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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

11 Confronting complexity and contradiction : the 1996 Heritage Exhibition by Anthony Chennells

16 Painting the essence : the harmony and equilibrium of Thakor Patel by Barbara Murray

20 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

© Gallery Publications

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Subscriptions from Gallery Publications, c/o Gallery Delta, 1 10 Livings!"! Avenue, RO. Box UA 373, Union Avenue, Harare, Zimbabwe. Tel & Fax: (263-4)792135. e-mail: [email protected]./.w Artnotes

One of the reasons for Europe and North healthy critical environment than Zimbabwe. standards. Art criticism can, and in

America's dominance in the art world is the He argued that art criticism is not an Zimbabwe it must, fulfill multiple roles as w ide range of stringent criticism that 'either—or' phenomenon; that "all critical educator, promoter, recorder, supporter and surrounds art in those countries. Art, enterprise in whatever mode or medium catalyst. Despite its modest beginnings and curators, galleries, arts bodies, as well as the aims at virtually the same goal — a fuller some might say its colonial origins. Gallery critics, are constantly under scrutiny in articulation and appreciation of art." He attempts to reach as far as possible and with newspapers, magazines, in lectures at spoke about the importance of popular and the recent sponsorship from HIVOS, Gallery

universities and conferences, on TV and oral criticism emphasising that criticism can is now going to all schools that teach A level

radio. As a result, informed debate is be accommodating rather than divisive and art and to all public, community and rural

generated. Art becomes public knowledge that inclusivity of viewpoints is essential. libraries throughout the country. and art criticism contributes to development He later described a marvellous-sounding

and to the quality of life. annual event in Nigeria — the Art Stampede. At the end of the conference I felt strongly

This is an informal social occasion for artists that we must rely on ourselves and build on

But in Africa art criticism is sorely lacking. and critics from all the arts. One or two what we have. Matthew Arnold said "/ am In November last year, Zimbabwe, Nigeria people make speeches but the essence of the bound by my own definition of criticism: a

and South Africa sent delegates to a event is to interject, to question, to create an disinterested endeavour to learn and conference on Art Criticism & Africa at the open, free-for-all atmosphere and exchange propagate the best that is known and thought Courtauld Institute. London, organised by of views. in the world'' He also said: "The great aim the British section of the International of culture [is] the aim of setting ourselves to

Association of Art Critics (AICA). Of the The third session looked at political and ascertain what perfection is and to make it

61 national branches of AICA, only three are administrative effects on art criticism. Once prevail." With 20th-century relativism we

in Africa! The aims of the conference were again the comparative strength of Nigeria have gained greater tolerance. We recognise

to investigate the critical culture in was obvious. Ola Oloidi. critic and art every individual's right to a personal version

Zimbabwe, Nigeria and South Africa, and to historian at the University of Nsukka, of 'perfection' but criticism challenges us to encourage the formation of local branches of examined the growth of criticism in Nigeria continually revise our version, not to rest on

AICA. explaining that it sprang from colonial mediocrities but to keep looking in the hope

sources but that it has evolved into a that we might attain the best possible. It is

The first session of the conference. 'Art "tradition that can be considered dynamic not that there is some static definition of Criticism of Africa outside Africa', featured and promising". He emphasised "the 'best' or 'perfection' but that we keep on representatives of those exiles from Africa importance of an indigenous art-critical analysing, looking and thinking. whose role in nudging and irritating the West culture and the needfor an internationalist into recognising art from Africa should not inside-out and not outside-in critical In a work of art. the artist seeks the best be underestimated. However, they have attitude'' Fatima Afifi. director of AICA- expression of a facet of life. While every

lived outside Africa for a long time and now Egypt, gave evidence of the integrating endeavour is to be welcomed, criticism

have an identity crisis. Gavin Jantjes, potential of AICA which, because of its exists to show up the perceived strengths and originally from South Africa, admitted as independence, can transcend divisions and failings. The artist, curator, critic, indeed all much when he spoke of "a rear-view mirror' combat political and cultural pressures on of us, need to be honest enough to

and of problems in separating the art. Colin Richards, a lecturer from Wits acknowledge failings if we intend to

motherland itself from the exile's idea of the University, explained that art criticism does continue the search. Some decide to settle

motherland. Olu Oguibe, originally from not have a firm base in South Africa; that for mediocrity, that is their choice.

Nigeria, painted a grim view of freedom of there is no specialist art journal and that

expression in Africa saying "healthy critical discourse remains "both rarefied and Critical practice in Africa continues to be

criticism is impossible in Africa" and "there underdeveloped'. He said that in the 'new dogged by politics, racism and colonialism.

is no culture of excellence in Africa". South Africa' facilities and possibilities are Our history has led to a mentality of fear and George Shire, a Zimbabwean exile, defined more evenly distributed throughout the the suppression of criticism, where critics criticism as a political act and spoke of the are misconstrued as enemies rather than seen

need to decolonise art criticism in as allies in that search for the best. The Zimbabwe. This point was forcefully contradicted by the critics of colonial exploitation were

South African artist and curator, David harrassed once just as the critics of The second session, 'The Art Critic as Koloane, in the fourth session. Koloane, dictatorial corruption are hartassed now. Advocate', moved on to views from speaking on the topic 'Art Criticism for They are however, thankfully, never participants who live in Africa and know the Whom?' said things have not changed. The silenced, or not for long. Time proves realities. The tone became less theoretical power remains with the white establishment criticism (relatively!) right or wrong in a

and surprisingly more hopeful. Murray and "there is a need for a common multitude of ways. What is important in the

McCartney highlighted the massive potential .sensibility to tackle the problems confronting end is that criticism exists, inviting people to

of the media in promoting art and pointed both black and white artists." This is similar reconsider and change. What Zimbabwe incisively to examples of wide-spread to Zimbabwe where art criticism had a white needs is more criticism. Perhaps an Art existing disinterest, self-censorship and source and access has remained limited. In Stampede? Certainly a branch of AICA lethargy. Tony Mhonda defined Zimbabwe both colonial and post-independence cultural The Editor

as "an a-critical society", spoke of the need policy art is dismissed as entirely

for grassroots education, condemned Gallery superfluous. With minimal art education, a as a minority, magazine and went on to disinterested government and an

berate Zimbabwean critics for being elitist. unenlightened media, the little art criticism

Chika Okeke revealed that Nigeria, despite there is must target as many people as

its trenchant political repression, has a more possible without compromising its I 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 Guta,Gafe(for District), potters. The potters, or some of them, claimed the Monica beer brewing, Nyanga terracotta, selectors were usually painters or sculptors, unfamiliar 1982, 89 X 52cm, coiled and pit-fired (photo credit: Jacl< Bennett) with the medium, and that at times they showed cultural bias. With no qualified ceramic selectors for the Heritage, (inset top) (Potter (for or no other national show of ceramics and few alternative unknown), Chirongo water beer storage), 40 x 50cm, terracotta, coiled and pit-fired opportunities for exhibiting, the potters lost interest. Why

are there so few exhibitions of pottery in Zimbabwe? (inset middle) (Potter unlcnown), Hadyana (for serving relish), 14 x earthenware, coiled and pit-fired But exhibiting may not be the main force to spur the 23cm,

creation of ceramics. After all. potters produce to earn a

(inset (Potter , 27 x SOcrri, living. This certainly applies to the traditional area and below) unknown), Chirongo terracotta, coiled and pit-fired. (Photo credits all Dave here it seems that life is more of a strugsle than ever. 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

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 tableware and tiles from Sitra Pottery have a large Certificate and Diploma levels with a practical market. Smaller Harare potteries such as those run by orientation. Whilst different techniques of forming, Marge Wallace and Alison Brayshaw produce highly decorating and firing are imparted, the emphasis is on individualistic ceramics with more abstract and modem those that do not require unusual or expensive equipment decorative effects. In and around Bulawayo. Mzilikazi and materials. Thus, the courses are geared around Pottery and Gwai River Pottery keep up their production terracotta clay, sawdust and pit-firing and transparent of distinctive hand-made domestic ware, tiles and jars. glazes. It is felt that this better equips the students to continue on their own after completing their studies. But is this art? Robin Hopper in his Functional Pottery — Fonn and Aesthetic in Pots of Purpose writes: These forced but sensible restrictions clearly demonstrate the need for the Regional School of Art and Design, that "There has been little written on the art of making ambitious project devised by the National Gallery of functional pottery, perhaps because in the past making

Zimbabwe, which looks as though it may remain stuck on utilitarian wares has largely been viewed as a means to the drawing board. Whilst a very few of the larger an end rather them an end in itself. In the contemporary schools are equipped with pottery-making gear, they lack art arena, pottery has been looked at as the poor cousin the qualified and innovative teachers whom the School of to painting and sculpture, in much the same way as the Art and Design was intended to produce. graphic arts were once viewed. Pottery is neither

painting nor sculpture, although it has elements of both.

Does all this mean that the future of formal ceramic It is significant that in many of the world's languages teaching and creation is bleak? Alison Brayshaw. who there is no wordfor 'art'. Art is the result which comes taught last year's ceramics courses at Harare Polytechnic, from the activity known as 'craft '. There may be good sees hope in some of her students who are currently or bad art, the quality being largely dependent on the attending courses overseas on grants, who will pass on combination of skill, understanding, emotion and their knowledge when they return. Also encouraging is intent." that the last three years" students who completed the

National Diploma in Fine Art have produced some Ceramic art is about unique and individual creativity, exciting and innovative ceramics. Tendai Gumbo, with which can show itself in myriad ways, in forms, in her torn forms, and Mary-Ann Soltau, with her abstract decoration, in sculptures, in conceptual or functional drawing applied to pit-fired vessels, are showing vessels. If we are looking at ceramics as an art form. particular talent. And current Polytech students are and creauvity as its inspiration, how would we rate the working on a project which looks at traditional pottery, state of the art in Zimbabwe? Helen Lieros. artist and combining pot-making with research into social and co-owner of Gallery Delta says: cultural values. "We have the expertise but we do not experiment

Meanwhile the stream of hand-made, hand-decorated, enough. The work is very classical, very beautiful, but I domestic and functional ware continues to flow from look at ceramics as sculpture and like to see potters

workplaces varying in size from the small single-potter exploring the form, destroying and re-creating it. We

studio to the larger 40-staff potteries. All is made with need more stimulation from outside, like we hadfrom great care and labour, and most with fine craftmanship. visiting Kenxaii/British potter Magdalene Odundo. and

What decides what is made? Well, the market of course, the New Zealanders Wi Taepa and Robyn Stewart: and

and this is where the maker's integrity as artist or the recent showing of work by Zambian Andrew

craftsperson is put to the stiffest test. Makromallis at Delta"

The demand from tourists, foreign buyers and locals is Multimedia artist Berry Bickle agrees, not surprisingly, great. Estelle Zimi. until her recent illness, sold her large considering her own fiery solo exhibition at Delta in terracotta vessels and animal forms to eager collectors, as November 1996. where porcelain slabs and bowls were do Johane and Susan Marimo with their figures. Nicola incorporated into daring installations with mixed media Bryce of Ros Byrne Pottery in Msasa says they often works on paper. Bickle says: cannot keep up with the orders for their hand-thrown domestic stoneware, brightly decorated with fruit and "Our potters are very good but there is no obvious

flower designs. Similarly the unglazed candle holders developtnetjt. No one is extending ideas. In the

and gold glazed animal objects from Umwinsidale Pottery traditional pottery, there is no progression and in the

and the wide range of subtly coloured functional studio pottery, there is stagnation. We should take note Stephen Williams, plate, 1985, 22cm diameter, earthenware

of South communication, African (former creating international Zimhcihwean resemblances. Should resident) ceramicist Zimbabwe become a part of Howard Minne. this new movement and can pushing the frontiers of the Can we develop, or are we traditional African form in his developing, a style of our own? huge sculptural pots, shown as prizewinners in the National Ceramics The earth form is perhaps the oldest and most Quarterly magazine of South Africa." traditional art form in Zimbabwean culture. The materials and processes are available and relatively

Is there a valid meeting point between traditional and cheap. Clay is limitlessly malleable and flexible, capable modern pottery, between African and European ideas, of responding to the unique expression of individuality, it feelings, expressions, cultures? Violet Ndoro Tagurira has endless possibilities. Significantly experiments in using the traditional African terracotta and pit-fired ceramics in Zimbabwe have been carried out by painters inethods produced strong, simple, classical vessels. and sculptors such as Stephen Williams. Voti Thebe. Tendai Gumbo has also combined the more European Simon Back and Berry Bickle. Is there a way forward? forms with the strength and earthiness of the African

style. Mary-Ann Soltau and some other potters have Herbert Read wrote in his book The Meaning ofArt: been experimenting in this direction. Gumbo's most recent work, a group of terracotta, pit-t~ired items, draws "Patten- is at once the simplest and the most difficult of on Ndebele funerary traditions but includes some the arts. It is the simplest because it is the most

abstract human forms in the modem European idiom. eleitiental: it is the most difficult because it is the most

Carole Wales-Smith has consistently developed her abstract ... Judge the art of a country: judge the finest of ring-necked vessels inspired by African body its sensibility, by its pottery: it is a ornaments. Sue McCormick has explored forms using sure touchstone. Pottery is pure

unglazed clay and leather in designs evolved from art: it is art freed from any gourds, rocks, seeds and other objects of the African imitative intention." 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 Simon Back,

mould in those countries, set a new one now? Can the Acrobat new free-form trials, the vivid colourings, the painteriy/ 1992, 25 X 15cm sculptural experiments, those products of post-war stoneware ceramic renaissances, make a style? There seems to be some unity in their diversity, the result of easy 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:

"Myself I just paint because I like lo paint.

It 'sjust a pleasure. 1 just enjoy it. And you Richard Witikani 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 Richard Witikani, Woman with Flowers, 1996, 95 x 78cm, oil on paper In 1990, having completed his studies at an unhurried way — women doing their BAT and gained an A for both O level and A everyday chores, preparing food, sweeping,

level art, Witikani decided to take a job at looking after home and children, with their

Sitra Pottery where he continues to work at share of problems and pleasures. "/ want to

decorating domestic and functional paint how people are. what they are doing. I

ceramics. Thus he moved back to a rural paint people and nature, how people live in

environment in which he feels most at ease their environment" and where he hoped to have time and space to pursue his own painting as well as earn Going into Witikani's studio, a traditional

a living. Inevitably there is not enough mud and thatch hut without windows, the time. Witikani sketches every day but light from the doorway falls on a pile of he has only his daily lunch hour and paintings on heavy brown paper heaped one then his weekends to sketch and on top of another on the floor, wood for

paint. His job at the pottery has, frames leaning against a wall, boxes of tubes however, freed him from the and brushes, some bottles of turps, and a damaging necessity of having to collection of sketchbooks. Those books

earn money through his art, the contain the foundation of Witikani's work — circumstance which degrades the pencil drawings, page after page of quick

talent of many Zimbabwean artists free sketches of people done in the pottery, and turns them into commercial in the village, at home over weekends when painters producing what they know friends come to talk with his wife, at local

will sell. markets, bus stops, clinics, or drawings of the roadside, the boulders and trees. "/

Sitra Pottery is situated away from the main sketch from my surroundings. These are the

road along several miles of dirt track, people I stay with so when they are there I ability and inclination towards life drawing through rolling grasslands interspersed with get time to sketch them." using pencil and watercolour, and although woodlands and rocky outcrops. Following he enjoyed various other media such as litho, Witikani to the workers' village along a path From these pencil lines, from the screenprinting and sculpture, drawing from through darkly green trees, one comes out concentrated and continual looking at the the human figure remained his first choice. into an open area, a kopje burgeoning with human figure and the landscape, the rounded boulders and leafy bushes to the paintings are composed. Once he faces the

In order to pay for his living expenses during left, a valley of pale dry grass falling away large sheet of brown paper with his brushes his second year at BAT, Witikani took a to the right. The pink earth path spreads, and paints, Witikani is free to cut, combine, morning teaching post at Girls" High. This divides and wanders unevenly between create his own version of everyday life and it he says was "a hit boring. As an artist you scattered assorted dwellings, some mud and is here that his unerring sense of need to be in your own home, experimenting thatch, some brick and thatch, others with tin composition takes over. every day. If you are teaching you are not roofs; grass fences, a few banana trees, some doing your own work." To alleviate the chickens scratching in the dust, washing Richard Witikani's preoccupation is the boredom Witikani did quick sketches of the draped between two poles. A woman sits in human form, more particularly the female students while they worked. The speed with the shade with a child on her lap, two others form. The majority of his paintings are of which these must have been done stand nearby at a tap gossiping. A child women, either alone or in small groups, emphasises his ability to catch the curve, rambles along with a wire car. Further away placed centrally within the format; some express the volume, select the indicative a woman bends and hoes a patch of look directly at the viewer, others turn aside; detail. There is no superfluous line or dot vegetables. Sun and shadow create volume some are talking, but most are caught up in and little if any alteration — evidence of a and colour It is like walking into one of private thought. They are often passive, perceptive eye and a disciplined hand. Witikani's paintings ... daily life going on in 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. roundforms, 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 (top) Richard Witikani, Hunger, 1996, 109 x 84cm, gouache on paper in the female curves.

(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 in v\hich the colours are distributed across This intelligent use of colour may give one

unnecessary detail. The figure or figures are the space. Light is seen in terms of colour as the impression that Witikani is painting from placed within a simple background and the are shadow and volume. reality, but the cohesion and delight of the

painting is built around an intuitively colour in his work springs from his visual

worked interplay of horizontals, verticals, For the viewer, often the first impression is imagination and has lessons for those diagonals, triangles or circles. The internal of coloured patches which then resolve into Zimbabwean artists who splash on colours

rhythm is always strong, smooth and subject. Intuitively and boldly placed blobs with no consideration of their effect or resonant. There are few straight lines or and strokes of colour re-fomi into flesh and function. geometric forms and where they exist they cloth; broad homogenous areas create solids

serve to contrast or enhance the volume, in space. Colour is used in the clothing to The landscapes on show present a curve and presence of the subject, such as emphasise the covered body shapes, convincing evocation of place. Again the wall in Woman with Flowers and Waiting shadows and highlights creating volume and sparing on detail, cohesive in composition

at tlie Clinic. The rhythm in Wailing at the line Occasionally a single line is employed and simple in subject, they however offer a

Clinic with the lines and volumes of the two to delineate form but more often shape is rich play of colour, deviating from reality in

outside figures leading the eye in, and the created by colour. Colour is also used to more painterly ways. In particular The Red

echoing shapes of heads, bodies and trees, decorative effect in the clothing. In Woman Tree is vibrant and dynamic with its dark creates a successful composition. Vertical or with Flowers, this decorative element, a turbulent sky and wind-rushed grass. These

horizontal lines, in a wall, a tree, a chair, mass of flowers on a dark bush, creates the works are in fact largely imaginative stabilise the subject and sometimes define or background for a woman whose blouse links compositions founded only on Witikani's

frame a space, for example in Hunger and in her indissolubly with her surroundings. intimate knowledge of the countryside Paying Attention. The surrounds and Note the use, in many of the works, of the which he inhabits, expressing personal mood background are always well integrated and saine or a tonally related colour in the as well as capturing the essential atmosphere

used to enhance the main subject. Depth is background and foreground of a painting, of place and season. Paintings of the village naturally indicated with no exaggerations or once again integrating the different elements environment focus on the closeness of man

pretensions. There is no romantic excess into a cohesive whole. to nature and are taken from sketches. "/ anywhere. There is no falsification. Witikani sees both as equal partners.

Treatment of background and foreground are Colour is, as well, used expressively to enjoy the unit}- of the people to the land. We

handled in the same way and both negative conjure atinosphere, the emotion of the live in the land. Man and nature are veiy

and positive shapes are given eloquence. scene — in Baclicloor Saloon, a city scene, it close. It is quite simple. Man affects nature

The relation of all these elements to the is bright, bold, noisy, scattered; in Hunger, it and nature ajfects man." Life in the rural

whole creates the unity of structure and is dull, leeched, pale, sucked out as is the areas is presented in a straightforward

vision which is essential to a good work of woman's breast. manner; it is not sweetened or romanticised;

art. neither is it denigrated.

There is a boldness in Witikani's use of

And perhaps the strongest integrating force colour and a simplicity, with usually only There is a strength and consistency about

is colour. Its use and control is central to three or perhaps four colours making up the Richard Witikani's work. His obvious Witikani's method and expression. He palette of a single painting. They are chosen knowledge of line and form, his rigorous

makes no colour notes in his sketches and according to the subject, the composition structuring of composition, his honest choice freely applies his visual imagination when and their interactive relationship within the of subject and his striking underslaiuling of

working on a painting. Colours relate to painting. At times the bare brown surface is colour, all point to a major talent and a

other colours in the composition rather than employed, and, so successful is its mature, independent vision.

to any outside reality. With strong, integration, that a closer look is needed to

confident strokes, Witikani decides the way confirm that it is in fact unpainted paper. ] 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

Heritage is a word wiiich offers a cultural strands and insist that it

spurious sense of security. is along that strand that Zimbabwe's true identity can be People invoke their heritage only found. They can also confront when the discernible movements Zimbabwe's cultural syncretism, between past and future are the implications of the broken and the present no longer intersections of multiple anticipates with any certainty traditions of ethnicity, race, what will come next. And yet geographical origin and class in

the idea of heritage is our cultural life. When a

comforting: it invokes a secure painting or sculpture enacts this past amidst present instabilities confrontation something more

and it is not surprising that the ambitious is being attempted most fiercely reactionary than the recovery of an identity

institution in Washington should simplified to race or origin. be called the Heritage Foundation or that the periodical An anecdote from the opening devoted to white Zimbabwean of the exhibition may help to

history changed its name at explain my meaning. I noticed a

Zimbabwe's Independence from senior civil servant who is a Rhodesiana to Heritage. socialist theorist of art standing Instability implicit in the with two diplomats from one of

affirmation of stability, a the few countries in the world

defensive assertion of roots and which still claim to be socialist. belonging, provide a point of They were clustered around

access to the art of this year's Norman Mhondiwa's Comrades

Heritage Exhibition at the War and as I passed I heard one

National Gallery. of them say. "Tliis is real art"

T.S. Eliot pointed out many The rural landscape of

years ago that each new Comrades War is rendered with

individual work of art extends the self-conscious naivety which and modifies existing traditions has become conventional in one

and Zimbabwean art. because of genre of Zimbabwean painting. the very nature of our society, The thatched villages, granite Norman Mhondiwa, Comrades War, 1996, 81 x 125cm, shows the traces of numerous boulders and scarlet leaves of oil on canvas cultural traditions. Artists can brachystegia woodlands in respond to this in different ways: spring provide a background Norman Mhondiwa, Thanking God for Harvest, 1996, they can defiantly affirm the not. as is usual in the genre, for 11 81 X 125cm, oil on canvas authenticity of one of those the routines and multiple )

activities of village life but access to vastly superior single narrative whose end is rather for an episode in the war. technology. Mhondiwa's ZANU(PF)'s triumph. In the centre of the painting a peasants, in flight all over the Mhondiwa's other painting on crashed Rhodesian plane is in painting, appear to lack the exhibition. Thanking God for flames. Above two more aircraft revolutionary firmness and only Harvest, shows the complex

are huming while others drop the fleeing women in the effects his naive technique is bombs and parachutes. In the foreground are accompanied by capable of achieving. Here the

foreground two women flee with a guerilla. Even more community, unified in worship,

an armed guerilla while two unexpected is the fact that only is skilfully suggested in Ihe

women in uniform fire towards women guerillas fire back, a repetition of faces in Ihe lines of the sky. Other civilian figures curious detail which allows the worshipping group. The

throughout the painting run in gender differences to add viewer's eye is directed towards panic from the firing. another confusing element to two mbiras, the instrument the idea of a united front. which more even than the drums

I assume thai for the three provides a ritual link between

viewers whose comments I Why should I have spent such a the Shona, the ancestors and

overheard the purpose of art is lo long time on so obviously an God. The circle of the mbiras affirm our identity as a inferior painting like Comrades recalls the curves of the faces,

revolutionary people. Art in the Warl One reason is because we the gathered faces are justified

service of revolution is central to are talking about heritage and in the mbiras, and both are

the idea of socialist realism and how the Liberation War is echoed in the curves of granite in the armed struggle soldiers, recalled as a part of that boulders: the community

proletarians and peasants heritage. The war must be through its traditional ritualistic

provide the unity of the understood as only one part instruments is unified both w ith

comrades of the title, the equal (and because its methods and one another, with the land and status of their shared humanity objectives are so obvious, the with God. At the same time,

insisted upon in the art. The easiest part) of a revolutionary there are people to whom Ihe

'reality" which socialist art process. Frantz Fanon, the ceremony means nothing, and at

purports to depict is constructed philosopher of revolutionary the front of the painting a group

by history: 'realism' is where states of mind, who anticipated gambles, oblivious of the ritual the agents of a situation are with eerie accuracy the being enacted behind them. shown playing out the roles tendencies of Africa's which history has rendered independent states, realised as Two other paintings on Ihe

typical of people of their class early as 1 96 1 that one way of exhibition suggest how art can

and time. At its most successful repressing discontent after be used lo make different

this theory of art produces the independence is to ignore statements about politics — wonderful revolutionary murals present failure and instead to about who has public power and

of Maputo. This is not the static keep on recalling the liberation how it is used and abused.

triumphalist art which is being war itself. A leader will idealise Every new painting one sees by

dismantled in disgust all over and simplify the struggle and Stephen Williams is an Russia and Eastern Europe. "[ejveiy lime he speaks to the additional reason for mourning

Instead it includes anxiety, people he calls to mind his often his untimely death and his The

confusion and despair alongside heroic life, the struggles he has Fall of the Sybarites is no hope and triumph as moments led in the name of the people exception. Here a steel panel worth recording in and the victories in their name lias apparently been scored

Mozambique's Liberation he has achieved." All this .icioss as if the shining surface

War.( I Fanon argues is to mystify and has been vandalised. A longer bewilder the masses so that look shows both red and rust When the three men had moved while he "constitutes a screen which Ihe scoring has

away I looked more carefully al between the people and the uncovered. Williams had a the painting and wondered rapacious bourgeoisie," the Marxist background and the whether in their enthusiastic people will "go on putting their steel for me consliuiles a visual response to a painting which has confidence in him."(2) If this pun on Ihe associations between

as its subject peasants and war, u.se of the past to justify present steel and dictatorships whether

they had noted that it was in fact abuse is, as Fanon implies, an in Ihe name of the proletariat or

subverting the conventions of inevitable movement in post- nol: the claims to absoliile

socialist realism which I have colonial politics, that is all Ihc aulhority, Ihe purity of ideal

briefly indicated. Only in its more reason for artists to deal political systems, inflexible opposition of the humanity of cautiously with their delcrminalion, detachmeni from the peasants to the dehumanised representations of the war itself human weakness. As an aspirant

technology of the enemy is a Whatever else our heritage diclalor .loseph Djugash\ili look

conventional point registered. consists of it should not inckulc as his nom de guerre Stalin —

In other respects the painting art which serves the distoiiioiis steel. Most socialist refuses socialist-realist of propaganda. governmenis of this century revolutionary pieties. The justified aulhoritarianism by

shooting down of aircraft from As I have suggested I do not claiming lo speak on behalf of Julius Nyamubaya, the sky was atypical in our war think that Comrades War can be Ihc people whose historic Portrait of a Streetkid, 1996, as it was in any other guerilla simply dismissed as art serving destiny they were helping lo 90 X 45cm, oil on canvas war — guerilla warfare is not the saniti/ed official memories fulfil; most, in the last decade, furthered by acts of grand of Zimbabwe for the details of after Iheir inevitable collapse, 1 2 defiance against an enemy with Ihe painting do not create a were show n to ha\c been facades erected to conceal the Witikani takes his place corruption at the heart of their alongside Fasoni Sibanda and various systems. The graffiti- Luis Meque as artists who have like scores suggest a popular enabled us to see in a new way anger which cuts through the life in high density suburbs and faijade to reveal, in rust and 1 communal lands. The insights blood, political authority as self- which their art has offered us are serving and self-indulgent, as now a part of our heritage in the sybaritic in fact. most positive sense of the word. Hilary Kashiri stands beside

If Williams's painting is a them and can be seen to have general statement about political developed the tradition which authority. Richard Witikani's they have given ri.se to. His

The News is more local in its Commuter Rank 11 is a referents, which constitutes part nightmare vision of the crowded of its strength. Witikani's inner city. There is little to drawing becomes more deft with console in the lurid colours and each new painting and here it human figures are barely creates the heaviness of the legs discernible. Squares and circles of two male figures which dominate referring to the shapes dominate the left-hand side of of the vehicles at the rank while the painting and which conveys at the same time suggesting a a contradictory sense of bored world dominated by technology idleness and virility. The figures so that urban humanity is largely Stephen Williams, Fall of the Sybarites (detail), have not been painted as an end alienated from itself. The idea 1996, 150 X 121cm, mixed media in themselves as they have been of an alienating city is taken up in so much of his previous work. in the more schematic Portrait Instead they compete for of a Street Kid by Julius attention with the headlines of Nyamubaya where a person's the papers which the young men head can be made out amidst a are reading with the white and composition of lines and circles black of the paper insisting on in colours which are glaringly their equal status with the other artificial. colours of the painting. The news, however, does not distract One of the more unattractive with hope or purpose or. in our parts of Zimbabwe's visual context of jobless youth, with inheritance is an art which promises of employment. attempted to interpret our Instead the headlines refer to landscapes in the conventions of

AIDS as if the only news the European romantic sublime. contained in the papers is a Often such paintings claim to be guarantee of despair. Other texts of Nyanga and they show blue- referring to feeding schemes and peaked mountains more alpine breast feeding are on the than African, lush green periphery of the painting foregrounds and the inevitable suggesting that attention to the red of musasa trees. Mercifully health of children is rendered such paintings are excluded futile by the AIDS pandemic. A from this exhibition although, in poster inviting voters to support a curious colonial distortion of

Margaret Dongo is dimly visible how we see our world, black and I wonder whether this is artists are beginning to peddle in intended to suggest any the streets imitations of these alternative political initiative has mendacious accounts of the little meaning in the context of land. One of the many debts we

AIDS. Part of the painting's owe to Robert Paul is that he power derives from the way in explored, and many of his which the various verbal texts paintings accurately depict, both are re-enforced through the the colours and shapes of tension between the masculine Nyanga. In this exhibition Paul figures and a group of much less returns to the particular Richard Witikani, Ttie News (detail), 1996, 102 x 183cm, Wade us precisely drawn female figures colours oil on paper range of our seasonal to the right. Only one woman's with his two oils Seasonal eyes are turned half-invitingly Changes I and Seasonal towards the men — the rest look Changes II. In the first the earth away. Beneath one of the men's at the end of a good rainy season shoes a newspaper headline provides a thin panel which announces with words that serve divides the painting into two: on as an alternative title to the one side the colours of painting: 'AIDS weakens the Zimbabwe's clear winter skies: virile ones." on the other side the dust i o between the rains. Sky and earth dominate the canvas as painting operates through an they do our lives for so much of irony that allows echoes of the the year. In Seasonal Changes ancient and new art to compete

II Wade uses the same idea of in the viewer's imagination. vertical divisions as the basic

construct of the painting. Here Perhaps we should not try to

he adds to the natural tones, reproduce a vanished art

colours which have other especially one which is so culturally relative associations. obviously the product of a The rainy season panel here hunter-gatherer society. Coming moves from green and brown from an infinitely more complex into brown, purple and pink economic system, we cannot

which can be read as blossom or reproduce the spirit of the old

as the riches of the earth. This is art. The artist who more than followed by a lovely piece of any other on the exhibition painting of the sky, the rich blue enacts a confrontation with this

paling at the edges as the winter multiply faceted economic

sky does. This is replaced by present (if confrontation is not

the largest of all the panels too strong a word for so gentle

where dust shades into earth an artist) is Thakor Patel. His colour before the concluding companion pieces Summer

panel which is of deep red and Cloud and Winter Cloud show blue, satisfyingly suggesting a him in a characteristically

concluding richness to this playful mood with an assortment sequence. of objects painted on the two

canvases as if set up for a

Our oldest and most ubiquitous memory test. But because it is

artistic inheritance is of course Thakor Patel controlling the the rock paintings which appear images, the apparently random throughout Zimbabwe's granite representations are located with areas. A vague and distorted a mathematical precision which

impression of thein has been is confirmed in the exactness of appropriated by the tourist trade both the drawing and the way in to decorate batik and pottery but which paint has been applied. they have to my knowledge The summer of the tlrst painting

never been successfully used in is suggested in a Ndebele love-

serious art. In this exhibition, an stick, brightly coloured beads attempted testimony to the early being strung to cover the wood,

artists, is Obert Muringani's a hint of a deck chair, kites and Original Painters. However other mobiles flying, the sun-

much one welcomes the attempt, touched cloud of the title which

one has to see it as failure. is also half-curtain raised to Muringani has painted onto reveal parallel lines which three pieces of hide, stitched suggest the agricultural potential (above) Paul Wade, Seasonal Changes 1, 1996, 150 x 246cm, together. That the original of a ploughed field. A panga oil on canvas community of artists has been blade glints with light. Cloud,

destroyed is suggested both in field, sunlight may be natural (middle) Paul Wade, Seasonal Changes II, 1996, 150 x 246cm, the torn hide and in the absence objects and love a natural oil on canvas of any whole figures in the work passion but Patel makes no only torsoes arc attempt to register them (below) Maria Ndandarika, Waiting in Vain, 1996, approx for human faint realistically. In fact we see them 48 X 48 X 40cm, opalstone depicted together with the outline of a giraffe. This as painted before we think of comment on the vanished artists their literal referents. In the case

remains at the level of of the love-stick, the key trope

affirmation rather than in the painting, we see it as something which has been artefact in the making before we

realised in the work it.sclf. The register its associations.

original art with very few .Similariy the lines at the bottom

exceptions is an art which of the painting are noted as a

signifies through outline and in Irame helbre their alternative

the way outlines relate to one referent as ploughed field is another. Muringani has rejected recognised. In Winter (Imul ihe

the challenges of this technique framing lines are now at I he lop by moulding the thigh, buttocks of the painting suggesting and breasts ol his figures so they ceiling hoards and from them more closely resemble Ihe kites and mobiles hang, contemporary figure paintmg disabled by the season. The

than the art which he implicitly clouds have the colour of the

claims as inspiration. There is guli clouds of July although arc like 14 always the possibility that I am again they draped missing the point and (he curtains and their artificialitv is .

further insisted upon in fasteners exploration of the shape and which secure the cloud-curtain movement of bird and beast as a folds — wittily suggesting the feather duster represents an need to button-up against the ostrich. Harry Muta.sa's cold. The button on the summer Pregnancy Pain shows, cloud is frivolously decorated however, that there are exciting with beading so that it is hardly young sculptors around. There functional as fastener. Only the is no attempt to disguise the blade of the panga is repeated. I scrap which has gone to the have no objection to a didactic making of the figure and the art — both The News and pain of the title is suggested as Tluinking Godfor Hanest have much by the distortions of the didactic elements in them and figure as in the functional they are the linear descendants unconnectedness of the various of Shona oracy which sees its pieces: no part of the body purpose in its capacity to correct relates mechanically with any and direct. But art can also other part. One glance shows satisfy by being retle.xive, by the figure headless and the head considering the processes which in the groin is the new birth; a have gone into its making. One second glance shows the head aspect of that process for bent in agony towards the groin,

Zimbabwean painters is the the new birth still invisible. influences which we are subject Ishmael Wilfred won the Mobil to and which Patel refers to: we Overall Award of Distinction for know both Ndebeie bead-work Painting and requires no praise and the clean lines and colours from me except to note the with which David Hockney freshness of his palette and the celebrates southern California's manner in which his movement light and leisure. One recalls into the supernatural links with Klee and Miro in PateFs kites some of the best of the original and mobiles but the colour of the stone sculpture. .soil, the winter and summer clouds are entirely Zimbabwean. Heritage becomes positive then The panga, that ambiguous when we know that our present instrument of violence and activity is creating something of agriculture, denies the value for future generations. It possibility of any simple becomes more valuable when it response to either season. does not try to avoid complexity and contradiction but rather Heritage if it is a positive confronts them, confident that concept must be about both the out of their resolution will grow past and the future. Our the new complexity of what is younger artists will make a yet to come. heritage for future generations but they will do that only if they Notes retain a creative integrity in the 1 Much of this art has been face of the demands of the destroyed but something of its quality can be judged from Albie market place. We all know what Sachs. Images of a Revolution: has happened to our stone Mural Art in Mozambique sculpture: endless, increasingly (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing inferior reproductions of once House, 1983). brilliant ideas so that even in the

National Gallery one greets with 2. Frantz Fanon. The Wretcljed of mistrust each carved stone one tlie Eartli. 1961: trans. Constance comes across. (3) It was only Parrington 1965

( Penguin, after several visits to the Harmondsworth: 1985 edn). pl35. exhibition that I recognized how superbly Maria Ndandarika's 3. An excellent analysis of the Waiting In Vain manages to market to which the stone convey a sense of anticipation, sculpmre has been directed is resignation and despair with an Carol Pearce, "The Myth of extraordinary economy of line. 'Shona Sculpture'". Zambezia In every interior-decorating shop (1993). XX, ii.pp85-I07. in Harare we see the insulting attempts to copy Arthur Azevedo's metal sculptures. Stiff birds in black-painted (above) Thakor Patel, Summer Cloud, 1996, metal, hammered into 91 X 57.5cm, watercolour uniformity so that the very notion of 'scrap' is lost, bear as (below) Thakor Patel, Winter Cloud, 1996, 15 much relation to Azevedo's 91 X 57.5cm, watercolour Painting tine essence: the harmony and equilibrium of Thakor Pate!

16 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 Thakor Patel, awareness and then distills an experience, expressing only the Untitled essential elements. (Cuxhaven), 1996, approx. 150 x 300cm, mixed media

A very direct example of this can be deciphered in a recent work. Beethoven and Bach, Patel created paintings inspired by the music Untitled {Cuxhaven). which was commissioned by a company that that filled that environment. Again only a precise selection of operates a fishing business in Cuxhaven. Germany. Patel focuses on evocative elements and colours are used allowing the imagination to the experience of being in that city. Two lines of subtly changing be drawn in. In Untitled (Homage to Beethoven) the clear fine lines colour, imbued with motion by an arrowhead, enter the canvas, of sheet music are employed as the basic structure with the bottom representing the two rivers that meet in Cuxhaven. Mountains that line of each set rendered in multiple shaded hues. Perfect black surround the area are depicted by a single triangle in shaded greys. notes and other musical symbols seemingly scattered but in fact

Below it is another, inverted, triangle of clear green-blue water with precisely placed across the page, lift away from the lines, giving the fish and bird crossing, their curving shapes evoking their movement. effect of musical sound and movement. The swelling curve of a

Centrally placed is a large circle of sunset and above it a slither of piano is used, as well as arcs of pencil line and two ribbons of moon. To the left boldly coloured strips represent the canvas graded colour, to create a body for the lightness. A single larger awnings of the harbour area. Smaller objects include another fish circle of vibrant red represents that explosion of response one feels drying, a fiag. a planet, housing. All this in a surround of blues. to strong musical climax. Patel says "Music is colour'' He wonders These emblems of a place, of the experience of being in that place, however why musicians only use black and white to write music. are drawn and coloured with delicacy, precision, a surety and "Why not colour?" The dominant colours in Untitled (Homage to lightness of touch, leaving space for the viewer to wander and Beethoven) are appropriately passionate and potent, red, green, expand the concepts within his or her own mind. The positioning of purple and black, yet disciplined by the white space and by the the diverse elements, the use of colour, line and shape, all combine exacting structure of the fine lines and musical notes. 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 Another musically based work. Untitled (Homage to Bach), is in a satisfying whole. centred on a page of music written by the composer which is collaged onto the canvas and combined with notes, musical nota-

The artist explains: tions, colours, simplified indications which lead, through the eyes, to "From nature you can see lots of different things. I feel, myself, I the inner listening imagination. Here, in concord with Bach's music, learnedfrom nature, the colour sense, harmony, tones. Also the symbols are lighter and more playfully disposed; the colours are textures, shapes, lines. Like in nature, all things work together to more measured, more delicate, with a vertical strip rising from a make a beautiful painting." clear blue through pinks and oranges to a translucent lightness.

While recently staying with a family in Germany who are accom- The German family's house was highly ordered, mainly white with 17 plished musicians with a particular love of the compositions of 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

18 affected by his environment. Patel began to work with large white contributory factor in the final purpose which is always to attain a canvases broken only by one or two strips of pale texture or shadow, sense of equilibrium that goes far beyond the extent of a single

some faint regular pencil lines. "Why not [mini colour or design on canvas to become a metaphor fin- human relationships: equilibrium a door for example. Not too complicated hut in a simple way. why threatened, on a knife edge, and finally attained." not make lines, or scratch it out. or make a colour?" Several large recent canvases are just such 'doors', a white expanse with some In fact I think that the metaphor goes further than human relation- colour, lines or texture to light them up. ships to encompass the concept of life as a whole. The Eastern

philosophy, on which Thakor Patel's outlook is based, conceives of When Patel travels, experiences, elements, colours, textures, are life as a continuing attempt to attain harmony through the reconcilia- absorbed and digested to be later composed into paintings. "Every- tion and balancing of the diverse elements of existence. thing is a symbol for something": a mountain, a road sign, reflections in water, a shell, the moon. Small details are reminiscent of objects Talking about his work. Patel says: '/ seen, music heard, impressions gained, now aligned and contrasted, like the philosophical way. For example, when I see in nature, drawn together to recreate his experience. "When I see some things I some leaves fall down on the ground. I must think. When I see a know that I can combine them to make a beautiful artwork. I take a flower, smell its scent, I feel we have to take its essence. Not exactly blank canvas and I just experiment and.it comes out. I don 'I really the whole flower. You can 't explain what smell is. You know. But do sketches. Ideas, pictures, colours, feelings are stored in my head. the essence I take from that. That's how I think of my work, as I collect, combine and work it out." philosophical painting. Simplest statement. Now. because of African and Indian culture, my paintings are still simple but more

"/ want to be myself. Whatever I feel. I must do it. It doesn 't matter. busy." 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 "I find it hard to explain. Sometimes I ciy inside. I know myself hut do Africa, in a different way. but it should he me. not other things. I I cannot say. I cannot talk even in my own language. My drawback fight with my creativity. Creativity is something, it is the opposite of is from the society where I grew up. I didn 't get much chance to death. My creativity is fighting with death. I make new life. I don 't learn and because of society pressures. I couldn 7 get a chance to know how to explain that through words. You have to mark some- state any things openly. Keep quiet all the time. They used to thing when you are on the earth. Mark your existence. To create threaten me. Because offear Still I have fear. If you ask me, speak something different. I have a lot of capacity to create different openly about someone. I can 't. Because they have pressured me so things. If I take anything I can create. I am not physically strong. I much in childhood. Only now I realise why I am like that. In cannot do anything that way. But through creativity I can do it. I Germany now they tell children they must say 'no' if that is what can take anything, a piece of wood and do things with it that will they feel. Don't say 'yes' anyway. And I agree with that, children make a beautiful work of art. You must have guts to do something should say 'no 'first and 'why ', arguing, and they learn. But I got with life." never chance to sax 'no'."

"My favourite painter is Matisse. Fantastic. Brillicmt. He knows "/ believe in the spirit, inside, the power But not in church, like exactly what to put in a painting. Making systems of compositions. people who go and pray and tomorrow more corruption and then go

Those cut-outs are wonderfid. simplified. Simple is very important back to church and pray. Ifyou work hard, if you are honest, it will for me. When you know much more about some things, it depends work, something. It 's me lunv. It is my experience now. Because I upon the artist, but I like to make veiy simple slalenwuts instead of work hard now some people will like my painting, not because of so many things to combine. Ifeel it is very hard to make a simple God. People have lost faith. They used to see what was going on. statement with a space, like for e.xample. a Joan Miro. It's a huge We are too materialist now — money, money, money. All is busi- canvas, just one dot and it is a painting and a lot offeeling in that." ness. Too many businessmen. Sometimes there is a businessman with a good soul who can see." Patel says that no-one can touch the old masters; that the intricate detail in Indian paintings is beautiful. The artists were given time "I like to make a simple statement, maybe a line only on the canvas, and payment so they could just paint everything. Indian artists have nothing else. I want to go in the more simplest things now. For their own system of perspective, form and space. Principles of both example, one line, it 's a painting. How you utilise that line on the that Eastern perspective theory and modernist Western spatial canvas. Bricks, for example, you cent use in a simple, different way. method are used by Thakor Patel to create a unique sense of space You don 't have to make it exactly the brick. Simplicity. Beautiful and distance within his own canvases. His work Untitled (1984), different grading with pencil. Only white, a line and a colour It can plays with both the known flatness of the canvas and with three- be beautifid. I enjoy to make forms. I play. I like the work of dimensional illusion, with stillness and movement. The surface is Kandinsky, the different forms." made up of myraid spattered dots precisely controlled in size and tone to create vertical strips of colour which interact and relate. Life for Thakor Patel has not been easy — a difficult childhood in

There is a sense that some strips are static, others only momentarily which self expression was not allowed, the loss of his leg in his so. while the fine black lines and larger colour spots give the youth, little education and few chances for employment: fabric impression of moving or being about to move as you look at them. design and printing, some teaching, a large family and the attendant As the eye scans up the strips, some appear to shift from the front to financial worries. Yet his paintings express a great affirmation of the back of the surface. It is an experience captured in the mid,st of life. The first works Patel exhibited in Harare were personal and change from one state of existence to another — a momentary agonised, black ink drawings involving interpretations of the body, balance which depends on the precise manipulation of line, shape, allowing insight into the feelings of a crippled person. These were size, distance and, above all, colour. followed by larger clear-coloured and delicately shaded sprayed-on watercolours in which there was a sensitive delight in the environ-

In her catalogue essay for Patel's solo exhibition at the National ment. Then for a period. Eastern mysticism with its use of symbols Gallery of Zimbabwe in 1989. Margaret Garlake wrote: and the spiritual philosophy of his Indian heritage became pervasive in his work. This symbolism has now expanded and become secular.

"His overriding preoccupation is with the play of colour: to push one Thakor Patel's paintings give us a window into a uniquely joyful against another that denies it, then to separate them with a third world. They enable us to experience beauty by transforming the which negates the confiict: to clothe complementarities in identical myriad confusion into distilled forms, concentrated colours and fonns and thus to question their relationship: to articulate the essential elements. They give us those moments of harmony and i q surface with irresolvable spatial dilemmas. And this is only a equilibrium that we seek for in the chaos of life. Earth — Water — Fire, recent works by Berry Bickle, Gallery Delta, November/ December 1996 '^M}'YjV''['/h 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 ^ WW' 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

21 10th Annual VAAB Exhibition, There were some thought-provoking National Gallery in Bulawayo, ixiintings such as Thousands of Rwanda December/January 1996 Rcfuf^ees have Fled Kikumha Camp, 25km North by Malaki Ndlovu in The Annual Visual Artists Association of ofGoma which he portrays the frustration and fatigue of Bulawayo (VAAB) Hxhibition has painted a refugees caught in political tumoil. Oil on new picture about Bulawayo artists and the canvas works by Mzilikazi-based Gulso quality and diversity of their work since its Mutombo, originally from Zaire, though inauguration 10 years ago. Initially interpreted as naive by selectors, have representing a few artists. VAAB has substance. The theme of strife was become an identification tag for Bulawayo's human further carried in Stuart Phiris mixed-media artistic talent. This year's show told a story Civil War. while Anne Siinone Mutton's of endurance and determination by the over Family Ride in aquacryl attests to her love of 100 artists who particiated. family life, laughter and togetherness.

In a variety of media: cloth, wood, paper, Although there were poor entries in the batik, and even eggs, soil and metal, and sculpture category which Thebe said covering a wide range of themes, the works suffered the most rejections on show were pregnant with meanings and because of lack of originality, sculptors in wood, stone and feelings. The restriction of three entries per metal could not be left out. Despite the artist paid off in helping refine the selection. overduplication of stone work, pieces in "What we enjoyed was thai we zoomed in on serpentine by Moffat Chitaunhike, Collin the number of entries which was a chanj^e Chitaka and Precious Sikhulile Sibanda from the tradition when artists could brini> demonstrated notable creativity. Sheunesu in any number of entries. We had decided to Shuinba's Dancing Traditional Lovers allow for only three. Within that number the dazzled the eye, as did Phinos Tizvigoni's artists produced fantastic stuff so that the wood pieces. Marriage 's Main Problem and selectors had a difficult task." said one of Three Suffering. Rashid Jogee revealed his the selectors, artist and Acting Director of abstract expressionism in a sandstone piece. the National Gallery in Bulawayo, Voti Obelisk, which bears some anatomical Thebe. "In future I foresee that we would features. Danisile Ncube submitted two need to narrow down the entries further to entires Caring Mother and Bull Face both of come up with the cream'' which reflected his dexterity with the angle grinder and the welding rod. And, strikingly Originality, innovation and "something with different in the sculpture category was a punch" which was sought by the selectors, Stefan Jost's work entitled The Ultimate was evident in most of the works displayed. Eggs-H-aggeration which employs steel Despite there being no awards, the annaul rods, ostrich eggs and a red earth exhibition is a boost for local talent, and background. household names like Mary Davies, Tomy Ndebele, Gail Altnian. Lauryn Amott. For the discerning designer, th re was Telephone Bedza and Susan Elizabeth Tendai Ncube's Guinea Fowl uvo-piece Coulson, some of whom are founder-

outfit in batik, a medium whic i was widely members of VAAB, made a strong used through the exhibition. impression in the painting section. Even new members found a niche, like Sithabile VAAB is currently the only existing visual Mlotshwa, an upcoming abstract artist with artists" association in Zimbabwe after the an affinity for culturally based themes. Her CO Jost, Harare association went defunct many years Stephan mi,\ed-media piece, Wamuhlu. Muntu. ago. Chairman of VAAB. Rashid Jogee. The Ultimate Eggs- captures the essence of African women. H-aggeration (detail) 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 22 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 Explorations —Transformations, to supplement shows of contemporary art with the sale of artefacts and African Gallery Delta, November 1996 clothing and textiles.

The variety and quality (Muzondo's Man of "We never knew Authority, for instance, and Njagu 's such works existed." was the amazed Township Restaurant) of the opening comment of many visitors to the show of exhibition augur well for the future, but if contemporary visual art exhibited at Gallery Doreen Sibanda is clear about the

Delta in November. Helen Lieros had asked institution's plans, she appears less clear some of Zimbabwe's prominent artists to about its name. The publicity material shifts consider their past work, their beginnings from Mutupo Gallery, to Mutupo Totem and developments, and to produce a Gallery, to Gallery Mutupo, and declares piece for this exhibition. Explorations that "we pride ourselves on the name of — Transformations, subtitled: an Totem", One can sympathise with the insight into the artists and their work dilemma, especially given the intention to depict "an integral and cross-cultural

Arthur Azevedo. a school teacher and artist. heritage", but it needs to be solved sooner Hilary Kashiri. George Churu, Crispen Arthur Azevedo, The Last Bird rather than later. Matekenya and Greg Shaw were among the

20 artists who had their work on display. I 'private world', a place of quiet, calm and Less ambiguous — and slightly less central .searched around the garden endeavouring to tranquility. Who would not admire such a — is the Outside Gallery, which opened in have a chat with one or two of the artists and world? the garden of Pip Curling's Borrowdale it was then thit 1 bumped into the young home early in February. Like Sibanda, painter, Hilary Kashiri. After exchanging Passing into the next room of the exhibition Curling has long experience as both artist the business of that day, he pointed out I saw that there were paintings all about, and teacher, but she has chosen to focus her

Crispen Matekenya in a nearby crowd. standing there, and there, rather as pieces gaze rather more narrowly.

Matekenya was busy talking to an eager stand on a chessboard when it is half-way group of listeners, from tired cynical through a game. They were lovely For some years now, Pip Curling has been journalists to his former school-mates who paintings. Some were human portraits like devoting her attention to encouraging artists wished him every success. Because of his Pip Curling's five paintings Jackson, who inhabit the fringes of what we think of good sense of humour, Matekenya is always Juliana, Joe. Mike and Idah. This work is as 'fine art'. Her exhibition notes call it "art at the centre of the crowd. I asked him to easier for indigenous laymen to identify with without artifice", and properly eschew the show me his work on the exhibition. We and understand. use of 'naive', 'primitive' and 'folk'. The entered the first room and I immediately saw result is a serious and unpatronising venue the Baboon Chair (see Contents page). My The air in the gallery was a hubbub as for the likes of Givas Mashiri's papier- instinct told me it was Matekenya's work. I stimulated people discussed the art around mache creations. Dexter Nyamainashe's couldn't resist the temptation of laughing. I them. George Churu who had his work on wire toys, and the embroidery work of the "// tried to suppress it but what I was gazing at display said: is about time the formal art women's group, Kasona Kweinadzimai. made me want to burst into tears of laughter world in Zimbabwe recognised that there is My wish was to touch the wood and caress far more art out there than is hanging on its Can Harare cope with yet more galleries? it. I felt my cynicism crumbling down to a cold stone walls. For that alone this To paraphrase Bernard Shaw: You can have deep felt sentiment, my senses of sight, exhibition is welcome." enough of boots, and enough of bread, but touch, pathos, were affected. For me the you can never have enough of culture. piece is not only humorous but an apparent The work on view was shattering in its Murray McCartney revelation of the artist's nostalgia for the impact; vital, robust, with an economy of

Shona ethos, customs and virtues. It serves line and curve, a loving coaxing of material the tradition of Shona myths, the to show its inner strength. At this point I Mutupo: The Totem Gallery supernatural/natural creature, realised there was no need to talk to the 6 van Praagh Avenue metamorphosis, in a visual interpretation of artists. What I had seen satisfied not only Milton Park mythology: the baboon is a link between the the eye but the whole being, the mind etc. Harare spirit world and the living, as well as a What the gallery offered was an exciting Tel: 705731 symbol of wisdom and deep knowledge; the reflection of Zimbabwean contemporary chair is a symbol of chieftanship. visual art. I savoured my last sip of Outside Gallery lemonade drink and walked into the pleasant 4 Kirkaldy Road

I then came across a piece by Greg Shaw, a black night, my stressful day long forgotten. Pomona cool, slow-talking painter, a sculpture/ Stanley Karombo Harare

painting titled A Private World. And I stood Tel: 882443.

there gloating over it, thinking about the 23 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 *"- < St- -t<.^*>»».»* ^^^^U/// his working at particular paintings over a number of years but also that he was Robert Paul, Robert Paul, Barbara Murray (Ed). professional enough to leave a painting Eighth Street/ Harare: Colette Wiles, 1996. unfinished when the pictorial solutions Livingstone Avenue ISBN 0-7974-1614-5 evaded him. (Speech given at the book launch at Gallery Delta, December 1996) As Zimbabweans we are of course most Since reading the book whose pubhcation interested in the painter who more than any

we have come to celebrate this evening I other artist shaped our visual understanding CD townscapes and landscapes and there have kept on returning mentally to Matthew of our

Aniold, the nineteenth-century English is a great deal in this book to show how Paul

literary and cultural theorist. Arnold argued identified essential features of both and

that great art was possible only when artists proposed ways of representing them. O themselves were exposed to a ferment of ideas, to debates about multiple ways of Central to Paul's later development was the conceiving and representing reality, in short burst of immigration after the Second World CD to an atmosphere of critical activity. War which by the 1930s had created a far more cosmopolitan Salisbury than the small So much has been made of Robert Paul's town Paul had come out to in 1927 as a

isolation as an artist in the philistine young trooper in the British South Africa

Rhodesia of the 1930s and 1940s that he is Police. One immigrant was the South

in danger of becoming a figure from a .Mrican artist Fran(;ois Roux whom Paul met vulgarised European Romanticism. For the in 1952. Roux's chapter in this book, the

Romantics the artist was an isolated inspired reminiscence by one artist of another, is one

genius, prophet and seer standing apart from of its several highlights. Roux it is who huinanity. Arnold regarded such an idea of identifies the particular nature of Paul's

the artist as preposterous. He argued for art achievement: the man who left England

O activity: artist like when he was twenty-one never presented as a social the any cultured person must know the best that has this country as exotic or tropically

been said and thought at the present time for glamorous. Instead he looked for and found

only then could art intelligently explore life. in the elements of whatever landscape he CO was reproducing interdependences which he As the biographical sections of this book realised could be rendered through complex show, Paul was frequently depressed and relationships of line, tone and colour w illiin

withdrawn but then painting or writing is a his paintings. lonely business. The necessary solitariness of painting should not be confused with Roux is direct about the problems of the intellectual isolation. Something which social artist which confronted Paul as a emerges very strongly from Colette Wiles's younger painter in this country. He remarks biographical essay on her father — which that Rhodesians expected that their artists

forms the first substantial chapter of the should depict only "august objects ... For a

book — is just how important to Robert painting to he good, it had to he a super

Paul's development as artist were his picture postcard, a memento ... The reigning

furloughs in England. On his first return trip motifs were 'balancing roclcs'. plain rx)cks

in 19.34 he met John Piper with whom he were not good enough; msasa trees only

was to remain in contact for much of his lile. when in colourful new leaf: 'The Falls'

He also travelled to Paris to look al Ihc work when full." (fiOl Eor Roux. Paul's problem of Cezanne, Picasso and Braque and was to steer a path between "the trite

discovered Pierre Bonnard. In other words j artistic] conventions of colonial society and Paul was never completely cut off from equally futile, uitconsummated flirtings of

developments in liuropean art and in his the alntractionists." In fact Roux is wrong

later lile, when he was at his most prolific. in that last reiiuirk: Paul certainly Patricia Broderick recalls how alter the experimented with abstraction to see

National Gallery library was established whether It might provide one of .several 24 Paul spent hours there. solutions which he wanted. The challenge Zimbabwe's landscape crossroad — the jacarandas are almost Several points must be made about the presented to Paul has recurred all over the incidental. A third in van der Spuy's words publication of this book. It is singularly world where people from Europe have tried "is ofjacarandas in winter when their leaves appropriate that it should be launched here at to come to terms with what was for them a turn yellow and the sky is hazy with grass Gallery Delta. Most obviously because it new world. Paul, according to Roux, found smoke."(69) Not only does Paul refuse the was here in his house for forty years that so "form, cohesion, variety, vitality' in the beguiling colours of the trees but he much of Paul's work was produced. From apparent nothingness "of nondescript grans correctly places his jacarandas in the dry and all accounts the garden was a tangle and the and scrubby bushes." hard context of that period before the rains. house often chaotic but from tangle and chaos painting after painting emerged

Paul's technique in providing that cohesion However important Roux may have been to providing visual order and shape which and form is given an extended coverage in Paul, no individual can ever provide the allow us to see Zimbabwe anew. But this

Martin van der Spuy's chapter. Van der exchange of ideas which I spoke about at the location for the book launch is also

Spuy begins his chapter with what is an beginning. For Paul this came with the appropriate because it is here that Gallery important observation. "While Paul learned founding of the Rhodes National Gallery Delta is now established. Delta over the from painters such as Cezanne, Piper, under Frank McEwen. Some of the more years has provided a site where critical Hitchens or Van Gogh" van der Spuy moving moments in Wiles's biographical discrimination and selection are continually writes, "if is less a case of inspiration than essay are those where Paul, always diffident taking place in the act of mounting the of responding to certain challenges." Paul about his abilities, finds that his work was exhibitions of the quality which we have in other words was not interested in copying appreciated by people accustomed to judge come to expect. These exhibitions are an the techniques of European painters but artistic excellence in a much wider context essential part of the ferment of ideas which I rather in seeing whether in their work than Rhodesia could possibly provide. spoke about before. They are criticism in techniques were available which would McEwen exhibited one of Paul's paintings at action. That implicit critical activity is also allow him to rise to what his artistic the Imperial Institute in London where it made explicit from here in Gallery magazine intelligence was challenged by. His was greatly admired. But Wiles suggests which Delta publishes. In Gallery at last is a challenge was how to render in paint what that Paul himself only recognised his power Zimbabwean forum where art is debated, he saw in Zimbabwe and among van der as a painter when Brian Bradshaw who was standards explored, theories explained and

Spuy's several masterly analyses 1 draw your visiting director to the Gallery mounted a all are tested on paintings made accessible attention to his discussion of four paintings retrospective exhibition of Paul's work in through an invariably high standard of of jacarandas, that subject which has to be 1976. Wiles recalls him saying after he had reproduction. This book can now be added placed alongside balancing rocks and msasas examined the two-hundred and fifty to that critical activity: it is an important step as one of our iconic cliches. Paul's paintings with their enormous diversity of in moving us on that long road from the jacarandas, which are illustrated with styles, media and subjects: "7 was amazed amateur and the provincial to the excellent colour reproductions which when I saw them there. They looked so professional and the metropolitan. Artistic characterise the plates throughout the entire nice."' (54) If after his retrospective, Paul biography, technical and formal analyses book, refuse the fluffy clouds of mauve had any continued doubts about his abilities, allow much of the complex power of Paul's which so often seem to be competing with and Patricia Broderick's essay shows that he achievement to emerge. In Matthew landscapes of European spring orchards. often did, these should have been laid to rest Arnold's words, through this book, we begin Only one of the four in fact shows the trees by his being honoured in 1980 by an to know Paul's paintings as belonging to the in full bloom and there the blossom is exhibition at the Pretoria Art Museum. best that has been said and thought in our reduced to abstraction, patches of pale Unfortunately he was already too sick to country. Anthony Chennells purple light against a black storm-filled sky. travel to Pretoria for the exhibition and died

A second of the pictures is dominated by a months later. forthcoming events and exhibitions

Crossroads at Gallery Delta in April will be April is an exhibition of posters by Chaz Following this in May, Lucky Mutebi, a looking at new work by George Churu, Maviyane-Davies entitled Rights. Work young figurative painter from Kenya will be Tendai Gumbo, Crispen Matekenya, by final year BAT Students will be on exhibiting. Shepherd Mahufe and others. This will show in May as will photographs of the San be followed on 13 May by Tracks in Africa, Bushmen by Paul Weinberg. June .sees Outside Gallery will be having an open day

an exhibition of paintings by Helen the opening of the annual Schools Exhibi- on 1 3 April including works by their resident Kedgley and textiles by Suzy tion. artists as well as other offerings to raise

Pennington, which is centred on the funds for the Buddhist Centre.

experiences of these two New Zealand A Woman's Place is the title of the next artists in Africa. Richard Jacl< takes exhibiton at Mutupo: The Totem Gallery In April, the National Gallery in Bulawayo centre stage in June with a solo show of including works by Harry Mutasa, Chico will be showing photographs of Daily Life recent graphics and sculptures. Chazunguza. Joseph Muzondo and in Zimbabwe by renowned French photogra- Tendai Gumbo. In mid-April there will be pher, Philippe Gaubert, as well as work

Architectural Designs, for the Catholic a group show, Independence ... 17 views, by the Bulawayo Polytech students of University Competition, will be on show at and from mid-May Itayi Njagu will have a Applied Art and Design. Zambian graphic the National Gallery in Harare in early April. one man show. artist, Patrick Mweembe, will exhibit Running concurrently will be a group prints during May and in June, Beverley exhibition entitled Double Vision-Culture- From 27 March to mid-April, Isabelle Sig, Gibbs will have a solo show. Art From the Time-Colour including work by Bulelwa a French painter who has been living in Midlands, also in June, will feature work by Madekurozva and Chiko Chazunguza Mozambique for three years, and Zephania Tapfuma Gutsa, Costa Mkoki, Nicole From the 16 April Ishmael Wilfred will Tshuma will have work on display, entitled Gutsa and other artists from the Gweru hold a one man show and opening on 23 African Chronicles, at Pierre Gallery. region. 25 / S

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