the girl and the driver and the
chaperone. the brother of the girl. Off we
went, tooo tooo tooo, up to the hill and I
could move around and took lovely pictures.
And in this beautiful place, so romantic. 1
promised the girl, "'/ will marry you." Then
a lot of other things happened, here and
there, and a year later I was in Italy, rny
brother from Genoa phoned me and he says,
"What have you done?" I says, "Nothing."
"There is a man here, six feet tall, looking
for you, says you promised to marry his
sister." He says, "l\4y goodness, come!" So I
went straight to Genoa. We went to the
highest, richest hotel in Genoa. There is this
man, six feet tall, with a white coat. He
looks at me, from top to bottom, and he
says, "Are you llo?" I says, "Yes" looking
up. Says. "You promised to marry my
sister." I said. "Yes, I- 1 - 1 will marry her."
Heh heh heh. I says, "/ am going around the
world. When I come back etchetera " I
said, "I'm going to write to her She has to
bring me children, to work, to stay in the
shop, all these things, to cook etchetera,
etcherera," So eventually I never heard
anymore. Thank goodness.

So all these things they lead you. Whenever
you go. you meet somebody, you go some
place and take some time. There is always a
human touch for everything 1 do and 1
photograph.

BM: llo. are your photos like inemories.

stories for you? '

IB: Well, each one is a story. There is one
taken on the Bosphorus. We took the bus to
go to the ocean. When we got there I saw
beautiful mosques reflected in the water,
beautiful landscapes which if you walk on
the ground you don't see but from the top of
the bus you see. So then 1 saw a sign
""Forbidden to go to the top. Forbidden to
take photographs." So, thank you very
much, that is the place I must go! So with
my camera hidden in my jacket I go. When
I got to the top of the hill the only thing,
looking down, was an iron gate which they
opened to let the ships go through. That was
all. So then I came back without even
taking pictures because it doesn't mean a
thing.

BM: What is it about something that makes
you want to take a photograph?

IB: Something photographically, something
beautiful, composition, novelty, something
that you don't encounter every moment. It
is only by walking around, you see lovely
landscapes, but you have a foreground. On
the trip back from the Bosphorus 1 told the
driver. "You go. I come by myself."
Everybody left. They thought I was crazy.
Maybe I was, and then I start walking back.
By walking back, the things that I have seen,
the photographs 1 took! One of those is the
men mending nets, all the lovely things that
you don't see from the bus. So I arrived in
the evening back in Constantinople. I didn't
take the photo on top of the hill because
there was nothing catching my attention, my
love. When 1 see .something unusual and
beautiful I feel trembling inside and that is ,
one of those things.

The girl with the fish. That was in Turkey,
on the Bosphorus.

BM: 1 notice that a lot of your photos are of
very pretty girls.

IB: Well, beauty is beauty. Beauty is
everywhere. Nature made them like that,
it's not my fault. Heh heh. Ahh! oh yes!
But my goodness, it stank fish so much.
She must have been young. I asked her.
because they were carrying fish. I asked her
to come. 1 put her here, next to the fish and
1 moved the hand here. Then 1 bring the fish
and I put it and click.

BM: So that is one of the few posed
photographs?

IB: Yes. The pearl diver is also composed.
You go out in the boat to watch. The oysters
are in the bottom, where you see the bubbles
coming up. They go down with the net. one,
two, three, they go down for four minutes!
When we reached the shallow water I asked
the man to go on his knees and got this
photograph. It is beautiful, the eyes and the
water.

Panini and Laughter in the Street. Rome 1948

Story of Hands, Albany, Georgia, USA, 1954

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Anyway then I travel again. I had 100
photographs of Arabia which 1 used to
display in the foyers of the hotels. In those
days nobody knew about Arabia, so it was a
novelty. I gave these exhibitions and I never
charged a penny. So people used to come to
me and say. "V^'hy don 7 you charge?" And 1
said, "/ have $10 dollars a day which I saved
in Arabia and then I like to meet people"
So very often they say, "Come to my liome
and slay few days." You enter each family.
You see how they live, what they eat, how
they dress. It's going not just like a tourist
boom boom boom, first places then going
back home. I still have people who write to
me after 30. 40 years, friends.

BM: There is a lovely photograph of some
girls at a fountain.

IB: Well. Italy. 1948. just a few years after
the war. Rome was in shambles. Many
things were not yet restored. I was walking
around trying to get some candid shots,
something alive, something which had a
story but as I say every time you point a
camera either they pose or they run away.

There was a lack of everything. And when I
saw there were plenty of these places selling
bread and things, it attracted me very much
because I was not used to see this in a place
like Rome. These two women talking, one
to the other, with the foot resting, and I
waited and waited, when all at once this one
starts walking away. She noticed that I was
pointing the camera so she says .something.
The other one was laughing. Even there you
can write stories — the spagetti, the box, the
shoe, this gives you the time, the 40s, the
hair, everything. That is the beauty which
photography gives you that no other art can
do. With painting you can put, change
places, change something to resolve feeling
but a photograph is there.

Then I went to America, travelling with my
1 Q photographs of Arabia. In New York, I
wanted to show a little man, cold, with

nothing and I waited and I waited. I used to
sit. I was waiting to get some life. People
were passing but I didn't want them. You've
got to wait until the right moment comes.
People think it's easy, that you just go click.
Your eye does not only look once. It goes
there and there and comes back.

One night it was cold, snow, I went to the
main underground station where it was nice
and hot. air conditioned. In that place was a
playing machine, you put a coin and they
play music. So I was there eating my
sandwich and getting warm and I saw people
coming in. all Italians, and they used to put
coins in and get all Italian records,
sometimes crying. This old man after
listening to these songs. I asked him. "Where
you from?" and he told me and I said. "Have
you been?" and he said. "/ haven 't been to
Italy for three years and I can 't get enough
money to pay for my journey'' These stories
they come always from the heart. You know
that is really life. I like to talk to people and
you hear from everybody something and
because I ask a respectful question the
answer is true.

Anyhow then it was Christmas and you
know I had this little Arabian cap, like the
Arabs wear, and with the little beard
etchetera. On the 2.^rd 1 phoned to a friend
of mine used to be a colonel of the marines
in Saudi Arabia. Nice people. So he says,
" You 're mad you will never spend Christmas
in New York in the cold with $10 a day. Get
on the bus and come here." So I got on the
bus travelled for three days to Albany,
Georgia. He used to be in charge of a
marines' depot. So when I arrived there,
there were officers moving, a whole crowd
waiting expecting Ilo the Pirate, come from
Arabia, a friend of the colonel, such a
welcome. I gave some exhibitions of the
photographs and some talks. One day he
said. "/ have arranged an art evening for
you, prepare with all your paraphenalia and
Xdur pictures." It was a big house with
bricks, like Gone with the Wind, all the

ladies dressed up. They gave me champagne
and spotlight. Each photo I said what it was
but as people didn't know you can
embellish. Heh heh heh heh. So here was
more champagne and more pictures and I
was the hero of the night. I felt I was one of
the actors of Gone with the Wind. I always
talked myself into it.

That one of the hands, that was taken in
Georgia. I always walk, and I saw this old
lady, in one place, far away. As soon as I
saw her. rightaway in my mind, there was a
set. a composition that 1 wanted to do. So
then I came very slowly, watching. I spoke
Italian, and when you speak a different
language people look at your eyes and your
mouth not at what you are doing. Meantime
I was correcting and clicking. Then still
when I was walking I saw those two
beautiful hands. When I see something
unusual and beautiful I feel trembling inside
and that is one of those things. Where do
you find that? That you can write poetry
about, you can write music, you can write a
hook of history, you can do anything,
because those hands, they do and they
destroy, everything which has been done
before. Those are the soul of the body.

The colonel of the marines gave me
addresses of people where to go. I travelled,
and to Texas and then to Mexico. When I
got to Los Angeles there was a letter from
my brother. My mother was sick. So I said.
"Fine the trip around the world is finished.
My mother is more important than that."
Then I planned to settle in Italy but after
awhile you know the call of Africa was too
strong. I used to have to be in Genoa, at my
brother's shop there. Then one day
somebody came to the shop, speaking
linglish. He said he came from Africa.
Then another day another one come from
Africa, and I start building up feelings and
then one day a third one said. "I come from
Northern Rhodesia." I said. "Where is
Northern Rhode\ia'.'" And a little later 1 niel
another man I had known from before who

said he was living in Rhodesia. "And who is
the beautiful girl?" "It is my wife.'' "My
goodness, in such a place you met such a
beautiful girl." And we start laughing.
Then he left. Then I said. "Rhodesia.
Rhodesia." .So I wrote to him and six
months later I was here ... to get Africa off
my chest. And after 40 years I'm still here.
Then I was absorbed by the construction of
Kariba Dam. 1 wanted to go there, to eat
with them and talk with them and drink
wine with them and take pictures of them at
work. Those days were different. There is
so much to remember. Kariba was such a
magnificent, immense thing, those days,
something pharaonic. But it has so many
different pictures to be taken. You couldn't
put everything in one photograph. This one
is a worker at Kariba. You see the man.
The light is here on the helmet and the
background was completely black in the
tunnel. I saw him faraway, smoking, and I
was waiting. I saw the face, the pleasure,
the work, the toil, everything, the cigarette
smoke, very gently smoking, holding it
delicately so it lasts more, the fingernails cut
accordingly, the little one is already a bit
longer.

That is also Zimbabwe, with the bambina. a
touch of deeply felt lovely soft humanity.
There you have three generations, and I
caught by chance the happiness with this
little child, the hands very content, the
mother with such a soft smile, the old
grandmama looking. You can write a story,
you can write a life book, you can write so
many things on a photo like that. Plus the
background gives nice feelings, the kitchen,
the life of a woman, a mother, half of it is
spent in the kitchen unless she is an
engineer, but usually.

BM: Is there one of the photos on
exhibition that is your favourite?

IB: Well I like human faces. The human
face is an encyclopedia. It depends on the
person who knows how to read. I like
people. You can learn something from
everyone. You've got to read the body, to
have a face expressing things strongly, a
landscape or other things according to the
composition etchetera. So the one that
really to me is my best photograph is the
one of the old man 105 years old. The old
face of the man with the wrinkles, you can
look at it and you can look at it and you can
look at it again. And every time you see
something different. It is all the humanity
converging into the face of one human. So
depending upon all what your thoughts are,
are in that face. To me that is the best. Here
you can see the Arabs. You see he is smiling
a little.

BM: Who was he, Ilo? Did you know him?

IB: No. I was passing by a mosque one day
and he was seated there, reading the beads,
you know, praying with beads, one two

three. So 1 went to him and 1 said something
then I walk up and down and keep talking
and then I move back and took two shots.
Always a thought behind every photograph.
Particularly 1 like always faces, because the
human face is an open book. It doesn't
matter where you come from, what
language. It has universal language. It is
your face and your eyes. And if you can see
and catch those moments ...

(top) Shaft Construction Worker's
Respite, Kariba, Zimbabwe, 1958

(middle) A Welsh Granny at the
Vumba, Zimbabwe, 1967

(below) 105 Year-Old Arabian
Patriarch, Saudi Arabia, 1947

Landscapes of Zimbabwe by
Robert Paul, Victoria Gallery,
Bath, England, September-
November 1996

In eighteenth-century Bath, a town of golden
niasoni^. Georgian crescents and carved
street names. Landscapes of Zimbabwe was
a deeply exotic exhibition title. Not being
very familiar with Robert Paul's work. I was
struck by the ease with which it transferred
to this setting. Its subjects — wild beaches,
African wilderness, Nyanga mists and so on
— are exotic, but they were produced within
the compass of a thoroughly European
aesthetic.

Paul was educated in Bath and well known
to have been a friend of John Piper and Ivon
Hitchens, central figures in a romantically
inflected branch of postwar British
landscape painting. Their impact on Paul
seems to have been at most spasmodic;
Patricia Broderick's memory of his having
been deeply attracted to Bonnard's colour
conveys a more profound sense of
'influence". Bonnard's extraordinary
conjunctions of mauve, brown, blue and
pink are transformed in Paul's paintings into
a means of conveying the physical structure
of landscape, an unchanging substructure
that sustains the accidents of vegetation and
human traces and the evanescent effects of
light. In contrast. Piper's legacy appears in,
for instance, the drawing Cecil House, as a
decorative mode, full of charm and whimsy.

There is very little of the deliberate
construction of 'place' — real or imaginary,
with complex interweavings of past and
present — that is familiar in the work of
Paul's contemporaries like Hitchens and
Sutherland, though there are intense
evocations, particularly in the works on
paper, of atmosphere and weather. It is not
surprising then, that he is most convincing
when the paintings depart from the facts of
the subject, from a relationship, that is, with
topographical exactitude, to recreate passing
glimpses of light, wind and water Two
gouaches titled Qoloia. Transkei. painted a
decade apart, hung side by side, as if to
demonstrate the point. The first, dated 1951,
is an almost hard-edged rendering of sea and
sky, exact but untransformed; the second, a
turbulent mass of rich colour overlaid with
swirls of black is alive with the heat of a sea
wind and the frenzy of whipped waves.

process of drawing where the pen bypassed
the mind in an act of autonomous
imagination. At other times Paul's media
ranged from wax resist to gouache and ink
overlaid with fingerprints, suggesting that he
pushed the paint around like a kind of one-
dimensional sculpture. A delicious late
drawing, Beira, sets out the lineaments of
the town in fine and witty detail, overlaid
with patches of uncharacteristically high,
bright reds and blues, recalling with elegant
economy the sense of release that the
beaches brought to those who came from a
landlocked country. Oil paint, though, or
rather Paul's unusual combination of oil and
egg tempera, was a medium of substance, a
more solemn matter, adopted to convey the
depth, the endurance of landscape, laid on in
heavy blocks of colour that suggest
resistance to change, to human intervention,
even to the vagaries of natural light and
climatic infelicities.

Lack of space at Bath's Victoria Art Gallery
demanded a rigorous selection, so that not
all the available work was on view. A
decision was also taken to reframe many of
the paintings, resulting in an extremely well
selected exhibition, admirably hung to
indicate a coherent development throughout
the artist's career. It was accompanied,
filled out and recorded by a beautifully
produced book*, with numerous black and
white and colour reproductions. It contains
particulariy interesting essays by Paul's
daughter. Colette Wiles, and Patricia
Broderick. who knew him in later life and
provides invaluable insights into his painting
practice. Margaret Garlake

Robert Paul, Beira

Paul's eclectic use of media and his constant
experimentation are fundamental to any
reading of his work. Ink, sometimes a
medium simply for fast, economical
representation, might become almost
literally a flight of fantasy, as it did in a
gouache drawing of 1979, The Monhlair
(sec Gallery no 1 p6). It shows a rocky
terrain, covered with loose, vibrant areas of
fresh green vegetation, above which a bird
files, followed by a long, trailing black line,
meandering in a jagged, zany fiight path, a

*C. Wiles et al., Robert Paul. Harare, 1996,
ISBN 7974 1614 5.

Editor's note: The book, Robert Paul.
contains essays by Colette Wiles, Brian
Bradshaw, Francois Roux, Patricia
Broderick and Martin van der Spuy, as well
as 92 illustrations of which 28 are in colour.
It will be on sale in Zimbabwe in the near
future.

Balancing Act, paintings by Paul
Wade, Sandro's, October 1996

When Paul Wade first appeared on the local
art scene in 1986 he exhibited textiles which
were unique on the Zimbabwean art
platform at the time. They were soft
sculptures in which the weave, the weft and
warp, in colourful combinations, became
irregular, breaking up the formal rectangle
into sculptural shapes. Materials used
included wool, metal, plastic, paper and tin
foil.

There is a direct link
from those
textiles

backgrounds are formed by spasmodic
spaces which like gigantic musical intervals
provide a kind of counterpoint to the various
themes. And beyond the initial sense of the
pleasure the artist takes in the possibilities of
the paint itself is a underlying
thoughtfulness. Each work has a specific
subject and Wade employs not only line,
colour and image but also a variety of
physical formats to convey his meanings.
His .series of small icons, heavily framed in
gold, can be interpreted as tombs where the

plummeting through realms of painterly
freedom. The broad scratch marks evoke a
tangle of tattered and breaking feathers; a
passionate confusion.

Icon for Rosa Parks celebrates in a warm
and gentle way her strength and beauty of
soul. The curved wooden board on which it
is painted is at once as mundane as a bus
with windows, as simple and homely as a
headboard for a bed, and as sacred and
venerable as a holy shrine. The hidden
strength is portrayed in the underlying
structure of squares, loosely
formed. The

colours.

to the works on show in Balancing Act.
Colour and energy breaking out of the
confines of flat canvas or wood is the overall
impression of this vigorous exhibition. The
artist has taken a path through exploration of
paint, closely harnessed investigation and
the bringing out of the subconscious in
random markings. His search is for natural
signs; it toys with the bizarre and creates
with colourful, gestural indicators, a pulse of
life. The scratch marks and vivid impasto
give Wade's work an almost organic
presence similar to those past weavings with
their knots and bushy tangles. Here the
paint invigorates the pictorial image giving
the spectator an atmospheric vibration. The

iconographic figure disappears leaving only
the aura.

Celestial Equator, the largest canvas on
show, depicts an expansive vibrating line of
energy cutting between a dark and a light.
Orange and purple flashes break out and
leap across this division, an exchange of
atoms. This painting would have a stronger
impact if divided to form a diptych. The six
doors split into four and two would further
evoke a meeting of energies.

The Fall II shows an Icarus figure plunging
downwards through a spin of colour — red
on blue, blue on orange and pink —

"'^^

(above) Paul Wade,
Icon for Rosa Parks

(right) Paul Wade, The Fall II

softly applied to melt and blend, emerge
from a dark ground with here and there
scratches through to reveal bright pure
pigment.

In contrast. Icon for Malcolm X is an
aggressive work in cruciform shape,
constructed of hard wood squares set
expressively on edge, pierced and hammered
together with gold painted nails. The
surfaces of these squares are broken,
cracked, scratched. Brushstrokes and lines
wildly score the dark. This is a monument
for a survivor — struggle, violence,
blackness and a victory.

The sixteen painted cubes that make up
Playtime are inspired by a child's coloured
blocks. Paul Wade has crafted an intriguing
work which enables the viewer/owner to
make up his or her own work of art, a
different one each morning. By rearranging
and placing the blocks, an estimated 2.8
million million artworks are possible.
Playtime is the sort of work that should be
permanently available at the National
Gallery to invite active visitor participation.
Also on show were the Butterfly series
which broke the edge of the serious work
and would have been better excluded.

The urgency and drive, the spontaneous,
colourful paint strokes, with which Paul
Wade sets down his intentions immediately
compel us to look, if not listen, to what he is
compressing in his investigation of the
subconscious. Helen Lieros p-i

street Sellers of Zimbabwe Stone
Sculpture: Artists and Entrepre-
neurs by ClJve and Maricarol
Kileff, Gweru: Mambo Press, 1996
(Pp 68 $94.65)

"In the lileniiy world. Shakespeare's Hamlet
has been produced millions of times, yet this
mass production of text has not changed the
essence of the work ... as in literature, the
popularization of stone sculpture has
allowed novice-collectors and laymen of the
art world to begin an appreciation of
aesthetics."

EzeMatojeni: paintings by the
lateTodd Dube, National Gallery
in Bulawayo, August/September
1996

In memory of Todd Dube, the Bulawayo
artist. Voti Thebe, wrote:

'To(( have painted and adorned

The hills of Matopos,

Rivers and rivulets.

You have reminded me of the davs

herding my father's goals.

You have adorned almost all the trees''

This astonishing piece of intellectual flim-
flam, in the Introduction to Street Sellers of
Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture, is as much as
one needs to know about the theoretical
framework of the book, and the intrusive
hyphen in 'novice-collectors' (people with a
fondness for trainee nuns, perhaps?) is a
foretaste of the typographical salad served
up on nearly every page that follows. Nor
does George Kahari's Foreword inspire
confidence, with its suggestion that Robert
Paul, Helen Lieros and Never Kayowa, far
from being painters, are in fact 'in Song-
writing and Composition ". Shame on you,
George! (And shame on Mambo's editor for
the proliferation of Capital Letters.)

All of which is a pity, because inside this
untidy little book, an important narrative is
struggling to escape.

The protagonists in Street Sellers..., are the
street sellers themselves. Shorn of the
rickety academic scaftblding into which they
have been poked, and given a more rigorous
approach to the economic and social
intricacies of their calling, we could have
had a fascinating account of the country's
bristling informal sector.

Some engaging glimpses, not surprisingly,
do emerge. Costa Gurupira, for instance,
spotting the market for 'peace sign"
pendants, and gearing his production
accordingly; the women who commute to
Cape Town's pavements, trading their
suitcases full of stone for a return flow of
fridges and televisions; Sonny Sameal,
happier carving rhinos than he ever was
working underground in the mines, or
overground as a security guard.

This is the stuff of our national life; why
burden it with a cargo of la/y taxonomy and
even lazier theory?

For those of us suckled on the idea of
deference to scholarship, the dissonance
between the author's credentials and his
production is a real pu//le. In his
Acknowledgements, Dr Cliye Kileff thanks
the University of Tennessee for "granting
me a sabbatical ... to gather information,
coiuluci research, and prepare this
manuscript. " Cynics might say that they
were glad to be rid of hini for a while.
Murray McCartney

This exhibition of over 40 watercolours and
oils, aptly entitled EzeMatojeni, was a
celebration of Todd Dube's life as an artist,
which was brought to an untimely end in a
motorcycle accident in 1995, and also a
celebration of the source of his inspiration
— the landscape of the Matopos.

Born on New Year's day in 1968 in Kezi
District of Matopos, Todd Dube did his
secondary schooling in Bulawayo. Despite
early ambitions to be a doctor and relentless
pressure from family and relatives who felt
that he should carry on with academic
studies to university level, quietly and
resolutely Dube soldiered on in pursuit of
his goal to create a name as a landscape
artist. He enrolled with the Bulawayo
Technical College School of Art and Design
and paid his way through college from the
proceeds of sales of his paintings.

Todd Dube's love of nature's serenity was a
thread running through his entire work,
reinforced more so by images of water, dams
and even puddles. His mind's eye captured
the still waters snaking below the grey
granite outcrops, along unploughed fields,
over the setting sun. You can almost smell
the dust kicked by the mealie-laden donkeys
in the piece. The Burden of the Beasts.
Attachment to community was another side
of Dube's work. He did paintings showing
women collecting water, firewood or
thatching grass, and boys rounding up cattle
home from grazing.

Opening the exhibition, John Nkomo said,
"Every stroke of paint was a joyful one ...
We find solace in the paintings around us
which were Todd's vision''
Busani Bafana

Shepherd Mahufe,
Carry Food

Gareth Fletcher,
Folk

Heritage Exhibition, National Gallery,
November-January (Harare), February-
March (Bulawayo) 1996

The Nulional Gallery is once more filled with work
that attempts to represent the outpouring of artistic
effort in Zimbabwe, and this year it is a good show.
The variety of individual approach is more marked
than in recent years with young artists stealing the

thunder. Ishmael
Wilfred has won the
Overall Award for
Distinction in
Painting for Dwaif,
as well as an Award
of Merit for Red
Edible, both vibrant
parts of his
expressionistic
exploration of the
African spirit world
with its witches and
their underlings.
Shepherd Mahufe.
creating, in contrast, a strongly shaped and shadowed
depiction of daily reality, Carry Food, has won the
other Award of Merit for painting. Amongst those
whose work was Highly Commended is Hilary
Kashiri with an energetic and colourful rendering.
Commuter Rank II. It is impressive to see how the.se
three young painters" work has developed in a
relatively short period of time. Their physical
manipulation of the paint and their employment of
colour and form have matured in step with their

growing confidence in their own individual
views of life.

The welcome involvement
of the Dutch in the local
arts scene brings with it
new honours, the Belden
op de Berg Foundation
Awards for Distinction in
painting and sculpture,
which went to Chikonzero
Chazunguza for Becoming
Myself and to Joseph
Muzondo for Wild Horse respectively.
Another work by Chazunguza which
caught my eye was Beijin Blues. Quite how the title
relates I'm not sure but his use of traditional dry grass
brushes to create intriguing and satisfying objects is
an interesting new departure. Gerry Dixon recently
used mutsvairo as part of a dramatic burning
performance piece. Para Noire, and as a new material
it seems to offer multiple and perhaps particularly
African directions.

Lizard by Harry
Mutasa is a
successful
rendition of
reptilian spirit —
the alertness, the
aggressive head,
the rigid toes, the
cold eye. yet that
wide belly
longing to slump
and spread in the
sun. Mutasa is

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one young sculptor who has

internalised in his own way

the lessons in movement.

weight and energy revealed

by the master, Arthur

Az.evedo, whose striding

Secreta/y Bird is a

personality captured.

Upstairs. Old Giraffe Man

by Stanley Matengwa moves

with angular elegance and

gentleness, supported by his

stick, simple, with long

leaning neck, wise, pale,

watchful — a quiet presence reminding us of the

inter-relation of human and animal spirits that is so

much a pari of our local philosophical heritage. This

work is alive with its own life. Too many of the

other exhibited sculptures remain, for me, merely

shaped, untransformed

lumps of stone.

In one patch of our

"heritage' is abstract

work by Simon Back, his

Harare Evening a finely

articulated balance of

line, form and colour,

and the minimalist Folk

(sic) by Gareth Fletcher

with its intriguing

illusion. And in another

patch is Comrades ' War

by Norman Mhondiwa

with its astonishing

colour and naive-style

detail and Mobile Afriean Village Ark by Dexter

Nyamainashe. an extended and intricate version of

the popular push-along wire toys. It is an interesting

exercise to look carefully at all the patches that make

up our communal cloak.

This 1996 Heritage is confirmation of the variety of
talent in Zimbabwe, and perhaps most obviously it
reveals, in many of the less successful works, the
potential for development. We may have trouble
sorting out our 'heritage" but our future is all around
us, waiting to happen. Once again we are indebted
to Mobil and Anglo-American for their continuing
support to the visual arts in Zimbabwe and special
gratitude is due to Roy Lander who for so many
years has been the enabling force behind a multitude
of worthwhile cultural projects in dance, literature,
music and the visual arts (including Gallery
magazine). Barbara Murray

Simon Back,

Harare

Evening

Hilary Kashiri,
Commuter
Rank II

Norman Mhondiwa, Comrades War

Dexter Nyamainashe, Mobile African Village Art

Playground 'sculptures' by
Nichola Henshaw, Crispen
Matekenya, Kate Arnold and
Keston Beaton, Blakiston School,
Harare

Two British and two Zimbabwean artists
have spent eight weeks working in situ at
Blakiston Primary School making a climbing
frame, chairs, benches, stools and other
items for the children's playground. First, in

workshop with the artists, the children
were invited to draw and paint figures from
their own imaginations, their stories and
myths. Using the children's drawings as the
source for designs, the artists then carved
and painted wood, and laid mosaics, creating
an environment of fantastical shapes, vibrant
colours, surprising objects and fun furniture.

The climbing frame is a combination of
poles by all four artists, each adding his or
her own individual style. A multitude of
animals, human beings and other creatures
twine and cavort around the frame inviting
the children to join them in a magical game.

Nichola Henshaw employs a musical theme
to produce a delightful set of child-sized
benches and tables in the form of guitars and
other instruments.

Outstanding among the works is a chair by
Crispen Matekenya. A great fish, rising up
over six feet tall, provides a seat in the curve
of its powerful, scale-covered body and a
backrest against its tail — a ride to carry one
on an imaginary journey.

One of the children from Blakiston School
described the playground as a desert before
the artists arrived. "Now we need more time
to play." Barbara Murray

Michiel Dolk, Seascape (details)

Barhiira Miirrav

Michiel Dolk, Seascape, Royal
Netherlands Embassy, Harare

Zimbabweans, forget all that talk about
this being a landlocked eounti^. We now
have our very own coastline.

Thirty-two pieces of beautifully coloured
marble installed in front of the Royal
Netherlands Embassy in Harare provide
us with a marine experience. Each is a
subtle beach scene with softly lapping
waves, pale sands washed and moved by
the flow of tides, grey sea stretching out
to a distant horizon.

To stand in the middle and slowly turn
around the circle is to be on some lonely
beach, a fortuitously placed palm tree
adding to the illusion. This is nature
imitating nature; nature painting her own
seascape — discovered, cut. smoothed,
polished and placed by Michiel Dolk for
our contemplation.

The Royal Netherlands Embassy is to be
congratulated for commissioning this
lovely work of art. Perhaps some of the
other embassies will consider
commissioning out further gardens thus
supporting local artists. Enabling both
locals and visitors to appreciate art.
Barbara Murray

forthcoming events and exhibitions

Gallery Delta will be having its Summer
Show in December/January. There is a lot
of change and movement taking place with
artists — visitors, travellers and others who
have not shown before at Delta — bringing
in interesting work. The show will include,
amongst others, paintings by two British
artists. Maryclare Foa and Martin
Beresford. heliographs by American
Lawrence Beck, and ceramics by
Zambian Andrew Macromalis. Following
on in January is the annual Students and
Young Artists Exhibition, a chance to
see burgeoning talent locally as well as work
by Zimbabwe students studying art
externally Suzy Pennington and Helen
Kedgley from New Zealand will be
exhibiting recent paintings and textiles in
March.

An exhibition of work by Piet Mondrian

will open at the National Gallery in Harare
on 4 February. Children's work will also be
on show in February: peace posters and
work submitted for a calendar. In March,
the Genesis exhibition from Munsterland.
Germany, with work by LuiS Meque,
Keston Beaton and Tapfuma Gutsa
along with three German artists. Jupp
Ernst, Peer Christian Stuwe and Felix
Droese, will arrive. Galleiy no 6 ran an
article on this exhibition which was well
received in Germany. And opening on 18
March is a solo show of paintings and
graphics by one of our prominent young
artists. Hilary Kashiri.

An international workshop will be held
at Sandro's durmg January which will
encompass ceramics, glass, sculpture and
painting and include Zimbabwean. Dutch.
Danish and English artists. People are

invited to watch the artists at work as well as
see their finished pieces at the end of
January. Photographs and paintings by
Robbie Small will be exhibited in
February.

The National Gallery in Bulawayo will be
holding the 10th VAAB Exhibition during
December and January. This annual event is
a showcase for Matabeleland's top artists.
Thereafter the national Heritage
Exhibition will be on display.

Installation work by Tapfuma Gutsa will
be on show at Pierre Gallery in January. This
will be followed by an exhibition of wood
sculpture, including work by Zephania
Tshuma; and later a group show of
paintings, including work by Barry Lungu.

No 11

Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe

Gallery Delta, the publisher and the editor gratefully acknowledge
the following sponsors who have contributed to the production
of this issue of Gallery magazine;

ff^VoS

SISIB

Anglo American Corporation Services Limited

T1HTO

The Rio Tinto Foundation

APEZCOBT

Joerg Sorgenicht

APEX COBPOBATION OF ZIMBABWE LIMITED

^RISTON

Tanganda Tea Company Limited

A-"^"
*

•yv

ETWORK

coDBultaots

NDORO

Contents

March 1997

Artnotes : the AICA conference on Art Criticism & Africa

Burning fires or slumbering embers? : ceramics in Zimbabwe
by Jack Bennett

The perceptive eye and disciplined hand : Richard Witikani
by Barbara Murray

Confronting complexity and contradiction : the 1996 Heritage
Exhibition by Anthony Chennells

Painting the essence : the harmony and equilibrium of Thakor
Patel by Barbara Murray

Reviews of recent work and forthcoming exhibitions

and events including:

Earth. Water, Fire: recent work by Berry Bickle,

by Helen Lieros

10th Annual VAAB Exhibition, by Busani Bafana

Explorations - Transformations, by Stanley Kurombo

Robert Paul a book review by Anthony Chennells

Cover: Tendai Gumbo, vessel, 1995, 25 x 20cm, terracotta, coiled
and pit-fired (photo credit: Jack Bennett & Barbara Murray)

Left: Crispen Matekenya, Baboon Chair, 1996, 160 x 1 10 x 80cm,
wood

Publisher: Derek Huggins. Editor: Barbara Murray. Design & typesetting:
Myrtle Mollis. Originaiion: HPP Studios. Printing: A.W. Bardwell & Co.
Paper: Magno from Graphtec Lid.

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Artnotes

One of the reasons for Europe and North
America's dominance in the art world is the
w ide range of stringent criticism that
surrounds art in those countries. Art,
curators, galleries, arts bodies, as well as the
critics, are constantly under scrutiny in
newspapers, magazines, in lectures at
universities and conferences, on TV and
radio. As a result, informed debate is
generated. Art becomes public knowledge
and art criticism contributes to development
and to the quality of life.

But in Africa art criticism is sorely lacking.
In November last year, Zimbabwe, Nigeria
and South Africa sent delegates to a
conference on Art Criticism & Africa at the
Courtauld Institute. London, organised by
the British section of the International
Association of Art Critics (AICA). Of the
61 national branches of AICA, only three are
in Africa! The aims of the conference were
to investigate the critical culture in
Zimbabwe, Nigeria and South Africa, and to
encourage the formation of local branches of
AICA.

The first session of the conference. 'Art
Criticism of Africa outside Africa', featured
representatives of those exiles from Africa
whose role in nudging and irritating the West
into recognising art from Africa should not
be underestimated. However, they have
lived outside Africa for a long time and now
have an identity crisis. Gavin Jantjes,
originally from South Africa, admitted as
much when he spoke of "a rear-view mirror'
and of problems in separating the
motherland itself from the exile's idea of the
motherland. Olu Oguibe, originally from
Nigeria, painted a grim view of freedom of
expression in Africa saying "healthy
criticism is impossible in Africa" and "there
is no culture of excellence in Africa".
George Shire, a Zimbabwean exile, defined
criticism as a political act and spoke of the
need to decolonise art criticism in
Zimbabwe.

The second session, 'The Art Critic as
Advocate', moved on to views from
participants who live in Africa and know the
realities. The tone became less theoretical
and surprisingly more hopeful. Murray
McCartney highlighted the massive potential
of the media in promoting art and pointed
incisively to examples of wide-spread
existing disinterest, self-censorship and
lethargy. Tony Mhonda defined Zimbabwe
as "an a-critical society", spoke of the need
for grassroots education, condemned Gallery
as a minority, magazine and went on to
berate Zimbabwean critics for being elitist.
Chika Okeke revealed that Nigeria, despite
its trenchant political repression, has a more

healthy critical environment than Zimbabwe.
He argued that art criticism is not an
'either — or' phenomenon; that "all critical
enterprise in whatever mode or medium
aims at virtually the same goal — a fuller
articulation and appreciation of art." He
spoke about the importance of popular and
oral criticism emphasising that criticism can
be accommodating rather than divisive and
that inclusivity of viewpoints is essential.
He later described a marvellous-sounding
annual event in Nigeria — the Art Stampede.
This is an informal social occasion for artists
and critics from all the arts. One or two
people make speeches but the essence of the
event is to interject, to question, to create an
open, free-for-all atmosphere and exchange
of views.

The third session looked at political and
administrative effects on art criticism. Once
again the comparative strength of Nigeria
was obvious. Ola Oloidi. critic and art
historian at the University of Nsukka,
examined the growth of criticism in Nigeria
explaining that it sprang from colonial
sources but that it has evolved into a
"tradition that can be considered dynamic
and promising". He emphasised "the
importance of an indigenous art-critical
culture and the need for an internationalist
inside-out and not outside-in critical
attitude'' Fatima Afifi. director of AICA-
Egypt, gave evidence of the integrating
potential of AICA which, because of its
independence, can transcend divisions and
combat political and cultural pressures on
art. Colin Richards, a lecturer from Wits
University, explained that art criticism does
not have a firm base in South Africa; that
there is no specialist art journal and that
critical discourse remains "both rarefied and
underdeveloped'. He said that in the 'new
South Africa' facilities and possibilities are
more evenly distributed throughout the

This point was forcefully contradicted by the
South African artist and curator, David
Koloane, in the fourth session. Koloane,
speaking on the topic 'Art Criticism for
Whom?' said things have not changed. The
power remains with the white establishment
and "there is a need for a common
.sensibility to tackle the problems confronting
both black and white artists." This is similar
to Zimbabwe where art criticism had a white
source and access has remained limited. In
both colonial and post-independence cultural
policy art is dismissed as entirely
superfluous. With minimal art education, a
disinterested government and an
unenlightened media, the little art criticism
there is must target as many people as
possible without compromising its

standards. Art criticism can, and in
Zimbabwe it must, fulfill multiple roles as
educator, promoter, recorder, supporter and
catalyst. Despite its modest beginnings and
some might say its colonial origins. Gallery
attempts to reach as far as possible and with
the recent sponsorship from HIVOS, Gallery
is now going to all schools that teach A level
art and to all public, community and rural
libraries throughout the country.

At the end of the conference I felt strongly
that we must rely on ourselves and build on
what we have. Matthew Arnold said "/ am
bound by my own definition of criticism: a
disinterested endeavour to learn and
propagate the best that is known and thought
in the world'' He also said: "The great aim
of culture [is] the aim of setting ourselves to
ascertain what perfection is and to make it
prevail." With 20th-century relativism we
have gained greater tolerance. We recognise
every individual's right to a personal version
of 'perfection' but criticism challenges us to
continually revise our version, not to rest on
mediocrities but to keep looking in the hope
that we might attain the best possible. It is
not that there is some static definition of
'best' or 'perfection' but that we keep on
analysing, looking and thinking.

In a work of art. the artist seeks the best
expression of a facet of life. While every
endeavour is to be welcomed, criticism
exists to show up the perceived strengths and
failings. The artist, curator, critic, indeed all
of us, need to be honest enough to
acknowledge failings if we intend to
continue the search. Some decide to settle
for mediocrity, that is their choice.

Critical practice in Africa continues to be
dogged by politics, racism and colonialism.
Our history has led to a mentality of fear and
the suppression of criticism, where critics
are misconstrued as enemies rather than seen
as allies in that search for the best. The
critics of colonial exploitation were
harrassed once just as the critics of
dictatorial corruption are hartassed now.
They are however, thankfully, never
silenced, or not for long. Time proves
criticism (relatively!) right or wrong in a
multitude of ways. What is important in the
end is that criticism exists, inviting people to
reconsider and change. What Zimbabwe
needs is more criticism. Perhaps an Art
Stampede? Certainly a branch of AICA

The Editor

What is the state of ceramics
in Zimbabwe today? Is it art or

craft? Is it being taught,
made, shown, sold? What
is its kind and quality? ^
Potter, lawyer, former
chairman of the
National Gallery of
Zimbabwe, Jack
Bennett, conducts a
survey of local
ceramics and finds
there are more
questions than
answers.

Burning fires or siumbering embers?

In 1992 an impressive 27 potters packed 204
works into the main space of the National Gallery
of Zimbabwe for an exhibition of ceramics. It was
a feast of studio pottery and open-fired earthenware.
Granted this was a special for ceramics, with all the
potters invited and ail entries accepted. But the fact is
that, since then, tliere has been no other national
exhibition specifically for ceramics and there has been a
marked decline in entries and acceptances for the
ceramics section in the judged annual Heritage
exhibitions. In the 1993 Heritage 12 potters had 33 works
accepted; but in 1996 only 6 potters managed with 15
works. Why the drop?

It seems in part to be due to misunderstandings between
potters and selectors. The selectors complained of lack of
originality and rejected many entries, saying that they
could see little fresh work coming from established
potters. The potters, or some of them, claimed the
selectors were usually painters or sculptors, unfamiliar
with the medium, and that at times they showed cultural
bias. With no qualified ceramic selectors for the Heritage,
no other national show of ceramics and few alternative
opportunities for exhibiting, the potters lost interest. Why
are there so few exhibitions of pottery in Zimbabwe?

But exhibiting may not be the main force to spur the
creation of ceramics. After all. potters produce to earn a
living. This certainly applies to the traditional area and
here it seems that life is more of a strugsle than ever.

Monica Guta,Gafe(for beer brewing, Nyanga District),
1982, 89 X 52cm, terracotta, coiled and pit-fired (photo
credit: Jacl< Bennett)

(inset top) (Potter unknown), Chirongo (for water or beer
storage), 40 x 50cm, terracotta, coiled and pit-fired

(inset middle) (Potter unlcnown), Hadyana (for serving
relish), 14 x 23cm, earthenware, coiled and pit-fired

(inset below) (Potter unknown), Chirongo , 27 x SOcrri,
terracotta, coiled and pit-fired. (Photo credits all Dave
hHartung, except where indicated.)

(1) Mary-Ann Soltau, vessel,
1997, 31 X 21cm, terracotta,
coiled, kiln and pit-fired

(2) Sue McCormick, vessel,
C.1988, 32 X 17.5cm,
earthenware, coiled, kiln and
pit-fired, with leather

(3) Frouwke Viewing, Dappled
Sandy Vase, 1995, 33 x 15cm,
porcelain, reduction fired

(4) Carole Wales-Smith, vessel,
1980s, 22 x 12cm, stoneware

(5) Violet NdoroTagurira,
vessel, c. 1982, 21 x 38cm,
terracotta, coiled and
(probably) pit-fired

(Photo credits: Dave Hartung)

Pat Melville-Thompson, former teacher
of ceramics at Chisipite School and
Harare Polytechnic, with an enduring
interest in rural pottery, fears this traditional
art is in danger of disappearing. Not only is
the ceramic vessel being replaced by plastic
or metalware, certainly among urban users and
even in the rural areas, but inore seriously, the
teaching of pottery-making skills is dying in the
villages. Formerly mothers taught their
daughters but now only old women toil at the
burdensome task of fetching and preparing clay
for patient coiling and firing in the time-honoured
way. Besides, the lure of producing for the tourist
market is strong, so that Batonka potters, for
example, are now more inclined to meet foreigners"
tastes for oil-painted vases and stereotyped animal
figurines than to produce the vessels of old.

Those traditional pots, with their various specific
uses and sizes, shapes and decorations, with styles
evolved over centuries and distinguishing regional
features, imbued with meaning and often mystery, are
hard to llnd. Tall, grain-storing, beer-brewing nates.
decorated only with the random black markings of the
Uring process, and squat, water-carrying c/j/ro/i.ijo.v,
with perhaps a naturally stained red and black
chevroned neck and burnished body, are still made and
kept for ceremonial occasions. Will their styles
change, affecting the timelessness of their beauty? Not
ikely, says Pat Melville-Thompson, given the deep-
seated cultural tradition combined with the limitations
of the clay bodies and firing techniques. But the
smaller traditional vessel, the domestic utensil or
container, like the ihikiiri for cooking meat or
\egetablcs, the /((/)/v<i for serv ing relish, the
ihipfuko or beer mug, are sadly but
understandably being replaced by the
more readily available and often more
practical metal or plastic substitutes.

And what of the more formal teaching of
ceramics in Zimbabwe? The only institution
)ffering a structured course in ceramics is the

Estelle Zimi, Duck, 1987,
13 X 19 X 16cm, terracotta,
hand-built and pit-fired

Lena Chingono, Goat, 1986,
41 X 34 X 20cm, terracotta,
hand-built and pit-fired

Harare Polytechnic. The subject is taught at National
Certificate and Diploma levels with a practical
orientation. Whilst different techniques of forming,
decorating and firing are imparted, the emphasis is on
those that do not require unusual or expensive equipment
and materials. Thus, the courses are geared around
terracotta clay, sawdust and pit-firing and transparent
glazes. It is felt that this better equips the students to
continue on their own after completing their studies.

These forced but sensible restrictions clearly demonstrate
the need for the Regional School of Art and Design, that
ambitious project devised by the National Gallery of
Zimbabwe, which looks as though it may remain stuck on
the drawing board. Whilst a very few of the larger
schools are equipped with pottery-making gear, they lack
the qualified and innovative teachers whom the School of
Art and Design was intended to produce.

Does all this mean that the future of formal ceramic
teaching and creation is bleak? Alison Brayshaw. who
taught last year's ceramics courses at Harare Polytechnic,
sees hope in some of her students who are currently
attending courses overseas on grants, who will pass on
their knowledge when they return. Also encouraging is
that the last three years" students who completed the
National Diploma in Fine Art have produced some
exciting and innovative ceramics. Tendai Gumbo, with
her torn forms, and Mary-Ann Soltau, with her abstract
drawing applied to pit-fired vessels, are showing
particular talent. And current Polytech students are
working on a project which looks at traditional pottery,
combining pot-making with research into social and
cultural values.

Meanwhile the stream of hand-made, hand-decorated,
domestic and functional ware continues to flow from
workplaces varying in size from the small single-potter
studio to the larger 40-staff potteries. All is made with
great care and labour, and most with fine craftmanship.
What decides what is made? Well, the market of course,
and this is where the maker's integrity as artist or
craftsperson is put to the stiffest test.

The demand from tourists, foreign buyers and locals is
great. Estelle Zimi. until her recent illness, sold her large
terracotta vessels and animal forms to eager collectors, as
do Johane and Susan Marimo with their figures. Nicola
Bryce of Ros Byrne Pottery in Msasa says they often
cannot keep up with the orders for their hand-thrown
domestic stoneware, brightly decorated with fruit and
flower designs. Similarly the unglazed candle holders
and gold glazed animal objects from Umwinsidale Pottery
and the wide range of subtly coloured functional

tableware and tiles from Sitra Pottery have a large
market. Smaller Harare potteries such as those run by
Marge Wallace and Alison Brayshaw produce highly
individualistic ceramics with more abstract and modem
decorative effects. In and around Bulawayo. Mzilikazi
Pottery and Gwai River Pottery keep up their production
of distinctive hand-made domestic ware, tiles and jars.

But is this art? Robin Hopper in his Functional Pottery
— Fonn and Aesthetic in Pots of Purpose writes:

"There has been little written on the art of making
functional pottery, perhaps because in the past making
utilitarian wares has largely been viewed as a means to
an end rather them an end in itself. In the contemporary
art arena, pottery has been looked at as the poor cousin
to painting and sculpture, in much the same way as the
graphic arts were once viewed. Pottery is neither
painting nor sculpture, although it has elements of both.
It is significant that in many of the world's languages
there is no word for 'art'. Art is the result which comes
from the activity known as 'craft '. There may be good
or bad art, the quality being largely dependent on the
combination of skill, understanding, emotion and
intent."

Ceramic art is about unique and individual creativity,
which can show itself in myriad ways, in forms, in
decoration, in sculptures, in conceptual or functional
vessels. If we are looking at ceramics as an art form.
and creauvity as its inspiration, how would we rate the
state of the art in Zimbabwe? Helen Lieros. artist and
co-owner of Gallery Delta says:

"We have the expertise but we do not experiment
enough. The work is very classical, very beautiful, but I
look at ceramics as sculpture and like to see potters
exploring the form, destroying and re-creating it. We
need more stimulation from outside, like we had from
visiting Kenxaii/British potter Magdalene Odundo. and
the New Zealanders Wi Taepa and Robyn Stewart: and
the recent showing of work by Zambian Andrew
Makromallis at Delta"

Multimedia artist Berry Bickle agrees, not surprisingly,
considering her own fiery solo exhibition at Delta in
November 1996. where porcelain slabs and bowls were
incorporated into daring installations with mixed media
works on paper. Bickle says:

"Our potters are very good but there is no obvious
developtnetjt. No one is extending ideas. In the
traditional pottery, there is no progression and in the
studio pottery, there is stagnation. We should take note

Stephen Williams, plate,
1985, 22cm diameter,
earthenware

of South

African (former

Zimhcihwean

resident) ceramicist

Howard Minne.

pushing the frontiers of the

traditional African form in his

huge sculptural pots, shown as

prizewinners in the National Ceramics

Quarterly magazine of South Africa."

Is there a valid meeting point between traditional and
modern pottery, between African and European ideas,
feelings, expressions, cultures? Violet Ndoro Tagurira
using the traditional African terracotta and pit-fired
inethods produced strong, simple, classical vessels.
Tendai Gumbo has also combined the more European
forms with the strength and earthiness of the African
style. Mary-Ann Soltau and some other potters have
been experimenting in this direction. Gumbo's most
recent work, a group of terracotta, pit-t~ired items, draws
on Ndebele funerary traditions but includes some
abstract human forms in the modem European idiom.
Carole Wales-Smith has consistently developed her
ring-necked vessels inspired by African body
ornaments. Sue McCormick has explored forms using
unglazed clay and leather in designs evolved from
gourds, rocks, seeds and other objects of the African
landscape.

Does there have to be a meeting point and can there be
one that happens naturally? Can older potters change
their styles, and should they? It is said that pottery
forms lend themselves to infinite variety, so that even
the bowl and the bottle, those two basic forms which
have been shaped by the world's civilisations since time
immemorial, have never been exhausted. So. despite
the ingenuity of thousands, perhaps millions, of potters
nurtured by numerous diverse cultures, ancient and
modern, eastern and western, northern and southern,
there is no end to the variety of line, let alone
decoration. Frouwke Viewing continues to produce
subtle variations in her finely glazed porcelain bottles
and bowls. Is there a future for this Anglo-Oriental
studio pottery style, with its pure forms and muted
colours, evolved by Hamada and Leach in the 30s and
40s. thereafter heavily influencing potters in Rritaiii.
America and other countries?

Will the New Ceramics, which broke the Anglo-Oriental
mould in those countries, set a new one now? Can the
new free-form trials, the vivid colourings, the painteriy/
sculptural experiments, those products of post-war
ceramic renaissances, make a style? There seems to be
some unity in their diversity, the result of easy

communication,
creating international
resemblances. Should
Zimbabwe become a part of
this new movement and can
Can we develop, or are we
developing, a style of our own?

The earth form is perhaps the oldest and most
traditional art form in Zimbabwean culture. The
materials and processes are available and relatively
cheap. Clay is limitlessly malleable and flexible, capable
of responding to the unique expression of individuality, it
has endless possibilities. Significantly experiments in
ceramics in Zimbabwe have been carried out by painters
and sculptors such as Stephen Williams. Voti Thebe.
Simon Back and Berry Bickle. Is there a way forward?

Herbert Read wrote in his book The Meaning of Art:

"Patten- is at once the simplest and the most difficult of
the arts. It is the simplest because it is the most
eleitiental: it is the most difficult because it is the most
abstract ... Judge the art of a country: judge the finest of
its sensibility, by its pottery: it is a
sure touchstone. Pottery is pure
art: it is art freed from any
imitative intention."

Simon Back,

Acrobat

1992, 25 X 15cm

stoneware

Richard Witikani,
from a sketchbook

Many of Zimbabwe's young artists slide too easily
into the carelessness of abstraction, relying on
luck to provide a passable combination.
Barbara Murray writes about one artist who
offers an outstanding example of creative
control and integrity

The perceptive eye and disciplined hand:

Richard Witikani

Richard Witikani, Woman with Flowers, 1996, 95 x 78cm, oil on paper

"Myself I just paint because I like lo paint.
It 'sjust a pleasure. 1 just enjoy it. And you
are there to judge if you like it or not."

This honest directness is something one
rarely gets from an artist in 1997. It belies
the dedication with which Richard Witikani
pursues his desire to paint and, in its
modesty, it downplays the achievements of
this fine young artist.

Richard Witikani lives and works in the
countryside east of Harare. Apart from two
years of his life, he has always lived in a
rural environment and recognises it as the
source of his art. He was bom in Wedza on
the 1st January 1967, his father Malawian. a
tractor driver, and his mother, Zimbabwean.
Both his primary and secondary education
were at local rural schools culminating at St
Vincent's in Nora, "where I first met people
who were interested in art".

From the age of 13, Witikani had been
fascinated by photographs in newspapers
which he studied and copied. "Then that got
boring so I tried something more
challenging, drawing a person in front of
me!' Taking the people around him as
subjects, Witikani quickly developed
considerable drafting skills as well as a sense
of form and composition. His talent was
noticed by a teacher at St Vincent's who
began to encourage him and enabled him to
lake art for ZJC which he passed, despite
there being no art classes and no art teacher,
with a distinction. Level-headed and
Mitelligent, Witikani achieved good results in
all his O level subjects whereon his parents
suggested that he do office work of some
kind. Witikani however, with quiet
determination and the help of his teacher, got
a place at the National Gallery's BAT
Workshop in 1988. At the time Martin van
der Spuy and subsequently Kate Raalh were
the instructors who nurtured Witikani 's

ability and inclination towards life drawing
using pencil and watercolour, and although
he enjoyed various other media such as litho,
screenprinting and sculpture, drawing from
the human figure remained his first choice.

In order to pay for his living expenses during
his second year at BAT, Witikani took a
morning teaching post at Girls" High. This
he says was "a hit boring. As an artist you
need to be in your own home, experimenting
every day. If you are teaching you are not
doing your own work." To alleviate the
boredom Witikani did quick sketches of the
students while they worked. The speed with
which these must have been done
emphasises his ability to catch the curve,
express the volume, select the indicative
detail. There is no superfluous line or dot
and little if any alteration — evidence of a
perceptive eye and a disciplined hand.

In 1990, having completed his studies at
BAT and gained an A for both O level and A
level art, Witikani decided to take a job at
Sitra Pottery where he continues to work at
decorating domestic and functional
ceramics. Thus he moved back to a rural
environment in which he feels most at ease
and where he hoped to have time and space
to pursue his own painting as well as earn
a living. Inevitably there is not enough
time. Witikani sketches every day but
he has only his daily lunch hour and
then his weekends to sketch and
paint. His job at the pottery has,
however, freed him from the
damaging necessity of having to
earn money through his art, the
circumstance which degrades the
talent of many Zimbabwean artists
and turns them into commercial
painters producing what they know
will sell.

Sitra Pottery is situated away from the main
road along several miles of dirt track,
through rolling grasslands interspersed with
woodlands and rocky outcrops. Following
Witikani to the workers' village along a path
through darkly green trees, one comes out
into an open area, a kopje burgeoning with
rounded boulders and leafy bushes to the
left, a valley of pale dry grass falling away
to the right. The pink earth path spreads,
divides and wanders unevenly between
scattered assorted dwellings, some mud and
thatch, some brick and thatch, others with tin
roofs; grass fences, a few banana trees, some
chickens scratching in the dust, washing
draped between two poles. A woman sits in
the shade with a child on her lap, two others
stand nearby at a tap gossiping. A child
rambles along with a wire car. Further away
a woman bends and hoes a patch of
vegetables. Sun and shadow create volume
and colour It is like walking into one of
Witikani's paintings ... daily life going on in

an unhurried way — women doing their
everyday chores, preparing food, sweeping,
looking after home and children, with their
share of problems and pleasures. "/ want to
paint how people are. what they are doing. I
paint people and nature, how people live in
their environment"

Going into Witikani's studio, a traditional
mud and thatch hut without windows, the
light from the doorway falls on a pile of
paintings on heavy brown paper heaped one
on top of another on the floor, wood for
frames leaning against a wall, boxes of tubes
and brushes, some bottles of turps, and a
collection of sketchbooks. Those books
contain the foundation of Witikani's work —
pencil drawings, page after page of quick
free sketches of people done in the pottery,
in the village, at home over weekends when
friends come to talk with his wife, at local
markets, bus stops, clinics, or drawings of
the roadside, the boulders and trees. "/
sketch from my surroundings. These are the
people I stay with so when they are there I
get time to sketch them."

From these pencil lines, from the
concentrated and continual looking at the
human figure and the landscape, the
paintings are composed. Once he faces the
large sheet of brown paper with his brushes
and paints, Witikani is free to cut, combine,
create his own version of everyday life and it
is here that his unerring sense of
composition takes over.

Richard Witikani's preoccupation is the
human form, more particularly the female
form. The majority of his paintings are of
women, either alone or in small groups,
placed centrally within the format; some
look directly at the viewer, others turn aside;
some are talking, but most are caught up in
private thought. They are often passive,
sitting, lying, waiting for someone.

(above) Richard Witikani, student at Girls' High
School from a sketchbook, 1989

Richard Witikani, from sketchbooks

Witikani says, "Women 's bodies are more
iitleresling to paint. In women, you have
ciirres. round forms, heaviness." But there
is no prettification. These are not subjects
chosen for sentimental or decorative
potential but tor their natural and real
humanity. The treatment is broad and direct,
imbued with the artist's understanding and
respect which in turn creates a strong
presence in each of his subjects. Witikani
seeks to capture the existing, the nature of
the female body in its variety and
universality. Many paintings feature a single
woman, preoccupied in her solitariness, such
as Desdymona and Knitting. In others, the
bond of mother and child is strongly
portrayed by an interweaving and visual
combining of the two interdependent forms,
as in Hunger. Indeed in some works, for
example in Paying Attention, the body of the
small child only becomes apparent and
distinguishable on careful looking.

There are also a number of paintings
involving two or three figures. The natural
groupings and interrelation of the people is
again expressed in the proximity and the
rhythm of their bodies. For example in
Hairdresser I. the three heads are inclined
towards each other; the child, mother and
sitter are encompassed in one of several
circles creating this closely integrated
composition. The hands of the mother link
with the hair and head of the sitter; the curve
of the mother's body absorbs the roundness
of the child on her back.

Witikani disposes the weights of the bodies
and limbs in order to produce a dynamic
within the compositions. Triangles can be
discerned in many paintings creating visual
movement and energy despite their
sedentary subjects. Although the brushwork
is free and appears spontaneous, the forms
are finnly and clearly depicted, due no doubt
to the painter's skill at drawing and his
understanding of line. The weight of the
bodies, sturdy legs and feet, and at times the
whole prone body as in Siesta, press firmly
on the ground or seat. This is not a
superficial rendering but a physically felt
experience of the body. The hands and arms
and particularly shoulders speak of ability
and strength. The faces possess patience,
acceptance, and though soft and vulnerable,
portray endurance.

These robust women seem unconsciously
composed, as if they are naturally and
solidly there, regardless of the painter,
indifferent to the viewer. Only in the
Reclining Nude is there a consciousness of
the observing artist and the posed subject.
The woman is unable to take pride in her
voluptuous body. This work is based on an
early life drawing done by Witikani while
still at the BAT Workshop. It has been
transformed into sumptuous paint, skillfully
done, and clearly reveals the artist's pleasure
in the female curves.

(top) Richard Witikani, Hunger, 1996, 109 x 84cm, gouache on paper
(above) Richard Witikani, Hairdresser 1, 1996, 89 x 71cm, oil on paper

Richard Witikani,
Waiting at ttie Clinic,
1996,71 X 88.5cm,
oil on paper

mmm ^k

Richard Witikani's work is free of any
unnecessary detail. The figure or figures are
placed within a simple background and the
painting is built around an intuitively
worked interplay of horizontals, verticals,
diagonals, triangles or circles. The internal
rhythm is always strong, smooth and
resonant. There are few straight lines or
geometric forms and where they exist they
serve to contrast or enhance the volume,
curve and presence of the subject, such as
the wall in Woman with Flowers and Waiting
at tlie Clinic. The rhythm in Wailing at the
Clinic with the lines and volumes of the two
outside figures leading the eye in, and the
echoing shapes of heads, bodies and trees,
creates a successful composition. Vertical or
horizontal lines, in a wall, a tree, a chair,
stabilise the subject and sometimes define or
frame a space, for example in Hunger and in
Paying Attention. The surrounds and
background are always well integrated and
used to enhance the main subject. Depth is
naturally indicated with no exaggerations or
pretensions. There is no romantic excess
anywhere. There is no falsification.
Treatment of background and foreground are
handled in the same way and both negative
and positive shapes are given eloquence.
The relation of all these elements to the
whole creates the unity of structure and
vision which is essential to a good work of
art.

And perhaps the strongest integrating force
is colour. Its use and control is central to
Witikani's method and expression. He
makes no colour notes in his sketches and
freely applies his visual imagination when
working on a painting. Colours relate to
other colours in the composition rather than
to any outside reality. With strong,
] confident strokes, Witikani decides the way

in v\hich the colours are distributed across
the space. Light is seen in terms of colour as
are shadow and volume.

For the viewer, often the first impression is
of coloured patches which then resolve into
subject. Intuitively and boldly placed blobs
and strokes of colour re-fomi into flesh and
cloth; broad homogenous areas create solids
in space. Colour is used in the clothing to
emphasise the covered body shapes,
shadows and highlights creating volume and
line Occasionally a single line is employed
to delineate form but more often shape is
created by colour. Colour is also used to
decorative effect in the clothing. In Woman
with Flowers, this decorative element, a
mass of flowers on a dark bush, creates the
background for a woman whose blouse links
her indissolubly with her surroundings.
Note the use, in many of the works, of the
saine or a tonally related colour in the
background and foreground of a painting,
once again integrating the different elements
into a cohesive whole.

Colour is, as well, used expressively to
conjure atinosphere, the emotion of the
scene — in Baclicloor Saloon, a city scene, it
is bright, bold, noisy, scattered; in Hunger, it
is dull, leeched, pale, sucked out as is the
woman's breast.

There is a boldness in Witikani's use of
colour and a simplicity, with usually only
three or perhaps four colours making up the
palette of a single painting. They are chosen
according to the subject, the composition
and their interactive relationship within the
painting. At times the bare brown surface is
employed, and, so successful is its
integration, that a closer look is needed to
confirm that it is in fact unpainted paper.

This intelligent use of colour may give one
the impression that Witikani is painting from
reality, but the cohesion and delight of the
colour in his work springs from his visual
imagination and has lessons for those
Zimbabwean artists who splash on colours
with no consideration of their effect or
function.

The landscapes on show present a
convincing evocation of place. Again
sparing on detail, cohesive in composition
and simple in subject, they however offer a
rich play of colour, deviating from reality in
more painterly ways. In particular The Red
Tree is vibrant and dynamic with its dark
turbulent sky and wind-rushed grass. These
works are in fact largely imaginative
compositions founded only on Witikani's
intimate knowledge of the countryside
which he inhabits, expressing personal mood
as well as capturing the essential atmosphere
of place and season. Paintings of the village
environment focus on the closeness of man
to nature and are taken from sketches.
Witikani sees both as equal partners. "/
enjoy the unit}- of the people to the land. We
live in the land. Man and nature are veiy
close. It is quite simple. Man affects nature
and nature ajfects man." Life in the rural
areas is presented in a straightforward
manner; it is not sweetened or romanticised;
neither is it denigrated.

There is a strength and consistency about
Richard Witikani's work. His obvious
knowledge of line and form, his rigorous
structuring of composition, his honest choice
of subject and his striking underslaiuling of
colour, all point to a major talent and a
mature, independent vision.

The annual Heritage Exhibition at the National
Gallery has for many years been an indicator
of the state of the visual arts in Zimbabwe.
Anthony Chennells investigates and analyses
the 1996 offering.

nfronting

mplexity and
ntradiction

Norman Mhondiwa, Comrades War, 1996, 81 x 125cm,
oil on canvas

Norman Mhondiwa, Thanking God for Harvest, 1996,
81 X 125cm, oil on canvas

Heritage is a word wiiich offers a
spurious sense of security.

People invoke their heritage only
when the discernible movements
between past and future are
broken and the present no longer
anticipates with any certainty
what will come next. And yet
the idea of heritage is
comforting: it invokes a secure
past amidst present instabilities
and it is not surprising that the
most fiercely reactionary
institution in Washington should
be called the Heritage
Foundation or that the periodical
devoted to white Zimbabwean
history changed its name at
Zimbabwe's Independence from
Rhodesiana to Heritage.
Instability implicit in the
affirmation of stability, a
defensive assertion of roots and
belonging, provide a point of
access to the art of this year's
Heritage Exhibition at the
National Gallery.

T.S. Eliot pointed out many
years ago that each new
individual work of art extends
and modifies existing traditions
and Zimbabwean art. because of
the very nature of our society,
shows the traces of numerous
cultural traditions. Artists can
respond to this in different ways:
they can defiantly affirm the
authenticity of one of those

cultural strands and insist that it
is along that strand that
Zimbabwe's true identity can be
found. They can also confront
Zimbabwe's cultural syncretism,
the implications of the
intersections of multiple
traditions of ethnicity, race,
geographical origin and class in
our cultural life. When a
painting or sculpture enacts this
confrontation something more
ambitious is being attempted
than the recovery of an identity
simplified to race or origin.

An anecdote from the opening
of the exhibition may help to
explain my meaning. I noticed a
senior civil servant who is a
socialist theorist of art standing
with two diplomats from one of
the few countries in the world
which still claim to be socialist.
They were clustered around
Norman Mhondiwa's Comrades
War and as I passed I heard one
of them say. "Tliis is real art"

The rural landscape of
Comrades War is rendered with
the self-conscious naivety which
has become conventional in one
genre of Zimbabwean painting.
The thatched villages, granite
boulders and scarlet leaves of
brachystegia woodlands in
spring provide a background
not. as is usual in the genre, for
the routines and multiple

activities of village life but
rather for an episode in the war.
In the centre of the painting a
crashed Rhodesian plane is in
flames. Above two more aircraft
are huming while others drop
bombs and parachutes. In the
foreground two women flee with
an armed guerilla while two
women in uniform fire towards
the sky. Other civilian figures
throughout the painting run in
panic from the firing.

I assume thai for the three
viewers whose comments I
overheard the purpose of art is lo
affirm our identity as a
revolutionary people. Art in the
service of revolution is central to
the idea of socialist realism and
in the armed struggle soldiers,
proletarians and peasants
provide the unity of the
comrades of the title, the equal
status of their shared humanity
insisted upon in the art. The
'reality" which socialist art
purports to depict is constructed
by history: 'realism' is where
the agents of a situation are
shown playing out the roles
which history has rendered
typical of people of their class
and time. At its most successful
this theory of art produces the
wonderful revolutionary murals
of Maputo. This is not the static
triumphalist art which is being
dismantled in disgust all over
Russia and Eastern Europe.
Instead it includes anxiety,
confusion and despair alongside
hope and triumph as moments
worth recording in
Mozambique's Liberation
War.( I )

When the three men had moved
away I looked more carefully al
the painting and wondered
whether in their enthusiastic
response to a painting which has
as its subject peasants and war,
they had noted that it was in fact
subverting the conventions of
socialist realism which I have
briefly indicated. Only in its
opposition of the humanity of
the peasants to the dehumanised
technology of the enemy is a
conventional point registered.
In other respects the painting
refuses socialist-realist
revolutionary pieties. The
shooting down of aircraft from
the sky was atypical in our war
as it was in any other guerilla
war — guerilla warfare is not
1 2 furthered by acts of grand
defiance against an enemy with

access to vastly superior
technology. Mhondiwa's
peasants, in flight all over the
painting, appear to lack
revolutionary firmness and only
the fleeing women in the
foreground are accompanied by
a guerilla. Even more
unexpected is the fact that only
women guerillas fire back, a
curious detail which allows
gender differences to add
another confusing element to
the idea of a united front.

Why should I have spent such a
long time on so obviously an
inferior painting like Comrades
Warl One reason is because we
are talking about heritage and
how the Liberation War is
recalled as a part of that
heritage. The war must be
understood as only one part
(and because its methods and
objectives are so obvious, the
easiest part) of a revolutionary
process. Frantz Fanon, the
philosopher of revolutionary
states of mind, who anticipated
with eerie accuracy the
tendencies of Africa's
independent states, realised as
early as 1 96 1 that one way of
repressing discontent after
independence is to ignore
present failure and instead to
keep on recalling the liberation
war itself. A leader will idealise
and simplify the struggle and
"[ejveiy lime he speaks to the
people he calls to mind his often
heroic life, the struggles he has
led in the name of the people
and the victories in their name
he has achieved." All this
Fanon argues is to mystify and
bewilder the masses so that
while he "constitutes a screen
between the people and the
rapacious bourgeoisie," the
people will "go on putting their
confidence in him."(2) If this
u.se of the past to justify present
abuse is, as Fanon implies, an
inevitable movement in post-
colonial politics, that is all Ihc
more reason for artists to deal
cautiously with their
representations of the war itself
Whatever else our heritage
consists of it should not inckulc
art which serves the distoiiioiis
of propaganda.

As I have suggested I do not
think that Comrades War can be
simply dismissed as art serving
the saniti/ed official memories
of Zimbabwe for the details of
Ihe painting do not create a

Julius Nyamubaya,
Portrait of a Streetkid, 1996,
90 X 45cm, oil on canvas

single narrative whose end is
ZANU(PF)'s triumph.
Mhondiwa's other painting on
the exhibition. Thanking God for
Harvest, shows the complex
effects his naive technique is
capable of achieving. Here the
community, unified in worship,
is skilfully suggested in Ihe
repetition of faces in Ihe lines of
the worshipping group. The
viewer's eye is directed towards
two mbiras, the instrument
which more even than the drums
provides a ritual link between
the Shona, the ancestors and
God. The circle of the mbiras
recalls the curves of the faces,
the gathered faces are justified
in the mbiras, and both are
echoed in the curves of granite
boulders: the community
through its traditional ritualistic
instruments is unified both w ith
one another, with the land and
with God. At the same time,
there are people to whom Ihe
ceremony means nothing, and at
the front of the painting a group
gambles, oblivious of the ritual
being enacted behind them.

Two other paintings on Ihe
exhibition suggest how art can
be used lo make different
statements about politics —
about who has public power and
how it is used and abused.
Every new painting one sees by
Stephen Williams is an
additional reason for mourning
his untimely death and his The
Fall of the Sybarites is no
exception. Here a steel panel
lias apparently been scored
.icioss as if the shining surface
has been vandalised. A longer
look shows both red and rust
which Ihe scoring has
uncovered. Williams had a
Marxist background and the
steel for me consliuiles a visual
pun on Ihe associations between
steel and dictatorships whether
in Ihe name of the proletariat or
nol: the claims to absoliile
aulhority, Ihe purity of ideal
political systems, inflexible
delcrminalion, detachmeni from
human weakness. As an aspirant
diclalor .loseph Djugash\ili look
as his nom de guerre Stalin —
steel. Most socialist
governmenis of this century
justified aulhoritarianism by
claiming lo speak on behalf of
Ihc people whose historic
destiny they were helping lo
fulfil; most, in the last decade,
after Iheir inevitable collapse,
were show n to ha\c been

facades erected to conceal the
corruption at the heart of their
various systems. The graffiti-
like scores suggest a popular
anger which cuts through the
faijade to reveal, in rust and
blood, political authority as self-
serving and self-indulgent, as
sybaritic in fact.

If Williams's painting is a
general statement about political
authority. Richard Witikani's
The News is more local in its
referents, which constitutes part
of its strength. Witikani's
drawing becomes more deft with
each new painting and here it
creates the heaviness of the legs
of two male figures which
dominate the left-hand side of
the painting and which conveys
a contradictory sense of bored
idleness and virility. The figures
have not been painted as an end
in themselves as they have been
in so much of his previous work.
Instead they compete for
attention with the headlines of
the papers which the young men
are reading with the white and
black of the paper insisting on
their equal status with the other
colours of the painting. The
news, however, does not distract
with hope or purpose or. in our
context of jobless youth, with
promises of employment.
Instead the headlines refer to
AIDS as if the only news
contained in the papers is a
guarantee of despair. Other texts
referring to feeding schemes and
breast feeding are on the
periphery of the painting
suggesting that attention to the
health of children is rendered
futile by the AIDS pandemic. A
poster inviting voters to support
Margaret Dongo is dimly visible
and I wonder whether this is
intended to suggest any
alternative political initiative has
little meaning in the context of
AIDS. Part of the painting's
power derives from the way in
which the various verbal texts
are re-enforced through the
tension between the masculine
figures and a group of much less
precisely drawn female figures
to the right. Only one woman's
eyes are turned half-invitingly
towards the men — the rest look
away. Beneath one of the men's
shoes a newspaper headline
announces with words that serve
as an alternative title to the
painting: 'AIDS weakens the
virile ones."

Stephen Williams, Fall of the Sybarites (detail),
1996, 150 X 121cm, mixed media

Richard Witikani, Ttie News (detail), 1996, 102 x 183cm,
oil on paper

Witikani takes his place
alongside Fasoni Sibanda and
Luis Meque as artists who have
enabled us to see in a new way
life in high density suburbs and
communal lands. The insights
which their art has offered us are
now a part of our heritage in the
most positive sense of the word.
Hilary Kashiri stands beside
them and can be seen to have
developed the tradition which
they have given ri.se to. His
Commuter Rank 11 is a
nightmare vision of the crowded
inner city. There is little to
console in the lurid colours and
human figures are barely
discernible. Squares and circles
dominate referring to the shapes
of the vehicles at the rank while
at the same time suggesting a
world dominated by technology
so that urban humanity is largely
alienated from itself. The idea
of an alienating city is taken up
in the more schematic Portrait
of a Street Kid by Julius
Nyamubaya where a person's
head can be made out amidst a
composition of lines and circles
in colours which are glaringly
artificial.

One of the more unattractive
parts of Zimbabwe's visual
inheritance is an art which
attempted to interpret our
landscapes in the conventions of
the European romantic sublime.
Often such paintings claim to be
of Nyanga and they show blue-
peaked mountains more alpine
than African, lush green
foregrounds and the inevitable
red of musasa trees. Mercifully
such paintings are excluded
from this exhibition although, in
a curious colonial distortion of
how we see our world, black
artists are beginning to peddle in
the streets imitations of these
mendacious accounts of the
land. One of the many debts we
owe to Robert Paul is that he
explored, and many of his
paintings accurately depict, both
the colours and shapes of
Nyanga. In this exhibition Paul
Wade returns us to the particular
range of our seasonal colours
with his two oils Seasonal
Changes I and Seasonal
Changes II. In the first the earth
at the end of a good rainy season
provides a thin panel which
divides the painting into two: on
one side the colours of
Zimbabwe's clear winter skies:
on the other side the dust i o

between the rains. Sky and

(above) Paul Wade, Seasonal Changes 1, 1996, 150 x 246cm,
oil on canvas

(middle) Paul Wade, Seasonal Changes II, 1996, 150 x 246cm,
oil on canvas

(below) Maria Ndandarika, Waiting in Vain, 1996, approx
48 X 48 X 40cm, opalstone

earth dominate the canvas as
they do our lives for so much of
the year. In Seasonal Changes
II Wade uses the same idea of
vertical divisions as the basic
construct of the painting. Here
he adds to the natural tones,
colours which have other
culturally relative associations.
The rainy season panel here
moves from green and brown
into brown, purple and pink
which can be read as blossom or
as the riches of the earth. This is
followed by a lovely piece of
painting of the sky, the rich blue
paling at the edges as the winter
sky does. This is replaced by
the largest of all the panels
where dust shades into earth
colour before the concluding
panel which is of deep red and
blue, satisfyingly suggesting a
concluding richness to this
sequence.

Our oldest and most ubiquitous
artistic inheritance is of course
the rock paintings which appear
throughout Zimbabwe's granite
areas. A vague and distorted
impression of thein has been
appropriated by the tourist trade
to decorate batik and pottery but
they have to my knowledge
never been successfully used in
serious art. In this exhibition, an
attempted testimony to the early
artists, is Obert Muringani's
Original Painters. However
much one welcomes the attempt,
one has to see it as failure.
Muringani has painted onto
three pieces of hide, stitched
together. That the original
community of artists has been
destroyed is suggested both in
the torn hide and in the absence
of any whole figures in the work
for only human torsoes arc
depicted together with the faint
outline of a giraffe. This
comment on the vanished artists
remains at the level of
affirmation rather than
something which has been
realised in the work it.sclf. The
original art with very few
exceptions is an art which
signifies through outline and in
the way outlines relate to one
another. Muringani has rejected
the challenges of this technique
by moulding the thigh, buttocks
and breasts ol his figures so they
more closely resemble
contemporary figure paintmg
than the art which he implicitly
claims as inspiration. There is
always the possibility that I am
missing the point and (he

painting operates through an
irony that allows echoes of the
ancient and new art to compete
in the viewer's imagination.

Perhaps we should not try to
reproduce a vanished art
especially one which is so
obviously the product of a
hunter-gatherer society. Coming
from an infinitely more complex
economic system, we cannot
reproduce the spirit of the old
art. The artist who more than
any other on the exhibition
enacts a confrontation with this
multiply faceted economic
present (if confrontation is not
too strong a word for so gentle
an artist) is Thakor Patel. His
companion pieces Summer
Cloud and Winter Cloud show
him in a characteristically
playful mood with an assortment
of objects painted on the two
canvases as if set up for a
memory test. But because it is
Thakor Patel controlling the
images, the apparently random
representations are located with
a mathematical precision which
is confirmed in the exactness of
both the drawing and the way in
which paint has been applied.
The summer of the tlrst painting
is suggested in a Ndebele love-
stick, brightly coloured beads
being strung to cover the wood,
a hint of a deck chair, kites and
other mobiles flying, the sun-
touched cloud of the title which
is also half-curtain raised to
reveal parallel lines which
suggest the agricultural potential
of a ploughed field. A panga
blade glints with light. Cloud,
field, sunlight may be natural
objects and love a natural
passion but Patel makes no
attempt to register them
realistically. In fact we see them
as painted before we think of
their literal referents. In the case
of the love-stick, the key trope
in the painting, we see it as
artefact in the making before we
register its associations.
.Similariy the lines at the bottom
of the painting are noted as a
Irame helbre their alternative
referent as ploughed field is
recognised. In Winter (Imul ihe
framing lines are now at I he lop
of the painting suggesting
ceiling hoards and from them
Ihe kites and mobiles hang,
disabled by the season. The
clouds have the colour of the
guli clouds of July although
again they arc draped like
curtains and their artificialitv is

further insisted upon in fasteners
which secure the cloud-curtain
folds — wittily suggesting the
need to button-up against the
cold. The button on the summer
cloud is frivolously decorated
with beading so that it is hardly
functional as fastener. Only the
blade of the panga is repeated. I
have no objection to a didactic
art — both The News and
Tluinking God for Hanest have
didactic elements in them and
they are the linear descendants
of Shona oracy which sees its
purpose in its capacity to correct
and direct. But art can also
satisfy by being retle.xive, by
considering the processes which
have gone into its making. One
aspect of that process for
Zimbabwean painters is the
influences which we are subject
to and which Patel refers to: we
know both Ndebeie bead-work
and the clean lines and colours
with which David Hockney
celebrates southern California's
light and leisure. One recalls
Klee and Miro in PateFs kites
and mobiles but the colour of the
.soil, the winter and summer
clouds are entirely Zimbabwean.
The panga, that ambiguous
instrument of violence and
agriculture, denies the
possibility of any simple
response to either season.

Heritage if it is a positive
concept must be about both the
past and the future. Our
younger artists will make a
heritage for future generations
but they will do that only if they
retain a creative integrity in the
face of the demands of the
market place. We all know what
has happened to our stone
sculpture: endless, increasingly
inferior reproductions of once
brilliant ideas so that even in the
National Gallery one greets with
mistrust each carved stone one
comes across. (3) It was only
after several visits to the
exhibition that I recognized how
superbly Maria Ndandarika's
Waiting In Vain manages to
convey a sense of anticipation,
resignation and despair with an
extraordinary economy of line.
In every interior-decorating shop
in Harare we see the insulting
attempts to copy Arthur
Azevedo's metal sculptures.
Stiff birds in black-painted
metal, hammered into
uniformity so that the very
notion of 'scrap' is lost, bear as
much relation to Azevedo's

exploration of the shape and
movement of bird and beast as a
feather duster represents an
ostrich. Harry Muta.sa's
Pregnancy Pain shows,
however, that there are exciting
young sculptors around. There
is no attempt to disguise the
scrap which has gone to the
making of the figure and the
pain of the title is suggested as
much by the distortions of the
figure as in the functional
unconnectedness of the various
pieces: no part of the body
relates mechanically with any
other part. One glance shows
the figure headless and the head
in the groin is the new birth; a
second glance shows the head
bent in agony towards the groin,
the new birth still invisible.
Ishmael Wilfred won the Mobil
Overall Award of Distinction for
Painting and requires no praise
from me except to note the
freshness of his palette and the
manner in which his movement
into the supernatural links with
some of the best of the original
stone sculpture.

Heritage becomes positive then
when we know that our present
activity is creating something of
value for future generations. It
becomes more valuable when it
does not try to avoid complexity
and contradiction but rather
confronts them, confident that
out of their resolution will grow
the new complexity of what is
yet to come.

Notes

1 . Much of this art has been
destroyed but something of its
quality can be judged from Albie
Sachs. Images of a Revolution:
Mural Art in Mozambique
(Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing
House, 1983).

2. Frantz Fanon. The Wretcljed of
tlie Eartli. 1961: trans. Constance
Parrington 1965

( Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985
edn). pl35.

3. An excellent analysis of the
market to which the stone
sculpmre has been directed is
Carol Pearce, "The Myth of
'Shona Sculpture'". Zambezia
(1993). XX, ii.pp85-I07.

(above) Thakor Patel, Summer Cloud, 1996,
91 X 57.5cm, watercolour

(below) Thakor Patel, Winter Cloud, 1996,
91 X 57.5cm, watercolour

Painting tine essence:

the harmony and equilibrium of Thakor Pate!

Contemplation of the culture one is born into,

the culture one is educated into

and the cultures experienced in daily living

can culminate in synthesis and a deep fusion.

Barbara Murray looks at the work of a philosophical artist

The English word 'inspiration' comes from the Latin verb inspirare,

to breathe in. It is an appropriate description of the process of the

artist. Thakor Patel, who creates his paintings by assimilating,

refining and defining his experience of his immediate surroundings.

Patel's work is not a reahstic portrayal but rather an interpretation

through colour and symbol. He searches with a finely tuned

awareness and then distills an experience, expressing only the Thakor Patel,

essential elements. Untitled (Cuxhaven),

1996, approx. 150 x 300cm,
mixed media

A very direct example of this can be deciphered in a recent work.
Untitled {Cuxhaven). which was commissioned by a company that
operates a fishing business in Cuxhaven. Germany. Patel focuses on
the experience of being in that city. Two lines of subtly changing
colour, imbued with motion by an arrowhead, enter the canvas,
representing the two rivers that meet in Cuxhaven. Mountains that
surround the area are depicted by a single triangle in shaded greys.
Below it is another, inverted, triangle of clear green-blue water with
fish and bird crossing, their curving shapes evoking their movement.
Centrally placed is a large circle of sunset and above it a slither of
moon. To the left boldly coloured strips represent the canvas
awnings of the harbour area. Smaller objects include another fish
drying, a fiag. a planet, housing. All this in a surround of blues.
These emblems of a place, of the experience of being in that place,
are drawn and coloured with delicacy, precision, a surety and
lightness of touch, leaving space for the viewer to wander and
expand the concepts within his or her own mind. The positioning of
the diverse elements, the use of colour, line and shape, all combine
to keep the eye moving across the surface and in and out of visually
created areas. The painting is a carefully structured balance of parts
in a satisfying whole.

The artist explains:

"From nature you can see lots of different things. I feel, myself, I
learned from nature, the colour sense, harmony, tones. Also
textures, shapes, lines. Like in nature, all things work together to
make a beautiful painting."

While recently staying with a family in Germany who are accom-
plished musicians with a particular love of the compositions of

Beethoven and Bach, Patel created paintings inspired by the music
that filled that environment. Again only a precise selection of
evocative elements and colours are used allowing the imagination to
be drawn in. In Untitled (Homage to Beethoven) the clear fine lines
of sheet music are employed as the basic structure with the bottom
line of each set rendered in multiple shaded hues. Perfect black
notes and other musical symbols seemingly scattered but in fact
precisely placed across the page, lift away from the lines, giving the
effect of musical sound and movement. The swelling curve of a
piano is used, as well as arcs of pencil line and two ribbons of
graded colour, to create a body for the lightness. A single larger
circle of vibrant red represents that explosion of response one feels
to strong musical climax. Patel says "Music is colour'' He wonders
however why musicians only use black and white to write music.
"Why not colour?" The dominant colours in Untitled (Homage to
Beethoven) are appropriately passionate and potent, red, green,
purple and black, yet disciplined by the white space and by the
exacting structure of the fine lines and musical notes.

Another musically based work. Untitled (Homage to Bach), is
centred on a page of music written by the composer which is
collaged onto the canvas and combined with notes, musical nota-
tions, colours, simplified indications which lead, through the eyes, to
the inner listening imagination. Here, in concord with Bach's music,
the symbols are lighter and more playfully disposed; the colours are
more measured, more delicate, with a vertical strip rising from a
clear blue through pinks and oranges to a translucent lightness.

The German family's house was highly ordered, mainly white with
some pale wood and black furniture, very little colour. Again

(left) Thakor Patel, Untitled
(Homage to Beethoven), 1996,
176 X 130cm, oil on canvas

(right) Thakor Patel, Untitled
(Homage to Bach), 1996,
140 X 88cm, oil on canvas

(below) Thakor Patel, Untitled,
1984, 70 X 57cm, watercolour

affected by his environment. Patel began to work with large white
canvases broken only by one or two strips of pale texture or shadow,
some faint regular pencil lines. "Why not [mini colour or design on
a door for example. Not too complicated hut in a simple way. why
not make lines, or scratch it out. or make a colour?" Several large
recent canvases are just such 'doors', a white expanse with some
colour, lines or texture to light them up.

When Patel travels, experiences, elements, colours, textures, are
absorbed and digested to be later composed into paintings. "Every-
thing is a symbol for something": a mountain, a road sign, reflections
in water, a shell, the moon. Small details are reminiscent of objects
seen, music heard, impressions gained, now aligned and contrasted,
drawn together to recreate his experience. "When I see some things I
know that I can combine them to make a beautiful artwork. I take a
blank canvas and I just experiment and.it comes out. I don 'I really
do sketches. Ideas, pictures, colours, feelings are stored in my head.
I collect, combine and work it out."

"/ want to be myself. Whatever I feel. I must do it. It doesn 't matter.
Germany or Africa or wherever, or India or America, whatever I
feel, wherever I live. I paint. Now I am in Africa for example. I must
do Africa, in a different way. but it should he me. not other things. I
fight with my creativity. Creativity is something, it is the opposite of
death. My creativity is fighting with death. I make new life. I don 't
know how to explain that through words. You have to mark some-
thing when you are on the earth. Mark your existence. To create
something different. I have a lot of capacity to create different
things. If I take anything I can create. I am not physically strong. I
cannot do anything that way. But through creativity I can do it. I
can take anything, a piece of wood and do things with it that will
make a beautiful work of art. You must have guts to do something
with life."

contributory factor in the final purpose which is always to attain a
sense of equilibrium that goes far beyond the extent of a single
canvas to become a metaphor fin- human relationships: equilibrium
threatened, on a knife edge, and finally attained."

In fact I think that the metaphor goes further than human relation-
ships to encompass the concept of life as a whole. The Eastern
philosophy, on which Thakor Patel's outlook is based, conceives of
life as a continuing attempt to attain harmony through the reconcilia-
tion and balancing of the diverse elements of existence.

Talking about his work. Patel says:

'■/ like the philosophical way. For example, when I see in nature,
some leaves fall down on the ground. I must think. When I see a
flower, smell its scent, I feel we have to take its essence. Not exactly
the whole flower. You can 't explain what smell is. You know. But
the essence I take from that. That's how I think of my work, as
philosophical painting. Simplest statement. Now. because of
African and Indian culture, my paintings are still simple but more
busy."

"I find it hard to explain. Sometimes I ciy inside. I know myself hut
I cannot say. I cannot talk even in my own language. My drawback
is from the society where I grew up. I didn 't get much chance to
learn and because of society pressures. I couldn 7 get a chance to
state any things openly. Keep quiet all the time. They used to
threaten me. Because of fear Still I have fear. If you ask me, speak
openly about someone. I can 't. Because they have pressured me so
much in childhood. Only now I realise why I am like that. In
Germany now they tell children they must say 'no' if that is what
they feel. Don't say 'yes' anyway. And I agree with that, children
should say 'no 'first and 'why ', arguing, and they learn. But I got
never chance to sax 'no'."

"My favourite painter is Matisse. Fantastic. Brillicmt. He knows
exactly what to put in a painting. Making systems of compositions.
Those cut-outs are wonderfid. simplified. Simple is very important
for me. When you know much more about some things, it depends
upon the artist, but I like to make veiy simple slalenwuts instead of
so many things to combine. I feel it is very hard to make a simple
statement with a space, like for e.xample. a Joan Miro. It's a huge
canvas, just one dot and it is a painting and a lot of feeling in that."

Patel says that no-one can touch the old masters; that the intricate
detail in Indian paintings is beautiful. The artists were given time
and payment so they could just paint everything. Indian artists have
their own system of perspective, form and space. Principles of both
that Eastern perspective theory and modernist Western spatial
method are used by Thakor Patel to create a unique sense of space
and distance within his own canvases. His work Untitled (1984),
plays with both the known flatness of the canvas and with three-
dimensional illusion, with stillness and movement. The surface is
made up of myraid spattered dots precisely controlled in size and
tone to create vertical strips of colour which interact and relate.
There is a sense that some strips are static, others only momentarily
so. while the fine black lines and larger colour spots give the
impression of moving or being about to move as you look at them.
As the eye scans up the strips, some appear to shift from the front to
the back of the surface. It is an experience captured in the mid,st of
change from one state of existence to another — a momentary
balance which depends on the precise manipulation of line, shape,
size, distance and, above all, colour.

In her catalogue essay for Patel's solo exhibition at the National
Gallery of Zimbabwe in 1989. Margaret Garlake wrote:

"His overriding preoccupation is with the play of colour: to push one
against another that denies it, then to separate them with a third
which negates the confiict: to clothe complementarities in identical
fonns and thus to question their relationship: to articulate the
surface with irresolvable spatial dilemmas. And this is only a

"/ believe in the spirit, inside, the power But not in church, like
people who go and pray and tomorrow more corruption and then go
back to church and pray. If you work hard, if you are honest, it will
work, something. It 's me lunv. It is my experience now. Because I
work hard now some people will like my painting, not because of
God. People have lost faith. They used to see what was going on.
We are too materialist now — money, money, money. All is busi-
ness. Too many businessmen. Sometimes there is a businessman
with a good soul who can see."

"I like to make a simple statement, maybe a line only on the canvas,
nothing else. I want to go in the more simplest things now. For
example, one line, it 's a painting. How you utilise that line on the
canvas. Bricks, for example, you cent use in a simple, different way.
You don 't have to make it exactly the brick. Simplicity. Beautiful
different grading with pencil. Only white, a line and a colour It can
be beautifid. I enjoy to make forms. I play. I like the work of
Kandinsky, the different forms."

Life for Thakor Patel has not been easy — a difficult childhood in
which self expression was not allowed, the loss of his leg in his
youth, little education and few chances for employment: fabric
design and printing, some teaching, a large family and the attendant
financial worries. Yet his paintings express a great affirmation of
life. The first works Patel exhibited in Harare were personal and
agonised, black ink drawings involving interpretations of the body,
allowing insight into the feelings of a crippled person. These were
followed by larger clear-coloured and delicately shaded sprayed-on
watercolours in which there was a sensitive delight in the environ-
ment. Then for a period. Eastern mysticism with its use of symbols
and the spiritual philosophy of his Indian heritage became pervasive
in his work. This symbolism has now expanded and become secular.
Thakor Patel's paintings give us a window into a uniquely joyful
world. They enable us to experience beauty by transforming the
myriad confusion into distilled forms, concentrated colours and
essential elements. They give us those moments of harmony and i q

equilibrium that we seek for in the chaos of life.

'^M}'YjV''['/h

^ WW'

Earth — Water — Fire, recent works by
Berry Bickle, Gallery Delta, November/
December 1996

This exhibition of new work by Berry Bickle offers a
quiet, allusively rich and contemplative variety,
layered with historical references, charged with the
implications of repression and decay, and expressive
of contemporary human existence in Africa. It
reveals a fascination with nature, texture and graffiti,
employed to create subtle poetry, drama and
theoretical constructs. The work is enhanced by
natural fibres, hand-made paper, dried red chillies and
images that conjure up intrigue.

Berry Bickle allows no boundaries between art and its
environment. She engages the environmental
framework through both literal and conceptual
strategies. The main space at Delta is set up as a
mise-en-scene with a large installation. Earth. Water.
Fire, encompassing three porcelain vessels, delicately
glazed and inscribed with handwriting marks,
positioned in their simple iron stands directly in front
of a large script on Fabriano paper, stained, seemingly
aged, and fraught with an illegible message.

Three of the works, A Carta de Caspar Veloso I, II,
and /// use maps and writings to revive awareness of
the history of colonialism, reminding the spectator of
museum specimens.

The second long narrow room presents two different
systems of communication, art and books, that meet
in a confrontation if not an actual challenge. The four
books in porcelain are slotted into iron plinths,
countered on either side by a metallic-medium
painting with incised, subdued and tonal graffiti. The
viewer is caught in a revealing dialogue between the
two elements in a dramatic but simultaneously
intimate moment. Titled Once Were Words, this work
makes one feel that these objects are more than
material and volume, rather they form an integrating
element, closed books, books without words.

Following this is an area where water predominates as
the vibrant force. One can penetrate this space in
order to identify with nature and the soothing
prominent blue colour, and pause in front of an
installation oi Sea Scapes. Three plates hang on the
wall, connected horizontally, and connected vertically
to a blue-stained book, in a symbolic formation of the
Southern Cross. Below stands a blue tub filled with
water accompanied by an old, broken, blue chair with
colonial inferences in its intricate wrought-iron
elegance. Here the elements become intertwined
making the spectator teel a need to re-acquire what is
being lost, a need to return to nature.

The next room draws one in through its focal point —
hanging from the ceiling, suspended and upside-
down, a wounded bicycle. This construction
reinvents one facet of the "world" of this artist. From
the initial stages of Berry Bickle's art career, the
bicycle has been present in her work. In an early
triptych, the Virgin was riding a bicycle surrounded
by chickens. Later, there were linear mechanical
drawing studies of bicycles. Today the bicycle has
become a skeletal hanging form, wrapped up,
bandaged, creating an atmosphere of ominous decay.
It is accompanied on one side by a blackened metal
bin containing the remnants of burnt debris, and on

--*:^

the other, by a broken African terracotta pot filled
with ashes. This installation is entitled Urn- cmd
Order.

As a contrast. Divine Fact, a mixed media work on
Cartolina paper, portrays the typical Renaissance
Madonna and Child surrounded by numerous red
chillies and swathed in translucent hand-made paper
which lends a mystical air. Despite being confined
within her own architectural space which enhances
the ecclesia.stical quality, she gives an enigmatic
impression of vulnerability.

Smaller works are integrated according to their
chosen themes: fragments of deserted buildings,
relics, ancient scripts, becoming reflections that
sustain a deep melancholy of time. They incorporate
the ingenuity of vision with the despair of lived
experience.

This exhibition underlines Berry Bickle"s standing as
one of Zimbabwe's most noteworthy artists. It
demonstrates how perseverence, ambition and
progression become a quest, and how expression
penetrates, and explores, and is capable of its own
reconfiguration. Helen Lieros

(above) Berry Bickle, A
Carta de Caspar Veloso I

(right) Berry Bickle,
Law and Order

Stephan Jost,
The Ultimate Eggs-
H-aggeration (detail)

10th Annual VAAB Exhibition,
National Gallery in Bulawayo,
December/January 1996

The Annual Visual Artists Association of
Bulawayo (VAAB) Hxhibition has painted a
new picture about Bulawayo artists and the
quality and diversity of their work since its
inauguration 10 years ago. Initially
representing a few artists. VAAB has
become an identification tag for Bulawayo's
artistic talent. This year's show told a story
of endurance and determination by the over
100 artists who particiated.

In a variety of media: cloth, wood, paper,
batik, and even eggs, soil and metal, and
covering a wide range of themes, the works
on show were pregnant with meanings and
feelings. The restriction of three entries per
artist paid off in helping refine the selection.
"What we enjoyed was thai we zoomed in on
the number of entries which was a chanj^e
from the tradition when artists could brini>
in any number of entries. We had decided to
allow for only three. Within that number the
artists produced fantastic stuff so that the
selectors had a difficult task." said one of
the selectors, artist and Acting Director of
the National Gallery in Bulawayo, Voti
Thebe. "In future I foresee that we would
need to narrow down the entries further to
come up with the cream''

Originality, innovation and "something with
a punch" which was sought by the selectors,
was evident in most of the works displayed.
Despite there being no awards, the annaul
exhibition is a boost for local talent, and
household names like Mary Davies, Tomy
Ndebele, Gail Altnian. Lauryn Amott.
Telephone Bedza and Susan Elizabeth
Coulson, some of whom are founder-
members of VAAB, made a strong
impression in the painting section. Even
new members found a niche, like Sithabile
Mlotshwa, an upcoming abstract artist with
an affinity for culturally based themes. Her
mi,\ed-media piece, Wamuhlu. Muntu.
captures the essence of African women.

There were some thought-provoking
ixiintings such as Thousands of Rwanda
Rcfuf^ees have Fled Kikumha Camp, 25km
North ofGoma by Malaki Ndlovu in which
he portrays the frustration and fatigue of
refugees caught in political tumoil. Oil on
canvas works by Mzilikazi-based Gulso
Mutombo, originally from Zaire, though
interpreted as naive by selectors, have
substance. The theme of human strife was
further carried in Stuart Phiris mixed-media
Civil War. while Anne Siinone Mutton's
Family Ride in aquacryl attests to her love of
family life, laughter and togetherness.

Although there were poor entries in the
sculpture category which Thebe said
suffered the most rejections because of lack
of originality, sculptors in wood, stone and
metal could not be left out. Despite the
overduplication of stone work, pieces in
serpentine by Moffat Chitaunhike, Collin
Chitaka and Precious Sikhulile Sibanda
demonstrated notable creativity. Sheunesu
Shuinba's Dancing Traditional Lovers
dazzled the eye, as did Phinos Tizvigoni's
wood pieces. Marriage 's Main Problem and
Three Suffering. Rashid Jogee revealed his
abstract expressionism in a sandstone piece.
Obelisk, which bears some anatomical
features. Danisile Ncube submitted two
entires Caring Mother and Bull Face both of
which reflected his dexterity with the angle
grinder and the welding rod. And, strikingly
different in the sculpture category was
Stefan Jost's work entitled The Ultimate
Eggs-H-aggeration which employs steel
rods, ostrich eggs and a red earth
background.

For the discerning designer, th re was
Tendai Ncube's Guinea Fowl uvo-piece
outfit in batik, a medium whic i was widely
used through the exhibition.

VAAB is currently the only existing visual
artists" association in Zimbabwe after the
Harare association went defunct many years
ago. Chairman of VAAB. Rashid Jogee.
says the major achievement of VAAB in the
10 years of its existence has been to bring
artists together It endeavours to ej'.courage
and promote art, and also to educate artists
about practical issues such as copyright and
marketing. In previous years, the VAAB
annual has travelled to Botswana where it
achieved good sales and according to
Rashid, plans are to take it to Harare and
throughout the country. The future for
VAAB looks very bright. This lOth annual
exhibition shows the importance thai local
artists attach to creativity. While writers
speak through their words, artists paint, draw
and sculpt. The work on this exhibition is
the legacy of the artists of Bulawayo. It is
llie loasl in the celebration of art in
Bulawayo. which as a city is increasingly
enhancing its reputation as a cultural centre.
Busani Bafana

Explorations — Transformations,
Gallery Delta, November 1996

"We never knew

such works existed." was the amazed
comment of many visitors to the show of
contemporary visual art exhibited at Gallery
Delta in November. Helen Lieros had asked
some of Zimbabwe's prominent artists to
consider their past work, their beginnings
and developments, and to produce a
piece for this exhibition. Explorations
— Transformations, subtitled: an
insight into the artists and their work

Arthur Azevedo. a school teacher and artist.
Hilary Kashiri. George Churu, Crispen
Matekenya and Greg Shaw were among the
20 artists who had their work on display. I
.searched around the garden endeavouring to
have a chat with one or two of the artists and
it was then thit 1 bumped into the young
painter, Hilary Kashiri. After exchanging
the business of that day, he pointed out
Crispen Matekenya in a nearby crowd.
Matekenya was busy talking to an eager
group of listeners, from tired cynical
journalists to his former school-mates who
wished him every success. Because of his
good sense of humour, Matekenya is always
at the centre of the crowd. I asked him to
show me his work on the exhibition. We
entered the first room and I immediately saw
the Baboon Chair (see Contents page). My
instinct told me it was Matekenya's work. I
couldn't resist the temptation of laughing. I
tried to suppress it but what I was gazing at
made me want to burst into tears of laughter
My wish was to touch the wood and caress
it. I felt my cynicism crumbling down to a
deep felt sentiment, my senses of sight,
touch, pathos, were affected. For me the
piece is not only humorous but an apparent
revelation of the artist's nostalgia for the
Shona ethos, customs and virtues. It serves
the tradition of Shona myths, the
supernatural/natural creature,
metamorphosis, in a visual interpretation of
mythology: the baboon is a link between the
spirit world and the living, as well as a
symbol of wisdom and deep knowledge; the
chair is a symbol of chieftanship.

I then came across a piece by Greg Shaw, a
cool, slow-talking painter, a sculpture/
painting titled A Private World. And I stood
there gloating over it, thinking about the

Arthur Azevedo, The Last Bird

'private world', a place of quiet, calm and
tranquility. Who would not admire such a
world?

Passing into the next room of the exhibition
I saw that there were paintings all about,
standing there, and there, rather as pieces
stand on a chessboard when it is half-way
through a game. They were lovely
paintings. Some were human portraits like
Pip Curling's five paintings Jackson,
Juliana, Joe. Mike and Idah. This work is
easier for indigenous laymen to identify with
and understand.

The air in the gallery was a hubbub as
stimulated people discussed the art around
them. George Churu who had his work on
display said: "// is about time the formal art
world in Zimbabwe recognised that there is
far more art out there than is hanging on its
cold stone walls. For that alone this
exhibition is welcome."

The work on view was shattering in its
impact; vital, robust, with an economy of
line and curve, a loving coaxing of material
to show its inner strength. At this point I
realised there was no need to talk to the
artists. What I had seen satisfied not only
the eye but the whole being, the mind etc.
What the gallery offered was an exciting
reflection of Zimbabwean contemporary
visual art. I savoured my last sip of
lemonade drink and walked into the pleasant
black night, my stressful day long forgotten.
Stanley Karombo

New galleries

Two more venues have been added to the
map of Harare's art scene.

Doreen Sibanda's Gallery Mutupo, the inore
central of the two, was launched at the end
of January. The inaugural exhibition. Earth
Elements for Art I, featured the sculpture of
Joseph Muzondo. amid paintings by Voti
Thebe and Itayi Njagu, and Sibanda intends
to supplement shows of contemporary art
with the sale of artefacts and African
clothing and textiles.

The variety and quality (Muzondo's Man of
Authority, for instance, and Njagu 's
Township Restaurant) of the opening
exhibition augur well for the future, but if
Doreen Sibanda is clear about the
institution's plans, she appears less clear
about its name. The publicity material shifts
from Mutupo Gallery, to Mutupo Totem
Gallery, to Gallery Mutupo, and declares
that "we pride ourselves on the name of
Totem", One can sympathise with the
dilemma, especially given the intention to
depict "an integral and cross-cultural
heritage", but it needs to be solved sooner
rather than later.

Less ambiguous — and slightly less central
— is the Outside Gallery, which opened in
the garden of Pip Curling's Borrowdale
home early in February. Like Sibanda,
Curling has long experience as both artist
and teacher, but she has chosen to focus her
gaze rather more narrowly.

For some years now, Pip Curling has been
devoting her attention to encouraging artists
who inhabit the fringes of what we think of
as 'fine art'. Her exhibition notes call it "art
without artifice", and properly eschew the
use of 'naive', 'primitive' and 'folk'. The
result is a serious and unpatronising venue
for the likes of Givas Mashiri's papier-
mache creations. Dexter Nyamainashe's
wire toys, and the embroidery work of the
women's group, Kasona Kweinadzimai.

Can Harare cope with yet more galleries?
To paraphrase Bernard Shaw: You can have
enough of boots, and enough of bread, but
you can never have enough of culture.
Murray McCartney

Mutupo: The Totem Gallery
6 van Praagh Avenue
Milton Park
Harare
Tel: 705731

Outside Gallery
4 Kirkaldy Road
Pomona
Harare
Tel: 882443.

< St- -t<.^*>»».»* *"-

Robert Paul,
Eighth Street/
Livingstone Avenue

CD
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CO

^^^^U///

Robert Paul, Barbara Murray (Ed).
Harare: Colette Wiles, 1996.
ISBN 0-7974-1614-5

(Speech given at the book launch at
Gallery Delta, December 1996)

Since reading the book whose pubhcation
we have come to celebrate this evening I
have kept on returning mentally to Matthew
Aniold, the nineteenth-century English
literary and cultural theorist. Arnold argued
that great art was possible only when artists
themselves were exposed to a ferment of
ideas, to debates about multiple ways of
conceiving and representing reality, in short
to an atmosphere of critical activity.

So much has been made of Robert Paul's
isolation as an artist in the philistine
Rhodesia of the 1930s and 1940s that he is
in danger of becoming a figure from a
vulgarised European Romanticism. For the
Romantics the artist was an isolated inspired
genius, prophet and seer standing apart from
huinanity. Arnold regarded such an idea of
the artist as preposterous. He argued for art
as a social activity: the artist like any
cultured person must know the best that has
been said and thought at the present time for
only then could art intelligently explore life.

As the biographical sections of this book
show, Paul was frequently depressed and
withdrawn but then painting or writing is a
lonely business. The necessary solitariness
of painting should not be confused with
intellectual isolation. Something which
emerges very strongly from Colette Wiles's
biographical essay on her father — which
forms the first substantial chapter of the
book — is just how important to Robert
Paul's development as artist were his
furloughs in England. On his first return trip
in 19.34 he met John Piper with whom he
was to remain in contact for much of his lile.
He also travelled to Paris to look al Ihc work
of Cezanne, Picasso and Braque and
discovered Pierre Bonnard. In other words
Paul was never completely cut off from
developments in liuropean art and in his
later lile, when he was at his most prolific.
Patricia Broderick recalls how alter the
National Gallery library was established
Paul spent hours there.

The point that I am making is that the Robert
Paul who emerges from this book is a tough
and intelligent professional; endlessly
searching for technical solutions to problems
which had arisen in his painting: Martin van
der Spuy discusses his successful
experiments with rubber and gum resist;
Patricia Broderick suggests that the
discipline of mapping during his early days
in the police remained with him throughout
his life. As an accomplished painter he used
the viewfinder which he would have used on
his mapping exercises "to help him to frame
a view ... and [create] a successful and
dynamic composition within a rectangle."
Wiles, van der Spuy and Broderick all recall
his working at particular paintings over a
number of years but also that he was
professional enough to leave a painting
unfinished when the pictorial solutions
evaded him.

As Zimbabweans we are of course most
interested in the painter who more than any
other artist shaped our visual understanding
of our townscapes and landscapes and there
is a great deal in this book to show how Paul
identified essential features of both and
proposed ways of representing them.

Central to Paul's later development was the
burst of immigration after the Second World
War which by the 1930s had created a far
more cosmopolitan Salisbury than the small
town Paul had come out to in 1927 as a
young trooper in the British South Africa
Police. One immigrant was the South
.Mrican artist Fran(;ois Roux whom Paul met
in 1952. Roux's chapter in this book, the
reminiscence by one artist of another, is one
of its several highlights. Roux it is who
identifies the particular nature of Paul's
achievement: the man who left England
when he was twenty-one never presented
this country as exotic or tropically
glamorous. Instead he looked for and found
in the elements of whatever landscape he
was reproducing interdependences which he
realised could be rendered through complex
relationships of line, tone and colour w illiin
his paintings.

Roux is direct about the problems of the
social artist which confronted Paul as a
younger painter in this country. He remarks
that Rhodesians expected that their artists
should depict only "august objects ... For a
painting to he good, it had to he a super
picture postcard, a memento ... The reigning
motifs were 'balancing roclcs'. plain rx)cks
were not good enough; msasa trees only
when in colourful new leaf: 'The Falls'
when full." (fiOl Eor Roux. Paul's problem
was to steer a path between "the trite
j artistic] conventions of colonial society and
equally futile, uitconsummated flirtings of
the alntractionists." In fact Roux is wrong
in that last reiiuirk: Paul certainly
experimented with abstraction to see
whether It might provide one of .several
solutions which he wanted.

The challenge Zimbabwe's landscape
presented to Paul has recurred all over the
world where people from Europe have tried
to come to terms with what was for them a
new world. Paul, according to Roux, found
"form, cohesion, variety, vitality' in the
apparent nothingness "of nondescript grans
and scrubby bushes."

Paul's technique in providing that cohesion
and form is given an extended coverage in
Martin van der Spuy's chapter. Van der
Spuy begins his chapter with what is an
important observation. "While Paul learned
from painters such as Cezanne, Piper,
Hitchens or Van Gogh" van der Spuy
writes, "if is less a case of inspiration than
of responding to certain challenges." Paul
in other words was not interested in copying
the techniques of European painters but
rather in seeing whether in their work
techniques were available which would
allow him to rise to what his artistic
intelligence was challenged by. His
challenge was how to render in paint what
he saw in Zimbabwe and among van der
Spuy's several masterly analyses 1 draw your
attention to his discussion of four paintings
of jacarandas, that subject which has to be
placed alongside balancing rocks and msasas
as one of our iconic cliches. Paul's
jacarandas, which are illustrated with
excellent colour reproductions which
characterise the plates throughout the entire
book, refuse the fluffy clouds of mauve
which so often seem to be competing with
landscapes of European spring orchards.
Only one of the four in fact shows the trees
in full bloom and there the blossom is
reduced to abstraction, patches of pale
purple light against a black storm-filled sky.
A second of the pictures is dominated by a

crossroad — the jacarandas are almost
incidental. A third in van der Spuy's words
"is of jacarandas in winter when their leaves
turn yellow and the sky is hazy with grass
smoke."(69) Not only does Paul refuse the
beguiling colours of the trees but he
correctly places his jacarandas in the dry and
hard context of that period before the rains.

However important Roux may have been to
Paul, no individual can ever provide the
exchange of ideas which I spoke about at the
beginning. For Paul this came with the
founding of the Rhodes National Gallery
under Frank McEwen. Some of the more
moving moments in Wiles's biographical
essay are those where Paul, always diffident
about his abilities, finds that his work was
appreciated by people accustomed to judge
artistic excellence in a much wider context
than Rhodesia could possibly provide.
McEwen exhibited one of Paul's paintings at
the Imperial Institute in London where it
was greatly admired. But Wiles suggests
that Paul himself only recognised his power
as a painter when Brian Bradshaw who was
visiting director to the Gallery mounted a
retrospective exhibition of Paul's work in
1976. Wiles recalls him saying after he had
examined the two-hundred and fifty
paintings with their enormous diversity of
styles, media and subjects: "7 was amazed
when I saw them there. They looked so
nice."' (54) If after his retrospective, Paul
had any continued doubts about his abilities,
and Patricia Broderick's essay shows that he
often did, these should have been laid to rest
by his being honoured in 1980 by an
exhibition at the Pretoria Art Museum.
Unfortunately he was already too sick to
travel to Pretoria for the exhibition and died
months later.

Several points must be made about the
publication of this book. It is singularly
appropriate that it should be launched here at
Gallery Delta. Most obviously because it
was here in his house for forty years that so
much of Paul's work was produced. From
all accounts the garden was a tangle and the
house often chaotic but from tangle and
chaos painting after painting emerged
providing visual order and shape which
allow us to see Zimbabwe anew. But this
location for the book launch is also
appropriate because it is here that Gallery
Delta is now established. Delta over the
years has provided a site where critical
discrimination and selection are continually
taking place in the act of mounting the
exhibitions of the quality which we have
come to expect. These exhibitions are an
essential part of the ferment of ideas which I
spoke about before. They are criticism in
action. That implicit critical activity is also
made explicit from here in Gallery magazine
which Delta publishes. In Gallery at last is a
Zimbabwean forum where art is debated,
standards explored, theories explained and
all are tested on paintings made accessible
through an invariably high standard of
reproduction. This book can now be added
to that critical activity: it is an important step
in moving us on that long road from the
amateur and the provincial to the
professional and the metropolitan. Artistic
biography, technical and formal analyses
allow much of the complex power of Paul's
achievement to emerge. In Matthew
Arnold's words, through this book, we begin
to know Paul's paintings as belonging to the
best that has been said and thought in our
country. Anthony Chennells

forthcoming events and exhibitions

Crossroads at Gallery Delta in April will be
looking at new work by George Churu,
Tendai Gumbo, Crispen Matekenya,
Shepherd Mahufe and others. This will
be followed on 13 May by Tracks in Africa,
an exhibition of paintings by Helen
Kedgley and textiles by Suzy
Pennington, which is centred on the
experiences of these two New Zealand
artists in Africa. Richard Jacl< takes
centre stage in June with a solo show of
recent graphics and sculptures.

Architectural Designs, for the Catholic
University Competition, will be on show at
the National Gallery in Harare in early April.
Running concurrently will be a group
exhibition entitled Double Vision-Culture-
Time-Colour including work by Bulelwa
Madekurozva and Chiko Chazunguza
From the 16 April Ishmael Wilfred will
hold a one man show and opening on 23

April is an exhibition of posters by Chaz
Maviyane-Davies entitled Rights. Work
by final year BAT Students will be on
show in May as will photographs of the San
Bushmen by Paul Weinberg. June .sees
the opening of the annual Schools Exhibi-
tion.

A Woman's Place is the title of the next
exhibiton at Mutupo: The Totem Gallery
including works by Harry Mutasa, Chico
Chazunguza. Joseph Muzondo and
Tendai Gumbo. In mid-April there will be
a group show, Independence ... 17 views,
and from mid-May Itayi Njagu will have a
one man show.

From 27 March to mid-April, Isabelle Sig,
a French painter who has been living in
Mozambique for three years, and Zephania
Tshuma will have work on display, entitled
African Chronicles, at Pierre Gallery.

Following this in May, Lucky Mutebi, a
young figurative painter from Kenya will be
exhibiting.

Outside Gallery will be having an open day
on 1 3 April including works by their resident
artists as well as other offerings to raise
funds for the Buddhist Centre.

In April, the National Gallery in Bulawayo
will be showing photographs of Daily Life
in Zimbabwe by renowned French photogra-
pher, Philippe Gaubert, as well as work
by the Bulawayo Polytech students of
Applied Art and Design. Zambian graphic
artist, Patrick Mweembe, will exhibit
prints during May and in June, Beverley
Gibbs will have a solo show. Art From the
Midlands, also in June, will feature work by
Tapfuma Gutsa, Costa Mkoki, Nicole
Gutsa and other artists from the Gweru
region. 25

,-.:,-^':%i1iv-'-', ,j;.rv•

/ S

allery

The art magazine from Gallery Delta ^^

No 12

Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe

Gallery Delta, the publistier and the editor gratefully acknowledge
the following sponsors who have contributed to the production
of this issue of Ga/te.'y magazine:

ff^VoS

TINTC

The Rio Tinto Foundation

APEX CORPORATION OF ZIMBABWI LIMITED

Joerg Sorgenicht

S[|

•/u

ETWORK

s u I t a :

■ '■ -x.

NDORO

THE

Commonwealth

FOUNDATION

allery

I •

^-/

i ttf iii ftilWtt

Contents

June 1997

Depicting Human Rights : prints from South Africa
by Raison Naidoo

14
18

Crossroads by Derek Huggins

Image and Form by Margaret Garlake

Mbile International Artists" Workshop, Zambia : brief notes
by Barbara Munay

A Woman's Place : images of women in Zimbabwean society
by Christine Sylvester

Tracks in Africa: works by Helen Kedgley and
Suzy Pennington by Frances Marks

Still Searching: works by Sithabile Mhlotshwa
by Busani Bafana

25 Forthcoming events and exhibitions

Cover: Marlene Dumas, Billy Holiday (6 parts), 1994,

35 X 3 1cm each, ink on paper
Left: Suzy Pennington, Crossroculs, 1997, acrylic, collage

and procion dye on flax

Publisher: Derek Huggins. Editor: Barbara Murray. Design & Layout:
Myrtle Mallis. Origination: HPP Studios. Printing: A.W. Bardwell & Co.
Paper: Magno from Graphtec Ltd.

Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not be reproduced
in any manner or form without permission.

The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the writers
themselves and not necessarily those of Gallery Delta, the publisher or the
editor

Articles are invited for submission. Please address them to The Editor.

Subscriptions from Gallery Publications, c/o Gallery Delta, 1 10 Livingstone
Avenue, P.O. Box UA 373, Union Avenue, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Tel & Fax: (263-4)792135. e-mail: gallery@delta.icon.co.zw

Depicting

Art can be a powerful catalyst for change
and development within both the collective
and the individual human psyche. Riason
Naidoo, artist and education officer with the
Durban Art Gallery, writes from South Africa

When the Images of Human Rights Poilfolio opened at the Durban
Art Gallery on International Human Rights Day. 10 December 1996,
it was billed in a national newspaper as the most prestigious local
arts gathering of the year. This was not surprising considering the
line up of events for the opening which included dance, poetry
reading and live music. The exhibition was opened by Albie Sachs.
Justice of the Constitutional Court and long-time anti-apartheid
campaigner, who gave a sincere and emotional speech that was
greatly appreciated by the audience — an estimated 500 people
turned up at the gallery that night. Simultaneous openings were
going on at the Oliewenhuis Art Gallery in Bloemfontein. the King
George VI Art Gallery in Port Elizabeth and the Tathum Art Gallery
in Pietermaritzburg. It is also interesting to note, and appropriate
enough, that the new South African Constitution had been signed by
President Nelson Mandela only a few hours before the opening.

The portfolio contains twenty nine prints created by artists chosen by
regional galleries. Twenty seven prints were commissioned i.e. one
each for the twenty seven clauses of the Bill of Rights. Of the two
other prints, one is the frontispiece and one the endpiece of the
portfolio. A national relief print competition was organised for the
frontispiece with the winning entry created by Norman Kaplan, who
incidentally had also been chosen by the King George VI Gallery in
Port Elizabeth to depict Clause Two of the Bill of Rights. One South
African newspaper quoted Kaplan as saying that his idea was to try
to show the coming together of all the race groups in the country, the
forging of the rainbow nation, the forward movement and the march
of the people in the new dispensation. Kaplan, who left the country
after the 1976 uprising and established himself as a graphic designer
and film maker in the UK. now works and lives in Poil Elizabeth.

The twenty-ninth print, the endpiece. was done by .Ian .lordaan. an
established artist, lecturer and printmakcr from the Technikon Natal
Fine Arts Department. Jordaan's work is a fitting closure to the
portfolio as he had handprinted all the works of art (some 1628
prints) free of charge and for this contribution he must be
commended.

The participating artists reflect the range and depth of art in South
Africa and while some artists have a strong academic backgroimd.
others are self-taught; there is also adequate representation from both
rural and urban areas. The images are impressive in their vitality
and diversity of expression, as well as in the variety of techniques
and creative approaches in interpreting the different clauses of the
Bill of Rights. Participating artists include Azaria Mbatha. William
Zulu, Andrew Verster, Thami Jali. Phillippa Hobbs. Vendant
Nanackchand and Dominic Thorburii to rumic hut a few.

Clause One of the Bill of Rights is
"Equality". This is depicted by Margaret
Gradwell who is a lecturer in the Fine \n
Department at the University of Pretoria.
The artist has titled her woodcut A Fair Deal
and seems to focus mainly on the
relationship between uonian and man. The
third paragraph of Clause One states that
people may not be discriminated against on
the grounds of race, gender, sex, pregnancy,
marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour,
sexual orientation, age. disability, religion,
conscience, belief, culture, language or birth.
Gradwell has represented these issues in
small icons arranged in a circle that forms a
frame around the central image of a woman
and a man holding hands. There are
seventeen aspects in all which seem also to
refer to the signs of the zodiac. The circle
can be interpreted as a unifying factor which
is echoed by the spiral in the background that
forms another visual link belween the two
figures. The central figures appear to be
male and female archetypes rather than
specific individual representations and can
therefore be read as a comment on the
universal relationship between the two. The
figures seem to be united in a gesture of love
that may not necessarily refer to marriage.
The image has a sacred, ritualistic feel that is
emphasised by the stylistic and iconic
representation: the artist has further
accentuated the sacred t|ualil> by making full
use of the grainy quality that a woodcut can
provide to give the work an ancient and aged
look. Gradwell is cleariy influenced by
ancient art forms and the symbolism
associated w ill) llieiii.

Human Rights

hm Miirley's depiction of Clause Five of the
Bill of Rights, "Slavery, servitude and forced
labour", is an interesting and unique
interpretation. The image is entitled
Scn-itude is like the tide, it clumges. Marley
says that slavery and servitude are ongoing
problems that are always changing and that
these evils have to be guarded against
constantly. His interpretation does not
succumb to the literal association one might
readily conjure up but rather uses a poetic
analogy: a businessman who seems to be
drowning. Marley employs the image of a
modem man in a suit and tie to demonstrate
servitude to a capitalist society that is
obsessed with money. The businessman is
seen as a slave to the society and its
pressures, with which he complies. The
head of the figure, normally associated with
Midividuality, is completely covered by a
helmet with ox-like horns, emphasising
blind conformity to the world in which he
lives. The artist sees slavery, servitude and
forced labour as problems that are part of
our modern world and found at all levels of
society. (M;irley was bom m H)65 in
Gibraltar and came to South Africa as a
child. He completed a National Higher
Diploma in Fine Art at Vaal Triangle
Technikon and is currently a lecturer at the
Free State Technikon in Bloemfontein.)

(top) Ian Marley, Servitude Is Like The Tide, It
Changes (Clause 5 of the Bill of Rights "Freedom
from slavery, servitude and forced labour"), 1996,
51.6 X 35.5cm, woodcut

(below) Margaret Gradwell, A Fa/r Dea/ (Clause 1
of the Bill of Rights "Equality"), 1996, 34.5 x 30,4cm,
woodcut

Jonathan Comerford, Freedom of
Association (Clause 10 of the Bill of
Rights), 1996, 39.5 x 29.5cm, linocut

JciiKilhan Comert'ord was chosen to depict
Clause Ten which is "Freedom of
association'". Uniilce the other two work.s
discussed this is a linocut (of the twenty nine
vsorks, nineteen are linocuts the rest being
woodcut or relief etching). Comerford's
image is immaculate in its technique and
presents a fine example to future artists who
intend working in the medium. Not only is
the image technically sound but the
composition is also satisfyingly secure being
based on the age old principles of balance
and unity. The image is centred on two pairs
of hands facing in opposite directions and
visually united atthewnsis h\ bangles
(inspired b\ the artist\ own adornment )-
The upper pan of hands is shown in a fuiii
clasp where both hands are tense in
comparison to the lower hands which are
more relaxed and seem to be more in an
embrace. This symbol of unity is surrounded
by human figures that represent a di\ersit\ ol
people. The whole image is united as one
sculptural piece and stands out boldly against
the background, like a stamp on a blank
piece of paper (Comerford was born in
Cape Town in 1961 . He graduated from the
Ruth Prowse School of Art and spent two
years in print workshops in Scotland before
returning to Cape Town to set up Hard
Ground Printmakers. His work is
represented in most major public collections
around South Africa.)

The Images of Human Rights Portfolio is more than an exhibition of
prints of "art for art's sake". It is part of a greater art project
coordinated by Ainnesty International-South Africa, the Durban Art
Gallery and master printmaker Jan Jordaan along w ith \ olunteers
from related organisations such as Artists for Human Rights. A
portfolio of the twenty nine prints, in a limited edition of fifty, can be
bought for RIO 000. The money raised from the sale of portfolios
(monitored in a trust fund and accessed solely through Amnesty
International-South Africa) will be used to provide human rights
education primarily for the youth of South Africa.

To show its commitinent to human rights awareness the Durban Art
Gallery extended the exhibition's run until 16 February. With the
portfolio already being exhibited at the aforementioned galleries in
December 1996. it was also shown at the South African National
Gallery in Cape Town, the Pretoria Art Museum, and the University
of Durban Westville Art Gallery on National Human Rights Day
(South Africa). 21 March 1997. The portfolio will also be exhibited
at the Rhodes University Annex Gallery as part of the Standard Bank
National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in July and thereafter
displayed at the Albany Museum, also in Grahamstown. Such w ide
showing of the portfolio clearly demonstrates the support of the
visual arts community to the improvement of human rights in South
Africa.

This exhibition of black and white images is indeed powerful and
evocative. It reveals the potential and the power of art as a commu-
nicating tool in the world. The Images of Human Rights Portfolio is
a testament to the goodwill of the human spirit. Il augurs well for
the arts in South Africa.

Note: The Human Rights Porllolio exhibition can be viewed on the

internet on the Durban Art Gallery website at:

hltp://durbanel. a/tec. CO. /;i/exhib/dag/hr

People interested in buying a portfolio can contact the Durban Art

Gallerv: Tel (0.^1 ) .^00 62.16 Fax (0.11 ) .100 6.1.10

Derek Muggins,

owner and director

of Gallery Delta,

looks at the developments

over time and the works of

a group of painters who

are finding their way

forward in Zimbabwe

structures replace pole and dagga huts in the veld,
as settlements and growth points emerge, as the
wild places become the weekend playgrounds of the
rich from around the world. And along with it all
the people absorb into their culture, while
maintaining their tradition, that which they will and
what is useful to them and what they must to
survive. And if there be perception and sensibility
and honesty the artist must reflect these changes.
Those in the West who have an interest in
contemporary art in Africa should be receptive to
this change even if it infringes upon their vision of
Africa ... the Old Africa ... the Dark Continent ...

cross

Reviewing the exhibition Changing Directions in

June 1996. Andrew Whaley used the phrase "At

Crossroads'". He interpreted this as meaning that

the artists were themselves changing in their

directions rather than that the roads they have

chosen are changing the direction of art in

Zimbabwe. When contemplating a title for a

follow-up exhibition by the same group of artists

this year. Crossroads seemed relevant and

appropriate still, for a number of reasons ...

Africa is in change. Zimbabwe is in change.

These artists are the product of change and their

work reflects change and there is conflict

between the old and the new and thus we are at

crossroads. That there is always change is

inevitable and undeniable, but the pace of

change, with a new peace throughout the

southern African region, has quickened.

Economic progress, modernisation and

development accelerate and with such the

elements of opportunity and chance increase and

with them the probability for difference grows

accordingly and some traditional and cultural

conflicts are inevitable. We are victim or

beneficiary of those changes. Old boundaries are

pushed back with the effects of education,

communications networks and information

technology. There is settlement in virgin lands as

the eradication of the tsetse fly becomes complete

and suddenly there are too many elephant in the

inhospitable Zambezi Valley which is now

hospitable to settlers. There is a need to

subscribe to a cash economy and to earn money

to live rather than to be dependent on subsistence

farming and barter. The penetration by the

foreign media on all channels of communication

is insistent and the influence of the world ever

increases and along with it the influx of foreign

visitors. Harare is a fast growing city with all the

good that may bring, and all the evils also. The

old Africa is vanishing as inroads are made into

the terrain, as the land is fenced, as brick-built

and its art which is not lost but undergoing change
as surely as art has always undergone change and
which, if it is good and to be lasting, has always
been regarded initially with suspicion and reserve
and even rejection.

The artists of the Crossroads Exhibition are central
to this present critical juncture. All of them, now
aged between about 28 and 33 years, grew up and
were schooled in part during colonialism, all knew
conflict and war in their younger years and all
experienced the excitement of Independence from
colonial rule while at an impressionable age. All
must have had the dreams and aspirations that went
with that moment of Independence and all, no
doubt, learned that the struggle for them was to
continue. Further, all obtained a basic art
foundation training against a high density urban
background. Rudimentary though this education
was, as compared to a four year university degree in
other countries, it was an improvement over the
past. The initial training of young artists is,
however, just part of a process. Not all finish the
course. Luis Meque, for example, after about a year
at the BAT Workshop was expelled for a
misdemeanour. They are students and they finish as
students and their work is student quality, and the
danger of them foundering, in the after-school
vacuum without means of income or access to any
form of state/public funding for art. is immense.
As it happened, some students found their way into
commercial art and advertising, into publishing
houses as illustrators, some failed and a few
managed to find their way as fine artists.

From the early days of Gallery Delta, one of our
projects has been to hold annually, in the new year
of every year, a Students" and Young Artists"
Exhibition. This meant searching out and attracfing
the young, scrutinising their work, showing the best
and most promising, and thereafter, singling out the
most talented and challenging and involving them
further. Initially, the young were mainly whites

Luis Meque at Gallery Delta (photograph courtesy Galerie Munsterland)

who had committed themselves to ail
education in universities and polytechnics in
South Africa or overseas, or those who.
unable for lack of funds, were still involved
locally. Given a decade however, towards
the mid-eighties, these Students" and Young
Artists' Exhibitions were dominated by
young black African artists drawn from
Helen Lieros at Ilsa College, from Tapfuma
Gutsa's Utonga at Tafara. froin Paul Wade at
the BAT Workshop and from Mzilikazi Art
and Craft Centre in Bulawayo which
Stephen Williams was managing at that
lime. And it was from this matrix that some
semblance and vision of the future of
contemporary black African visual art —
graphics and painting — in the country
could begin to be discerned.

One of the early young painters we placed
some faith in was Fungai Makamanzi but he
opted for a commercially oriented career and
was lost to us. Iki Muringai was another
Richard Witikani. Luis Meque. Keston
Beaton. Crispen Matekenya Ishmael
Wilfred and George Churu were members of
the BAT Workshop contingent in the late
eighties who participated in these
exhibitions. There seemed to be a good crop
at that time. The works were mainly
graphics but a painting by Richard Witikani
is recaWed.Washing Line, in predominantly
orange and red. and a mental note was made
that here was a painter to be. It was
however, to Luis Meque. who was down and
out having been expelled from the BAT
Workshop, who came one day and while
viewing his most recent work on the lloor of
the gallery courtyard at Robert Mugabe
Road, that I was given to say, "You are a
painter. 1 can help you if you are prepared to
work. Go and draw anything and everything
that interests you ... people in all attitudes of
life and work and play ... standing, walking,
silting, lying, eating and drinking, at home,
in the streets, on the buses, at work, in the
markets. And come back in two months"
lime."" Returning in due lime he produced
hundreds of sketches and draw ings. It was
the sign to begin to promote Luis Meque up
the scale into group exhibitions of increasing
standard and this we began in 1990.

Il lakes three to five and possibly seven
years to grow out an artist after studies; time
for them to find themselves, to find a visual
language and a skill and proficiency to
malch and have them gain some recognition
and acceptance. It is a slow and patient
endeavour which entails frequent contact,
scrutiny and selection of the best work,
critical analysis, exhibition proniolioii and
exposure and indeed financial support by
way of loans or ad%anccs or other means ol
bridging finance during the Irequeiil times
when there are no sales to pro\ ide lor the oft
crisis. It is a labour and severely tries the
resources of an unsubsidised private gallery.
Luis Meque. perhaps because of his despair
and frustration and bcuig on the streets ot
Mufakosc. accepted gladly the challenges

wIiIlIi were offered and vsorked very hard.
In his early paintings most of his subject
matter was taken from Mufakose and the
streets of Harare. In a sense he continued
where Kingsley Sambo had terminated a
decade before, using the same subject matter
but in different way and invoking it with
more mood, feeling, atmospherics and
expression. He was to enjoy success, even
with his early paintings when he was still
trying to find himself and a way forward.
Des Gibson collected a few of these from
The Other Side at our old space where they
were exhibited in the Summer Show of
December 1990. The effect of this was. I
think, cyclonic for Luis Meque and the other
young artists of his ilk who were observing
his progress intently. They suddenly realised
and took faith that there was a chance for the
painters no matter how difficult the way
forward ... they did not have to become
Shona Sculptors to survive. I think this was
a major turning point, the beginning of a
revolution for the black painters.

But these were still early times in the
process ... everything had to grow up and
out. From early 1992. in addition to the
Students" and Young Artists' Exhibitions, we
commenced a series of shows — one or two
a year — entitled initially New Directions in
Contemporary African Art in Zimbabwe I to
about 5 into which we brought Luis Meque
and a few of his select contemporaries.
These led to Different Directions and then
Changing Directions and. in turn, to
Crossroads; promoting them as a group
because of their common background and
intent. And into these shows, growing out of
the Students' Exhibitions, came Fasoni
Sibanda and Hillary Kashiri out of the BAT
Workshop during the early nineties, as well
as the likes of Cosmos Shiridzinomwa and
Tendai Gumbo who trained at the Harare
Polytechnic also during the nineties.

Stemming from this series of exhibitions, we
were able on merit and standard to elevate
Luis Meque into our Prominent Artists'
Exhibitions, another annual, and at the
selection of Ingrid Raschke-Stuwe of the
Galerie Munsterland at Emsdetten.
Germany, into an international exhibition
and subsequently, to offer him and Richard
Witikani one-man exhibitions.

Crossroads, shown at Gallery Delta in April,
is the latest in the series of exhibitions of the
work of this group of painters — the product
and culmination of almost a decade. What
of it? Has it been worth the effort? Does it
all stand the test? Is it valid? Is it new and
different, involving and invoking change?

George Churu and Ishmael Wilfred take the
prime space. Ishmael Wilfred, who was
slow to evolve his own particular and
distinctive visual language, shows three
works whose titles — The Desperate
Cannibals. Monsters and Bearing the
Offering — speak for themselves. He is

Ishmael Wilfred, Bearing the Offering, 1997, 110 x 110cm, mixed media

(left) George Churu, Waiting For Decision, 1997, 102 x 81cm, mixed media
(right) George Churu, The Landlord, 1997, 101 x 65cm, mixed media

immersed, in his imaginings and feelings, in
the nether world, the realm of the
spiritualistic, of the dominions and
principalities that are ditTiciilt, particularly
as an African, to speak about and to depict
because they are the reserve of the secret
society, the witchdoctor, of superstition and
rite, charin and curse and fetish, as old as the
black peoples of Africa and invoking much
of tradition and custom that has been
concealed from Western eyes. But
courageously, he gives image to them, in
yellows and greens and reds, in a self-
purging analysis of these real fonns of his
dreams and in an effort to rid himself of their
mystery, their domination and fearful
qualities and as explanation of the
misfortune which has befallen him. Bearing
ihc Offering, his largest painting so far, is a
splendid work in its strength and rhythms
and its bold colours, and is about sacrifice
and his own personal crossroads.

By extreme contrast, George Churn's works,
several in oil on canvas, seem to reflect a
futuristic vision of an Africa beyond 2000,
of dwellings with arches inhabited by people
in rich and exotic clothing looking out on an
African landscape — Vi'aUing for a Decision
— implies that bureaucracy never changes.
His Landlord, an imposing, stem and
totemic figure juxtaposed against modern
housing, predominantly in blues, which
climbs a hillside and is of an unusual
architecture, seems to anticipate an
overcrowded, polluted and grim future. He
must be speaking out of real experience. His
Divorced Woman is as a mask that has been
exaggerated. It is distorted and cubistic. It
seems to have come naturally and
spontaneously and not as an afterthought or
copy of Picasso who borrowed from the
African mask. George has himself been
divorced. Good with graphics, particularly
woodcut, he accelerated his own change and
new direction in about 1 994 by the use of
collage; taking scraps from coloured pages
of magazines and arranging and sticking
them into forms in his sketch book. Later he
painted them out. The results had a surreal
feeling with diagonal and sweeping angular
lines and strokes full of tension. His search
for subject matter takes him to the landscape
also and he is capable of producing
exceptional imaginative compositions of
rocks and veld and hills which may include
the hut and the odd figure. George Churu.
small and slight of stature with perpetual
charm and ready smile, is a progressive.
He is the leader of his own church. He
prospects for gold too, and has pegged a
claim and is mining ore but still searching
for a good seam with enough pennyweights
to ensure viability. Art is a game of chance
but so is gold mining, as he has discovered
in this last season of phenomenal rains and
flooded mine shafts. But he continues to
laugh, and something of what he earns
from his art is transformed into picks and
shovels.

.Shepherd Mahufe shows us life in the
growth point at Juru on the road out of
Harare towards Murewa where he is
normally resident and which has become
characteristic of his work. Shepherd,
inexplicably rendered deaf and inute at the
age of four, attended a special school in
Gweru. He is able to sign, and read and
write and to cotnmunicate amazingly well.
His is a cheerful and popular personality
within a strong and muscular frame — he
plays rugby and has represented his country
— and is the leader and hero of a deaf
community based at Juru which, no doubt,
he flnancially supports in part. He has never
sought sympathy because of his disability ...
it is never mentioned or acted upon ... he
simply gets on and does. He will try and
experiment with everything. He is good
with graphics, particularly the woodcut, and
has turned his hand to weld art and ceramics.
An anecdote from his times at Helen Lieros"
studio: he had fashioned some hollow busts
with mask-like faces from clay and when
dry had painted them with PVA as a
substitute for glaze and then disappeared to
the yard. Given some time there was an
explosion. Shepherd appeared before his
tutor looking disappointed. When asked
what had happened he shrugged and made a
face and gesture of bewildered hopelessness
with his hands and, exhaling air, made a
"pauff ■ sound. He had put his treasures in a
dustbin, loaded it with paper and set fire to
all. He lost most of his work but some
survived and the resultant fiery
ainalgamation and crusting effects of the
paint were unique. He has now become
known as a painter In depicting the life and
surrounds of a growth point he works
through themes in series. We have seen
people crossing the road, uniformed children
on their way to school, water-carriers,
abandoned and derelict vehicles — old
Chevies. Morris Minors and Fords and
Mercs — and the landscape of the
surrounding rural area with granite gonio
and bush and brick-built dwelling.

In this exhibition he turns his attention to ihc
nameless local butcher, a big and bearded
man complete with traditional Western
striped apron who .stands to his electric-
driven cutting machine over a side of beef
There is no doubt that the figure which
dominates against the yellow background is
a real person, a character from Juru who
would be easily found and identifiable if
sought out. The feeling exists that this
butcher is as imponant to ShephertI Maluilc
as was the postman to Van Gogh. He
reinforces this interest in the butchery with a
painting of the butcher's a.ssistant who leans
back lazily while weighing out steaks and
further by a still life of a hanging side of
beef which inevitably recalls Soutine.
Would Mahufe know his work'.' "Probably."
says Helen Lieros. "I often talk art history
to my students. Soutine is one of my
favourites. But Shepherd's question always

It.^-™^

Shepherd Mahufe, Butchery, 1997,
117 X 83cm, mixed media

George Churu, Divorced Woman, 1997,
approx. 55 x 45cm, mixed media

(above right) Shepherd

Mahufe, Beef, 1997, 44 x 36cm

mixed media

(right) Shepherd Mahufe,

Butcher, 1997, approx.

50 X 45cm, mixed media

Richard Witikani, Suzen, 1997, 89 x 70cm, oil on paper

Fasoni Sibanda, Gambling, 1997, 82 x 93cm, mixed media

wiis Why dii we need to know about the
work of dead artists' What about now?"

By contrast, the painter undertakes The
Wcihling. oil on canvas, as alternative
subject matter and here we are confronted by
the happv couple in Western apparel outside
the reception hall. Between the bride and
groom, in the background among the
attending crowd, are two ominous and
ghoul-like faces which rather dampen the
spirit of the occasion and make us wonder
w hether the painter approves of matrimony.
He is unmarried. But in an accompanying
pair of smaller works on paper there is
luippiness as the couple dance their way up a
hill ... and these have all the charm and
feeling of post-impressionism from eastern
Europe.

Now to turn to Richard Witikani who
recently, in February this year, had an
mipressive solo show entitled Country Life.
.After leaving the BAT Workshop Richard
had pursued his artistic quest while earning a
living decorating ceramics. Drawing from
life — the people around him, his family
members and neighbours and fellow workers
— he translated them into oil and canvas and
oil on board in small format. He continued
with his graphics also by means of mono-
prints, depicting the people at nearby Ruwa.
at the stores, waiting for the buses and other
forms of human activity. Within the last
year or two he has taken, with great success,
to opening out on a wider and broader
format his painting of the rural countryside
and its people. In the odd past work — for
example. Reading the Newspaper, there is a
hint of Cezanne, and in others a flavour of
the exotic fervour of Gauguin, and when
asked if he knew the work of these painters
confirmed that he was an admirer of
Ce/.unne but knew nothing of Gauguin.
Richard is tall and good looking, of sober
and responsible habit and is married. We
have come to know his wife. Amai Dudzai,
and his children, his friends and fellow
workers including James The Potter.
through his paintings. He has the ability to
imbue what might be regarded by many as
ordinary people involved in mundane
activities with a special sense i.-'i stature and
capture them for posterity. Helen Lieros
talks of his unerring sense of composition
with enthusiasm. The best work of his on
this exhibition, one of three, is Suzen. Of
late. Richard Witikani has left his job at the
pottery and seeks a small-holding in rural
Goromonzi to grow crops and to work as a
professional painter.

\\\o olhLM artists uitlim the grouping —
lasoni Sibanda and Hillary Kashiri — are
the youngest, both aged about 2S years, and
were at the BAT Workshop during the early
nineties when Martin van der Spuy and Kate
Raath were teaching there. Both were born
and bred and educated w ithin Greater Harare
and they are city boys to all intents and
purposes. Fasoni has been resident in ,Scke

and Chitungwiza — the huge sprawhng high
density areas some twenty kilometres south
of the city centre — and from where he has
tal<en subject and content for his work ...
people carrying wood, the Seke market
stalls, people walking through the house-
lined streets in the dusk who often appear
anonymous and lonely. He is gifted with an
unusual and subtle colour sense — pale
yellow and blue and pink hues within the
background, and stronger and darker colours
to effect shade in the foreground as he
juxtaposes one against the other, working
against the light. His method is quick, using
broad strokes to structure his painting and to
invigorate it with spontaneous markings.
The best of his work on this exhibition is his
painting Gamhling which depicts a game of
pool and it is good for its unusual
perspective and structure in the background
and the intensity of the concentration of the
player in the foreground which travels
through his arm to the extended and braced
finger on which he is about to rest his cue.
Memorable too. was his painting of
Zengenza 4 Market which won him the
overall award for the best painter in 1994
and which illustrates admirably his contre
jour method of painting. Fasoni Sibanda is
gifted also with his line — drawings in pen
and ink — which is vigorous and full of
tension. He shows in his nervous manner
the sensitivity of the artist and feels the
financial pressure of modern living in Harare
acutely ... and his old yellow Volkswagen
has had to go. He seeks to establish a
screen-printing concern for T-shirts to
suppleiuent his income at which he would
do well if he was able to obtain the capital.

Hillary Kashiri increasingly turns to the
landscape — to broad areas of yellow
savannah and the rocks and kopjes — for his
inspiration. He moves away from the social
commentary seen in for example Going to
Work, a past painting. Hillary made a
breakthrough in his awareness of space,
structure and volume triggered by
experience of land and sea when attending a
Thupelo workshop in Cape Town in 199.'S.
He works acrylics on canvas or thick paper
and uses his brush in deft and nervous
dabbing gestures alternated by sweeping
strokes to effect seiui-abstract paintings with
good and harmonious use of striking colours
but is adept too in using the figure, the form
of which he begins to break up into
abstraction as in Reunion I and Reunion 2 in
a previous show. He is thoughtful in his
attitude to his work and deliberate in his
application of the paint, leaving less to
chance and effect. He is tall and lean in
physique with a bespectacled and studious
look; he is well educated and possesses
natural and genial charm. His painting After
Ruwa on this exhibition is notable for the
clarity of its colour and the the use of space
to effect the feeling of the expanse of the
grasslands to which so many respond for its
emptiness and vastness. His other paintings
— Epworth and Domboshawa — reflect this
mood also.

"^ >►

(top) Hillary Kashiri, After Ruwa, 1997, 56 x 76cm, acrylic
(above) Hillary Kashiri, Epworth, 1997, 20 x 24cm, acrylic

Luis Meque, Friends Series, 1997, 23 x 16cm, mixed media

The eldest and most senior member of tlie
core group under discussion is Luis Meque.
the painter whose origins are Tete and Beira
in Mozambique and who was part of the
diaspora caused by the civil war and who
sought refuge in Zimbabwe during the mid-
eighties. He was able to integrate into
Zimbabwean society, obtain brief foundation
art training at the BAT Workshop, suffer
rejection and thereafter become the
inspiration and pivotal figure and undisputed
leader in a new era of contemporary black
African painting in Zimbabwe.

What Meque did in the space of a few years
was to create a visual language that summed
up. through the people and their activities
and attitudes, life in and about the city, better
and more completely than any others before
him. He said once, when talking to Adda
Gelling: "I am black. I think black. And I
paint black. " Given to speaking little about
his work and shunning interviews this was
revealing. In his early work he would use
the figure in the foreground against a row of
shanty houses or a landscape but as time
passed he simplified the form by enlarging
the figures and allowing them to dominate
the painting and then as time progressed to
iiiuilmalise them. He came to this by use of
the larger format, the big brush and his
inherent intent to apply the paint with quick,
spontaneous gestures after looking long and
hard, and through his desire to gradually
move liiwards abstraction. Tliere is hardly a
city scene which has not met his .scrutiny
and he has taken us over the years from the
Midakose streets and their poverty to nights
out with the boys in the restaurants and bars
and clubs and tlesh-pots of the inner city.
His one-man exhibition Life on the Line in
1 9% said much of this. Other painters
seeking to emulate him and working from
sunilar subject find it difficult to render the
sante content as elfectively as Meque who is
able to imbue his work with expression,
mood and atmospheric. Somehow Meque
has been there before them. But in this
exhibition Crossroads, while preparing for a
forthcoming solo show, he exhibits only a
tew small works under the title Friends
Scries, painted on magazine pages, which do
not rellect him at his mo.st impressive.

Also show ing within this exhibition are
paintings by Cosmos Shirid/inomwa. Tendai
Gumbo and Justin Gope and sculptures by
Crispen Matekenya. Semina Mpofu. Keston
Beaton, Albert Wachi and Slanle\ Mapfnmo.

And what do the observers and the critics
say? Margaret Garlakc, a London-based art
critic in for a fleeting visit, said that it was a
huge leap forward in a short period for
contcmporarN painting in Zniibabwe and
given twenty years these painters and
paintings will be of tremendous importance.

Steve Fuller, an F.nglishman who worked in
/nnbabwe lor three or four vears and

\\ ;itched v\ ith interest the gmv\ th of these
paiiileis. continues to be excited. His
pertinent obser\;ition: the paintings are more
concerned with surface than with depth. His
reaction: don't bother to compare this work
with that of the West; far rather enjoy it and
glory in what is happening. His point about
the comparison to the West is refreshing for
those of us — the whites — who, stemming
from a Western tradition find it difficult not
to compare because of our culture and the
ine\ itable draw of the metropolis and the
tendency to wish for its interest and seek its
sanction — Africa "93 and all of that. We
must take stock of where we are — we live
and work in Africa and we must do what we
have to do as best as we are able with that
which we have around us and not look over
our shoulder to the West. We are different
from the West. We must be ourselves.
Certainly, these young black painters are
being theinselves and revelling in their
beings, in their Africanncss, and in the
discovery of subject and content in the life
aroimd them. Luis Meque: "/ iiiii hUick. I
think black. And I pciiiU hhick." He resists
looking at a Western art book because he
does not want to open himself to influence
but he has travelled. And Shepherd Mahufe
who questions why he needs know anything
of dead Western painters. Frankly, they
don't care. The identification and
appreciation in their work of the truth of the
life in contemporary Africa is being
recognised and they are being
enthusiastically collected by resident whites
of all walks of life, as well as by expatriates
and discerning visitors and collectors.

With the help of the art institutions — the
National Gallery and its BAT Workshop, Ilsa
College and the Harare Polytechnic which
was to establish a fine art course under the
leadership of Pip Curling during the early
nineties — and Gallery Delta, sufficient
support and encouragement has been found
to enable a few young painters to practise a
fine art career and to develop. Their work
has been exhibited regularly in the Annual
Exhibition of the National Gallery where
Luis Meque, Fasoni Sibanda and Ishmael
Wilfred have each won, and in almost
successive years, the overall award for best
painter Theirs has been a concentrated,
highly competitive learning and exhibition
process, for some extending over a period of
nearly ten years, and which makes them
experienced painters. Their visual language
is being and will be emulated by others. It is
interesting to compare their careers at home
in Zimbabwe over the past ten years with
those seemingly more fortunate young
artists, stemming from a similar background
who were to study outside the country, in
Canada and Bulgaria for example. In my
opinion they more than hold their own and
have, in fact, gained by remaining at home
and now are the known and confirmed
leaders in contemporary African painting in
the country and the founder members of a

group. The first are always the most
important ... and these are the first of a new
expression which continues to develop.

It is for these young painters to accept
greater responsibility in furthering the new
way with courage and to maintain their
honesty, sincerity and integrity, and
undertake, in their work, other issues that
need be looked at also. They are leaders.
This is their challenge, theirs is the future of
contemporary African visual art in
Zimbabwe because they are African, because
it is their time, because it is theirs to do, and
because they have all the means to do it
well, and in doing so. they must in their turn,
make their contribution to others.

We have looked at se\en core young black
Zimbabwean painters. What do they add up
to in artistic and cultural terms'? At which
Crossroads are we now?

Pip Curling, in a recent article, says of this
Crossroads Exhibition that the young artists
will ".siiivly he kninvii in the future as the
School of Harare" . Is it a school? The
painters themselves have not made any
endeavour to define their thinking and work
into statement or manifesto or to vocalise
such. While there are some common
denominators in the antecedents, region,
background and studies, they are not
working under the influence of a single
master nor do they practise the same style.
The grouping has been highly selective for
puiposes of encouraging standards and a
form of expression and has evohed. post
studies, through the life the artists
experience and the exhibition process.
Perhaps more time is needed to see if the
artists themselves wish to coin a name and if
the future does in fact determine them as a
group or a school.

What 1 tend to see and feel, and it may be an
interesting but difficult discourse, is that we
are experiencing in Zimbabwe a black
African post-impressionist and the
beginnings of an expressionist period m
painting. This comes about by means of a
peaceful situation and economic growth, by
formal tuition in the basics of good drawing
and painting in the Western tradition, and by
a new and more acute awareness among the
young painters of the life around them and
their situation within it and their need and
readiness to record it. Their manner of
expression is neither slick nor amateur,
neither Western nor idyllic, nor is it geared
to ready sales. Instead, their painting is bold
and fearless in colour and content — not
openly political but perhaps indirectly so as
a commentary on poverty and the ills in our
society. It looks closely at life around them
and is spirited and expressive. This amounts
to a turning away from the old to the new,
from the traditional system of tribal etiquette
with its referral to kraal head, to sub-chief,
to chief and down again, and from the

anonymity of the crallsman who never
signed his name to the growth of the
indi\ idual.

And in their quest as painters to record the
life around them, they are encountering and
meeting the same and similar artistic
problems and challenges that confronted the
exponents of post-impressionism and
expressionism in Europe and finding
solutions in the same or similar manner.
Should this be so. does it matter? We know
that the posl-inipressionists borrowed from
the Japanese and that Picasso and his
contemporaries borrowed from Africa to
effect cubism and that these are accepted
without challenge. So what if black African
artists find their way into what is for them
and Africa a new way? They are engaged
and may come out with some different
solutions and some new ways.

They are black Africans and despite a
hundred years of colonial influence they
retain their Africanness and which, in any
event, makes their work different — the
subject and content may be universal but the
view, the approach and the colour is a
continent away. That there will be those
who subscribe only to the old African art. to
the view that Africa should continue to be
'authentic' and without influence, is certain,
but they are out of their time ... and are
guilty of the same accusations which were
levelled at the colonialists, those of failing to
educate and failing to recognise the right of
self determination. There has inevitably
been influence in the assessment of that
which is seen to be good and exhibited, but
as regards the actual choice of subject and
content and expression the artists have foilfid
their own way in a contemporary modern-
day situation. The whole process has been
one of attempt and gradual growth and
continuing experiment.

What is certain is that black African
contemporary painting in Zimbabwe, atler a
slow and torturous start — the Cyrene
Mission School of the forties and fifties, the
Mzilikazi School and the Workshop School
of the sixties — has come into its own. In
this some of us can exhale a deep and
thankful sigh of relief and take pleasure in
the new and different.

The fact is that black African painting in
Zimbabwe has never been stronger, never
been better and is now established as a
legitimate and worthy means of expression
with a future life.

If there has been influence it comes from
their training and experience in observing —
they can look with the eye of an artist in the
Western tradition, but they see with the eye
of an African in Africa.

*:i>

Following up on the interest generated by Africa '95, the School
of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of
London mounted an exhibition of prints, drawings and sculpture
from southern Africa and Nigeria earlier this year.

mmmm

■taf

(above) David Koloane,
Untitled drawing, 1995,
70 X 100cm, pencil on
paper

(right) Marlene Dumas,
Magdelena XII, 1996,
125 X 71cm, ink on paper

(left) Bruce Onobrakpeya,
Orhare Orise (Spirit Well),
1985-88, 69 X 23cm,
plastograph

(next page) Deborah Bell,
A Rake's Progress (1 of a
series of 8), 1996, etching

"/ hope thai the ideii of an 'authentic'
African art unsullied hy contact with other
cultures can finally he laid to rest as African
mtists deveUtp their own voice ami their
work becomes sufficiently well known to
create its own context. Artists everywhere
have always borrowed from anywhere thcx
can find inspiration: the question is whether
the art stands for itself not whether the
imagery is related to forms that resemble
those found in other cultiire\."
■ 4 Robert Loder

"This is not to deny change and
development: that would he worse than
silly: hut rather to insist that past and
present belong in the same story, that it is a
story of loss and gain, of innovation within
existing traditions of practice and oj new
ways of art making. Of course, the
relatiimship between past and present will
differ from place lo place as a function of
complex inlcrworking elements. These will
include the substance of the traditioits of the
jHisl. their institutional bases, the luiture
and expectations of local patronage, the
adaptability of an older tradition, the
willingness of artists to experiment, anti so
on and so lorth: and all this in the I^Mh luul
2l)th centuries within further contexts oJ
oppression iuul appropriation."

John Picton

"Young artists in a new nation, that is what
we are! We must grow with the new Nigeria
and work to satisfi her traditional love for
art or perish with our colonial past ... This is
our age of enquiries and reassessment of our
cultural values. This is our renaissance era!
... Our society calls for a synthesis of old
and new. of functional art and art for its own
stike ..."
UcheOkeke(1960)

" Techniques arc Just one side oj the nicillcr
Prints have the capacity to reach many
people. Therefine the ideas conveyed in
them become very quickly dispersed. I have
used the prints to draw attention to inir
mxlhs. legemls and history, and to present,
in visual fnins. our time-honoured
pliilosopliics and to comment on current
problems."
Bruce Onobrakpeya (1985)

age

orm

Some quotes from

the catalogue to

Image and Form

selected by Gallery.

"A new breed of artists has been emerging
from the community art centres. A
distinguishing factor between them and the
older generation is that they are bolder in
their creative expression and better
educated. Their expression is in most cases
uncompromising and reflects their inner-
most feelings — ;'; does not merely reflect
the environment as their predecessors ' work
did. ■■
David Koloane (1989)

"Many of the artists, including one of the
first to qualify. John Muafangejo. have
developed Mbatha 's use of registers, and of
livelv ensembles of stylised figures.
Typically they employ black figures on a
white ground, with linear detail cut away to
read as white lines. The prints have a
'readable' narrative qucdity, well suited to
the biblical stories they so often represent.
Similar elements in the prints of other artists
may tell another tale, the story of
suppression under apartheid. The black-
and-white linocut has had an important
didactic role in South Africa, not only in
religious prints, but as a social vehicle in the
Years of tin- liberation struggle. "
Elizabeth Rankin

"//; a recently published account David
Koloane writes about the tragedy of South
African politics and the violence it had
unleashed. The rabid dog as predator 'is in
essence the personification of unleashed
terror and destruction which plagues the
communities '. Yet in discussions with me
about the same subject matter at various
times over the past couple of years, he has
spoken of dogs in other ways also. The
townships were indeed plagued with stray
dogs: but sometimes you could tame one of
them and it would become your pet. The
image of the dog could be construed as an
image of terror and violence: yet it could
also remind you of some of the fonder
memories of township life. Then again, dogs
could roam at will. Unlike black South
Africans, dogs had a freedom they did not
have: and yet dogs might well get rim over
b\ passing motor vehicles. They too were
subject to the same violence as people.
Dogs, like people, could be the victims of
brutality as well as its perpetrators. As an
index of the complexity of interpretive issues
involved in image making in that coimtry, as
indeed throughout the continent, it provides
Li fitting conclusion to this essay."
John Picton

Margaret Garlake writes a brief review of Image and Form

Among the exhibits in Image and Form was Reinata Sadhimba's
Robert, a substantial clay figurine. Precariously poised on oversize
feet, he grins amiably beneath sunglasses and a battered straw hat.
Robert is, of course. Robert Loder, from whose collection this
exhibition was almost entirely drawn. The portrait is inexact, but it
indicates Loder's receptivity and engagement. He
is. perhaps, most familiar as the co-founder of the
Triangle Workshops. These, as is well known, had
progeny in workshops in various southeiii African
countries, including Zimbabwe's Pachipamwe. Like
Triangle, they have sought to stimulate new work
through the confrontation of diverse artists and
practices. Recently the Loder enterprise has
expanded to form the Bag Factory in Johainiesburg
and Gasworks Studios in London. His private
collection reflects his multifarious energies and
Miterests. A few years ago his paintings filled the
vast industrial space of the now defunct Atlantis
Gallery in London. Image and Form took place in
the Brunei Gallery at the School of Oriental and
African Studies. In this more modest space it was
confined to prints and sculpture.

In this admirably selected exhibition confrontation revealed itself as
a dialectic between modernity and tradition. In his introduction to
the catalogue Loder properly dismisses any notion of an essentialist
African" art as a repository of cultural authenticity: nevertheless he
accords the 'traditional' a much greater import than it carries in
western Europe today. The gulf between Marlcne Dumas" ink-
drawings (which look remarkably like monotypes) and Bruce
Onobrakpeya's intricate prints with their lace-like textured surfaces
illustrates the aesthetic poles of the exhibition. Dumas, born 20
years after Onobrakpeya, lives in northern Europe and is deeply
immersed in feminist discourse. Onobrakpeya is a senior Nigerian
artist, who has devoted himself to deseloping a s\ nthesis between
innovatory print techniques and traditional imagery.

(top) David Koloane, Untitled drawing, 1993, 70 x 100cm,
pencil on paper

(above) Reinata Sadhlmba, Robert, 1995, h. 68cm,
baked clay

(rigtit) Marlene Dumas, Magdelena III, 1996,
1 6 125 X 71cm, Ink on paper

No less evident was the dialectic between Segun Faleye"s carvings (a
drum, a painted Epa mask) and Da\ id Koloane's drawings which
together emphasised the many senses of 'commuiiitN ", the one
concerned with Nigerian rituals, the other with urban deprivation in
South Africa. Or there were John Muafangejo's showy black and
white linocuts, made at the Lutheran church's art centre at Rorke"s
Dnit, to be set against Deborah Bell's ,4 Rake's Rrofires.s. The
subject matter i)\' Miiafangeio's prints ranges from industrial action
bv miners to the fabric and congregation of his church. The\ are
unei|ui\ocally located iii .i specific place ami ciilluie. albeit one that
may change rapidly and lundamentally. Bell, on the other hand,
despite taking a subject identified with eighteenth-century London,
turns her Rake inlo a woman ami lemlcrs the theme placeless and
universal.

(below) Segun Faleye, Ogboni Drum, 1991, 122 x 46cm,
carved wood and skin

(right) John Muafangejo, Our Church at Rorke's Drift,
1968, 84 X 48cm, linocut

(below right) Deborah Bell, A Rake's Progress
(1 of a series of 8), 1996, etching

photo credits: Peter White and Christopher Moore

Her lactic is. like Dumas' drawings, more post-modem than
'modern', a shift that can only exacerbate the problems, enumerated
by John Picton in his catalogue essay, faced by the contemporary
collector of African art. The very existence of African art has been
questioned, particularly insofar as it embraces modernity, since
Western preference has been for an indigenous art that is visibly
■primitive' (a Western invention with a thoroughly discreditable
history).

The catalogue for Image and Form* is a detailed and valuable
production. By bringing together some previously published but
inaccessible essays with others that were specially commissioned the
editor has made available a considerable amount of infomiation that
underlines the diversity of current practice and working conditions in
today's .southern Africa. Diversity is exemplified by the distance
between Dumas' renderings of women's bodies, always the same yet
infmitely differentiated through the unpredictability of the ink
medium, and the relentless materiality of clay, with which Noria
Mabasa explores the inescapable predicament of twins. Then there
are the groups into which artists gather for learning, stimulus and
survival: not only workshops, but long-term support schemes such as

^- -^^ ^- S' |,„|i -- ' • •' 1-^ M

^^mk a|^t^fB3f>*^^;

the Polly Street Art .Centre in Johannesburg and the Kuru Art project
in Botswana. There is a sense in both the publication and the
exhibition, of reciprocity between centre and periphery, a condition
in which the "centre' is a fluid category which corresponds to the
multifarious interests and activities of the collector and art
entrepreneur.

*John Picton ed.. Image and Fonn. School of Oriental and African
Studies, University of London. 1997.

Image and Form will be shown at Edinburgh College of Art as part
of the 'Scotland Africa' season, 10-30 August 1997.

f' if/. rciM-fi Or iat/'ical

Julia Malunga (Zambia),

Street Beggar,

1997, acrylic on canvas

Brief notes by Barbara Murray

Mbile International

Artists' Workshop,

Siavonga, Zambia,1997

In early May. 27 artists from 12 countries as
Liiituraliy diverse as Cliina. Equatorial Guinea.
Finland and Namibia spent two weeks immersed
In art-making at the Mbile Workshop in Zambia.
Pari of the inlernalional workshop niovemenl
toinided in the 70s by Robert Loder and Anthony
Caro which has proved to be inspirational ground
tor so many southern African ai^tists, this 4th
Mbile Workshop successfully created an
environment in which usually isolated artists
li\ed. worked and experimented together.

Fourteen days and nights of intense activity, of
sharing techniques, media, ideas, experiences,
problems, jokes and music, produced an eclectic
mix of work. Notes received from Hilkka Ikonen
of the Finnish Embassy in Zambia (one of the
main sponsors) indicate that one of the highlights
o\ the workshop was a night performance piece
by Finnish painter. Ahti Isomaki: A fire was lit
on the beach where the artist sat contemplating
bis paintings. After some time he proceeded to
burn his paintings along with his painter's jacket
and cap. A woman symbolising Africa entered
the scene, presented him with a drum and began
to dance around the flaming canvases as he
drummed. When the fire died down they left
hand in hand. This description of Isomaki's
performance generates thought, but. for me at
least, the dominant response is: Haven't we been
here before ... several times ... in several guises
over the centuries ... none of which were
particularly auspicious for Africa?

Isn't It about time that she/Africa stopped being
so generously entertaining, seductive and
submissive, took up the paints and brushes, faced
the canvas and got on with some work?

Some moments of Ahti Isomaki's performance, 1997

Kenneth Chulu (Zambia), 1997

A comment, which has relevance for artists in
many countries besides Zambia, was made by a
foreign artist at the workshop: "Great hut it is
(ilnioiis thai the Zamhian artists in particidcir
lack the hasic traiiiiiif; in art. in ihawinf;. which
would compliment their obvious i;reat talent in
pinnting and sculptinii. One must learn the
basics lirst to briiii; out the talent there is. in
full:'

Facilities and opportunities for the development
of art are severely limited in Zambia, moreso
than in many other southern African countries,
and the sponsors and organisers of Mbile are lo
be applauded for their support and energy. The
Mbile Workshops are undoubtedly having a
beneficial impact on the visual arts. Perhaps this
coupling of Africa and Europe on a dark beach in
Zambia will produce a new generation, for
Africa.

(top) Milton Zihumwe,
Home Alone, 1 997,
57 X 45cm,
oil on canvas

Christine Sylvester, visiting lecturer
from the University of Australia and
a specialist in gender studies, writes
her impressions of the exhibition of
work by various Zimbabwean artists

A Woman's Place:

images of women in Zimbabwean society

She is ... is it shy, curious but suspicious? Only part of her heavy
featured face and stocky body is this woman willing to expose to our
scrutiny. She is not inviting us closer or offering hospitality in her
rural home. Wrapped in a modest flamboyance of colour, her mien
is private and guarded. Her place is Home Alone. This small
painting by Milton Zihumwe is. to my eye. one of the more
compelling portraits of 'a woman" in the show at Mutupo. The place
it depicts is ordinary and the figure called to our attention as a
woman could be anyone: indeed it could be somone other than a
woman. The moment of uncertainty in viewing "her" turns us shy,
curious, maybe suspicious.

The layout of the exhibition, A Woman's Place, at Mutupo: The
Totem Gallery, encourages contradictions even when, as is often the
case, the artwork does not. Casting a modest eye at all who enter the
first room is Locardia Ndandarika's Nltoitfiora Mutsipa (Shona for
"a most beautiful girl with a long neck and good behaviour'). Her
superlative beauty lies, apparently, ni her passivity, her malleability
set in stone. Slim shouldered, prominent of pleasant face, she is
framed by an ordered halo of hair, eyes cast somewhat downward,
face expressionless but balanced. "She' will cause no one who enters
the gallery harm (or great excitement).

Behind her to the right, however, Nicole Gutsa confronts us with a
large skeletal "woman" as doll, of uncertain race, wearing a pirate"s
hat. She stares out in very bad behavior from her one functioning
eye (the other is gouged out). She shows us her kwepi-doll-red oil

rouge, a perfect circle, and her red-coned breast. She looks, is made
to look, silly and. simultaneously, crucified, her long arms stretched
out. a leg kneeling, awkwardly, brokenly. We Were Once Warriors
... and then'?

Flanking Mrs Good Behavior on the left is Tracy Zengeni"s pair of
mixed media Moslem women in Conversation at a Street Comer.
Their bodies are in profile, stiffly so; their faces made to look like
unset caramel fudge. Grotesquely muddy, those faces warn us off;
they are not curious about us. confrontational, suspicious or shy.
They are simply with themselves in a place of mutual words and
bilateral intelligence.

There are found objects in the room too. Peter Kangware presents
us with a medium-sized scrap metal "woman" Searching and
obviously, not finding. She is eccentric: chains of little pulleys are
her hair, arms wiry, gaunt, a possibly tattered skirt (the usual
costume of "woman"). All this is constructed around an oversized
purse slung around her neck to the front. It is full of "things"
through which the strained downcast head and eyes sort. We can
only imagine the nature of the search, the reason(s) for it. and crane
our necks to look in too. She is too busy to notice our complicity

The eye looks for a bit of relief and thinks it finds it in Colleen
Madamombe's Widow, a charmingly lively though lonely older
woman. 'She" is not large but has been given a powerful
springstone bulk framing a fat serpentine face and neck. She leans

loward the viewer, not for support, not beseechingly, but not without
.some pain as well ... that right hip hurts.

Behind her hang two paintings of startling contrast. I pull a face at
Harry Mutasa's Women Gossipiiif;. No conversation a la Zengeni's
Moslems, but gossip — the outsider's view of sociable 'women'.
His accompanying painting is also predictably titled. My Pregnuni
Wife I. But is it meant to be the first study of his one wife in
pregnancy or his first of several wives pregnant? We are curious,
perhaps suspicious. Here a man's blocky head is fauved in greens.
reds, shades of brown and yellow. The mostly yellow 'wife' turns
her head down like some African madonna. Her features blur into
cheeks and her jaune hair marks the second halo of the show. She
cradles her belly with over-large hands and oddly spliced fingers curl
around a quilt of a dress. The scene is domestic, supportive, an
unborn child already loved and given place. Mutasa's scrappy
Unwanted Piei;ncincy then turns the theme around. This small
"woman' holds her head vice-like between her own solitary hands.
Indifferent to her posture, she is locked in mental torment.

By another contrast, still in the first room of the exhibition. Bulelwa
Madekuronzwa gives us What Was Women's Work — a glimpse of
dignity, repose, untortured concentration. In profile, she' is making
a piece of pottery, whether in a factory setting or as an individual
artist is ambiguous. As many of the faces around, hers is turned
down; but she is not unhappy or submissive. Her muscled worker
hands and neck pull with energy. Her hair falls forgotten across her
forehead. She too is yellow garbed, an unexpected off-set of frills
against an absorbed manner. What 'was' in the title is now before us
in oil, and both moments impress. This painting is already bought.
No wonder.

There is more here but more again in the second room with titles like
Awakenings, Time to Move, Village Women and Chief's Beer. The
latter two are by Mr Searching, posters on canvas. Kangware's
sense of these 'women' is rural, working, not evidently maternal.
Women as sturdy, physically formidable people — no one's fools but
few observers' idea of developmental progress either. The Village
Women pound, overseen by a bare-chested man with little to do with
his arms except hold them akimbo. Everyone is boldly outlined,
vividly coloured.

I am not especially awakened by Chiko Chazunguza's screen printed
Awakenings, but am drawn to another canvas by Bulelwa
Madekuronzwa. Time to Move shows women and children in transit,
possibly moving permanently through a blur and haze at a typical
transport centre. Their bodies tluidly blend with the background,
unoutlined, unfixed. They might be rurally placed, but now, packs
on their heads, children at their legs, they become less easy to freeze-
frame, less susceptible to oversight, less secure too; they are
nonetheless in a common enough place of impermanence.

Kwangare again, in metal. Again his second room 'women' move.
Fetching Water and Weeding. Like his paintings, but more effective
for standing free of a scene, these rural women are unflinchingly
embodied, productive, not resigned so much as simply and totally
occupied. Amidst their straining physiques stands Nicholas
Mukombcranwa's stone carving of Our Life in Her liody. It is
masterfully placed, allowed to be wistful in a room of labour. This
"she' is the contemplative moment behind the work-derived
athleticism of her compatriots. Her long neck is unspoiled by toil, at
least in her dreams, yet there is the hint of the ubiquitous swell at
middle that affiances her to the pregnant ones of the first room and
to the women and children moving lives through their bodies.

There is yet another room. Straight ahead is Agnes Nyanhongo's
Sisters. These rock-steady twinned heads look up at all comers with

full curiosity and no shyness. Not loo busy working to notice those
around them, the sisters look ahead, eager for interaction.
Hilariously contrasted to this sculpture is Lazarus Takawira's My
Beautiful Wife, a singular unbeauty who has her stone back to all
entrants to the room and who, as well, scorns the sisters. This 'wife'
with ambiguous sex is vain, fully self-centred and meanly
judgemental. 'She' prefers the outside framed by the room's
windows to the 'mere women' surrounding her ... or so she is
chiselled and placed. Meanwhile, Semina Mpofu's scrap metal
Woman Pumping Water works away, her manual labour sustaining
the 'sisters' openness to the world and the vanity of the 'wife'. And
yet her small frame is overpowered by the elaborate and heavy pump
— the technologically cumbersome pump — she is using. It is her
complicafion.

There are mothers here in this third room. Heavenly Motlu-rs in
screen print hy Chiko Chazunguza. Their physical ma'ernity is
unmistakeable: three sexed bodies, each with a black baby head at a
large milk-bottle breast. The 'women' talk through the nursing,
animated skeletons all. like a moment of lively death-life in a
Mexican Day of the Dead celebration. Their indefatigability defies
the death of maternal woman and also defies attempts to variegate
women. These are cheerfully interchangeable mothers.

Overshadowing everyone in this room, including an acrobat in bright
red costume and a woman painted with head cut off above the lips,
glancing over her shoulder at us. caught in a room of men dolls
devoid of expression on their faces (both by Ann Simone Hutton), is
Misery. 'She' is Stephen Garan'anga's painting of a large woman-
like human fatigue spot, head over arms over a red travel bag. Her
feet bare, 'she' sits on a barrel rather than a proper chair. She is not
going on holiday, nor is she of a mind to nurture.

Backing away from misery and out into the first room again, there is
Ronnie Dongo's African Princess daring anyone to displease her.
She is all springstone and serpentine resistance and grandness. She
may be a princess, but she is off-puttingly vain, not well-beha\ed.
not in any way shy or suspicious — or even curious. She works at
something other than the chief's beer, other than Picking Garbage
(Garan'anga) or the Bathing Time (Alex Lees) of mothers to
children. She waits, but not in the resigned languidness of Fasoni
Sibanda's Long Waiting. There is little .searching in her eyes.

A Woman's Place is an oxymoron. There is no one woman or place
where 'she' is imagined to dwell. At the same time, most places
'she' occupies in this exhibition are predictable, even in their
contradictory evocations. So many places are not imagined for
something called a 'she' — office buildings, political events, in the
sex trade, in the classroom, on the television. So many shapes are
foreclosed by the strong commitment to figuration, often to
anatomical correctness, as marks and places of 'woman'. There are,
in other words, self-imposed limitations on these artistic renderings,
such that 'woman', although often well-presented, is also cliched
and unadventurous. We all know a woman when we see one. Do
we? Is woman not an abstraction, a story, a fable, a little cloth? Is
'she" never a quick splotch of colour, a line, two lines? What one
portrays as woman depends on where one looks and what one
expects of a category of identity, what one insists on making
concrete.

Doreen Sibanda is to be complinienlcd for her daring show in a city
that all too frequently showcases men and their images of 'placed'
women Bui one coiiiiiuics the search ... (or those 'things'
undepicled here, those allusions not chosen, as well as those that ring
the bells of recognition: for all those things that may lie at the
bottom of 'woman's' carry bag, out of vision, not easily figured,
strange, elusive, curious and suspicious.

(top left) Nicole Gutsa, We Were Once Warriors,
1997, 208 X 119cm, oil on cloth

(above) Harry Mutasa, My Pregnant Wife /, 1997,
oil on canvas

(left) Bulelwa Madekuronzwa, Time to Move,
1997, oil on canvas

M^i iR tie

I lclu^^ ill miiud

Art historian and lecturer at the
Harare Polytechnic, Frances
Marks, takes a thoughtful look
at the interpretation of landscape
in the work of two New Zealand
artists recently on show
at Gallery Delta

The Colour of Memory
works by Helen Kedgley
and Suzy Pennington

Helen Kedgley, The Colour of Memory,
1997, acrylic and collage on canvas

Suzy Pennington, Paths of the Ancestors —
Limestone Land, 1996, collage, stitched cotton
and procion dye on canvas

m^-^^"^

Images which recreate views of personally or uiii\ersully important
landscapes need not always revolve around the conventional combination of
horizon, fore and middle ground, all from a striking perspective. This is
clearly shown in the May exhibition of recent work by Helen Kedgley and
Suzy Pennington.

Instead. Tracks in Africa — The Colour of Memory (Gallery Delta, May
1997) details two highly individual responses to the land: the emotional
effects of particular landscapes on man and woman, and the impact of time,
myth and humankind upon the earth. Uniting both approaches is the attempt
to reveal the spiritual life, past and present, buried beneath surfaces.

Neither artist is new to Zimbabwe nor to Gallery Delta. Helen Kedgley was
resident here for three years and Suzy Pennington has travelled extensively
through Zimbabwe. As the llrst part of the exhibition title suggests, an
underlying theme of part of their work is to reveal the impact of their separate
experiences and recollections of the Zimbabwean landscape and culture. Yet
the images displayed are much more than visual correspondances to memories
of a particular country. With the exception of Pennington's African Journey
Tripmli. all the works lay a second and more powerful emphasis on an
awareness of the artists' immediate surroundings — New Zealand. As a
whole this exhibition extends the themes of the strength of feminine emotion
and the spiritual bond with the landscape which were first explored in a show
entitled Sacred Sites which opened in New Zealand last year and has just
finished a two-moiuh run in New Delhi. India.

To consider all the works that Helen Kedgley .selected for her half of this
exhibition at Gallery Delta as examples of landscape painting may seem
somewhat unusual, if not irrational. The connection between a brightly
painted heart and the living forms of the natural world is not iiiimcdialelv
apparent. Nor is it the case that images of domestic interiors be iiormalK
classified as landscape paintings. However Kedgley's sense of place —
physically and emotionally — is so central to her compositions as to render
olher more 'appropriate' descriptive terms more than inadequate.

Afriiiin Slill Life, as the title suggests, appears lo be an expressive
juxtaposition of African objects and contrasting viewpoints from within
Kedgley's own house, in a palette that recalls the warmth of an Atrican
afternoon sun. I'his is where the landscape element first comes into play.
Colours and content arc first and foremost about place. Their choice has been
determined by Kedgley's desire to express that, though she has returned to

New Zealand. Zimbabwe still surrounds her
mentally and emotionally.

This has not ruled out her awareness of her
current sunoundings. If anything, it has
heightened her sensitivity to the
significances of the New Zealand landscape.
Parts of the composition have been covered
with torn fragments of text, fused over and
under the paint. These areas of collage
signify and incorporate Kedgley's keen
interest in the political issues that are of
current concern to the New Zealand
populace. Photocopied in reverse, these
pieces of text are in fact excerpts from the
Treaty of Waitangi. a document which is the
key to New Zealand's social and cultural
future. It deals with the Maori's ancient
rights to the use and ownership of the islands
of New Zealand, which Kedgley strongly
supports.

One of three such examples shown in this
exhibition. Transcending the Shadows, is
literally taken from the land. Strips of local
flax have been woven into coarse mats,
exactly as the Maori have done for centuries.
In substituting tlax for canvas or paper, the
relationship between the composition and its
geographical origins becomes even stronger
The Maori people use flax to weave fine
cloth for sacred ceremonial garments. Each
fibre is respected and when the cloth is being
woven certain rituals must be observed.
These coarser mats for exainple can neither
be walked over nor stood upon.

Inspired by Suzy Pennington who developed
this format in response to an invitation to
participate in an international textile
exhibition (Flax 96. in Lithuania). Helen
Kedgley superimposes her thoughts and
feelings about herself, her African memories
and her local position upon the woven
surface.

The African element is most obviously
reflected in the geometric bands which recall
the patterns incised into pottery and
metalwork or carved into wood. Within the
sections formed by these bands are small
individual hearts which glow out from the
surrounding bluey tones. An obvious
symbol of love and deeply-rooted emotions,
the heart is and has been a dominant motif in
Kedgley's work. Previously employed on a
much larger scale, it has been used as a
vehicle for expressing the strength and
power of women as emotional beings. Even
in this example, on such a reduced scale,
these hearts are far from vulnerable. Instead
they possess a quiet intensity, lending the
composition the air of a religious icon.

The Colour of Memory, on the other hand,
shouts and pulsates with life. These brilliant
fiery colours and larger vigorous hearts
which burst out of their sections quite clearly
reflect Helen Kedgley's emotional approach

to painting, about which she says: "/ do not
wiinl to paiiU what the world looks like hut
what it feels like — espeeiollx the moments
oj intense emotion when the world inside
takes precedence over the world outside."

Working from a clearly defined mental
image rather than a worked-up preparatory
study, her choices of colour are primarily
instinctive and, 1 feel, make an abstract
appeal to the senses, as much as to the
emotions. Thus The Colour of Memory
would appear as a painterly expression of
the feelings of love, pleasure and intense
happiness that Helen Kedgley experiences
when thinking about the many landscapes,
actual and recollected, that she occupies
while painting.

In comparison to Helen Kedgley, whose
painterly response to her environment is
more or less private, expressive of how she
feels about the landscape and its effects on
her, Suzy Pennington's work has a more
universal accent. That we are not seeing the
work about us for the first time, that others
have stood exactly where we stand today,
facing similar critical choices, is a key
element in Pennington's approach. She is
concerned with the enduring qualities of the
landscape and w ith charting the lives,
ancient and contemporary, that reside
within it.

Pennington's compositions also reflect her
own personal experiences of her New
Zealand surroundings and the impact she
makes upon them. The visual rapport
between her compositions and existing
landscape forms is more immediate but the
symbolism underpinning each piece is no
less complex nor less individual than Helen
Kedgley's. If anything, the personal content
is more deeply concealed in Pennington's
works.

Suzy Pennington does not describe herself as
a painter. Her images are built from
scribbled, dyed and painted canvas or woven
flax. Subsequently embroidered, with
individual threads, deliberately frayed scraps
of fabric and photocopied cut-outs which are
stitched onto the surface, her finished pieces
have been aptly described as "visual poems"
by the artist Patrick Heron.

And. standing in front of Paths of the
Ancestors — Limestone Land is, to me, the
visual land-based equivalent of holding a sea
shell to your ear and listening to the 'sounds'
of the ocean. A broad white streak runs
across the top of the canvas and shoots
down, like a fissure, to the base. Towards
the bottom of this downward pointing sliver
are other smaller streaks. Visualised by the
artist as a cross-sectional view of a
landscape over time, these smaller marks
buried with land recall natural rock
formations. At the same time they inay also

perhaps symbolise the remains of man on
the same but then far younger landscape.

Although the locus of Suzy Pennington's
work is New Zealand, the cultures she
reflects within her compositions are often
more distant. Dreaming from Afar evokes
memories of tranquil seas and deserted
beaches. The aquamarine tone does reflect
the proximity of the Pacific Ocean to the
artist but the "view' is as historical as it is
contemporary. The closely aligned stitches,
so suggestive of ripples in the sand, are in
fact a personal vocabulary derived from
classical scripts. Herein. Pennington's
typographical interest in ancient languages
such as Sanskrit, has been translated into
three dimensions — a means of formally
acknowledging the ancient soul of the
landscape and meanings invested in it by us.
In other works exhibited here, the
incorporation of written and oral histories is
less heavily disguised. Paths to the Sacred
Minmtain and Guide for the Journey include
fragments of photocopied text and numerals
which have been fixed down and
overpainted.

The idea that there are more human forces
that dwell within the landscape with the
power to secure our fate is another feature
that these pieces develop. At the centre of
both Protected Land and Crossroads is an
image of a classical goddess. She reappears
about the 'mountain peak' in Paths to the
Sacred Minmtain. All three are
personifications of multi-cultural beliefs
about the inner lives of the earth and the
energies present at sacred sites and along
sacred routes. This is extended in Guide for
the Jinirney where the 'path' towards the
mount and the mount itself, is overlain with
a cross. These crosses are symbols, both of
the pagan beliefs about the keepers of
crossroads and of the choices and decisions
we have to make in moving our lives
forwards.

That these last four images are worked on
mats of woven flax, itself a sacred material,
consolidates the mystical and metaphysical
meanings that currently surround
Pennington's approach to her work.

Helen Kedgley and Suzy Pennington share a
cultural heritage, a studio and. as seen at
Gallery Delta, particular formal elements
such as texts, crosses, hearts, but theirs is not
a collaborative effort. What fundamentally
unites these two women, as individuals and
as artists, is their concern with the
interaction of people and the land. In Tracks
in Africa — the Colour of Memory each
artist describes the emotional life of the
landscape; it is an exhibition that is as much
about personal expression as it is about
hidden content and private meaning.

(below) Helen Kedgley, Transcending the Shadows, 1997,
acrylic and collage on flax
(bottom) Helen Kedgley, African Still Life, 1997,
acrylic and collage on paper

;*i*~'^

ir i I

(top right) Suzy Pennington, Guide for the Journey, 1997,
acrylic, collage and procion dye on flax
(middle right) Suzy Pennington, Paths to the Sacred
Mountain, 1997, acrylic, collage and procion dye on flax
(bottom right) Suzy Pennington, Dreaming from Afar, 1997,
24 collage, stitched fabric, procion dye on canvas

Busani Bafana writes about a recent exhibition in Bulawayo

Still Searching :

works by Sithabile MIotshwa

To be heard through one's art. one has to shout, especially as a
young, female artist. This is how Sithabile MIotshwa talks about her
short yet bright career as an artist. This first solo exhibition at the
National Gallery in Bulawayo displays 30 works by one of the
region's newly found art gems. To the discerning eye, MIotshwa still
has more work to do before the art world says 'Yes' — like a child
reaching adolescence, she has still to establish her identity.

"7 decided on the title 'Still Searching ' because that is what I am
literally doing. I am yet to develop the right style that can be
identified with me." says MIotshwa. "/ am still trying to find a name
and this title blends with my experiences which I have tried to bring
out in the different paintings"

MIotshwa (22), a Mzilikazi Art Centre graduate, explores African
community life in her work, with emphasis on the female figure.
Her paintings blend in a rhythm of movement the dancing joyful
women, the long faces of villagers, the social setting, gossiping
market traders and beer drinkers. A major break came last October
when MIotshwa was one of three guest artists invited to attend a
month-long cultural exchange programme in Sweden. The theme of
the programme was 'Building Bridges' specifically between Beira,
Bulawayo and Gothenburg, all second cities in their respective
countries. During the programme, MIotshwa participated in two
exhibitions as well as hosting a workshop on painting, textiles and
batik printing. In a quest for originality, Mlotshwa's paintings are

done using her fingers. "/ think it is better to mix colours with mx
fingers. I enjoy playing around with the paint. I experiment with it
and try to find a belter method I can use for painting."

Central to her expression is the form of a 'typical African' woman
with well defined hips. "Some people call me a sexist hut I am veiy
much touched by what women go through, what it means to be a
woman. I realise women work so hard and yet get so little in
return." Reflecting on her work, MIotshwa admits strong attachment
to individual pieces especially Wamuhle Umuntu, a depiction of an
ethnically dressed woman with a full 'African' figure. In the
background is another 'typical African' woman with distinctive
earings. Other cultural artefacts such as clay pots — a strong
community symbol — waist beads and leg beads are also incorpo-
rated. "Originally this was a flat painting of squares and cubes ... It
was different from the rest because I did it in Sweden with the aim of
portraying what Africa was to me. I guess I was really homesick"

MIotshwa has learned from experience that achievement costs many
ruined paintings and moments of outright despair. She has experi-
mented with collage, batik, tissue paper, fabric dyes and many other
media resulting in a wide range of work. But being the eighth child
in a family of nine, Sithabile MIotshwa believes in perseverance and
accepting mistakes, and, with maturity, her nascent ability and focus

may develop.

forthcoming events and exhibitions

Luis Meque will have a solo exhibition in
early July at Gallery Delta. The leading
place of this young artist is now firmly
established in the contemporary art scene of
Zimbabwe and this will be an opportunity to
view a large selection of his latest work.
Following this will be a show of works by
Zimbabwe's Prominent Artists including
amongst others Berry Bickle.Tapfuma
Gutsa, Babette Fitzgerald, Rashid
Jogee, l-lelen Lieros, Simon Bacl<,
Gerry Dixon and Ishimael Wilfred.

For one week only, in August, Gallery Delta
will host an extraordinary live performance
— a sound /art installation of Tonga
Music. Tonga musicians and Austrian
composers who have been working with
Keith Goddard of the Kunzwana Trust will
present an evening of "new music" within an
installation created by two Austrian artists.
The patterns and rhythms of Tonga music,
which is created with antelope horns, drums,
singing and hand rattles, have been
incorporated with contemporary music.
"The strangely contemporary feel of Tonga
music has aroused the curiosity of creative
artists in Europe and America and has led to
the design of a computer-generated sound

installation which explores the sound worlds
of ancient Tonga musical expression and the
digital world of electro-acoustic music. The
aim of the composition is to increase
awareness of Tonga music and culture and
to demonstrate the distinct creativity
inherent in Tonga music."

This musical experience is accompanying an
extensive exhibition of Batonga Art and
Artefacts entitled Across the Waters
curated by Grazyna Zaucha of the Choma
Museum in Zambia which will be on display
at the National Gallery in Bulawayo in July
and in the Harare Gardens in August
concurrent with the ZIBF. Both the
exhibition and the music will be travelling
throughout southern Africa, including places
in the Zambezi Valley, and on to the
Netherlands and Austria.

The National Gallery in Bulawayo will host
an exhibition of Rocit Art from Zambia and
a solo show of work by Danisile Ncube in
August and, in September, the Scandia Wire
Art Exilibition. On 26 September the
NGB will be hosting an evening of music
and art for which Derek Hudson, the
Bulawayo musician and conductor, has

composed a piece. This has been distributed
to artists to use as direct inspiration for a
painting or sculpture to be exhibited as the
music is played duing the evening at NGB.

Mutupo: The Totem Gallery will hold an
exhibition of paintings by young and
talented women artists Bulelwa
Madekuronzwa and Tendai Gumbo
during July; August will see a group
exhibition around the theme "Heroes"
including work by Harry Mutasa, Joseph
l\/luzondo and Nicholas
lUlukomberanwa; and in September there
will be a solo show by Chiko
Chazunguza

The National Gallery in Harare will be
closed forjudging of the Heritage during
July and opens on 6 August with the
Longmans' Women Visual Artists'
Exhibition; 1 9 August sees a show of work
by Charles Kamangwana. In September
the gallery will host a group show by NGZ
Staff, an exhibition of sculpture by a French
artist. Bernard Pages, wall-hangings by
Johannesburg Street Kids and, yet to
be confirmed, a retrospective of work by
Tapfuma Gutsa.

HECKMAN IXI
BINDERY INC. |§|

JUNE 98

3o^.-To-r\,^ N.MANCHESTER.