Curated by Simphiwe Munyaradzi Moyo, it was a collection of over 30 artworks exploring ancestral memory, diasporic identity, spiritual guardianship and African womanhood. Vazhure was born in the UK in 1981 but returned to live with her grandparents in Masvingo where she did her primary and secondary education. At 18, she went back to the UK for university and has lived in Wales ever since. Both the European experience and Karanga heritage are quite palpable in a good number of her exhibited works.

The foregoing is a background that was critical to understanding the exhibition. The lived experience and knowledge base of the Zimbabweans who came to appreciate the art was equally critical. As a matter of fact, the success of any work of art very much depends on that combination. It is, ultimately, not just about what is painted or sculpted but also about who painted and why; who is viewing and what background experience and knowledge they are bringing into their interpretation. In this respect, it is fair to say that the success of any work of art comes from how much the connoisseur, enthusiast or judge brings into it. They can only take out a rough equivalent of how much they bring in. Connoisseurs invest in attachments to sentiments. They buy to store memory and values.

A two-time NAMA-winning poet and novelist, Rumbidzai began her journey as a visual artist in 2022, translating the themes of her literary work (womanhood, migration, spirituality and ancestral memory) into richly textured paintings. Working primarily with acrylic on canvas, Samantha’s vibrant impasto, impressionist, expressionist, cubist and dot-art styles reflect a poetic sensibility, rooted in African cosmology and contemporary diasporic experience. In that context, Vazhure founded Chitende Fine Art in 2023 as an outlet for her visual practice, which often merges with poetry, sound and storytelling. She continues to bridge the various disciplines with a vision that is politically conscious, spiritually grounded and artistically fearless.

The stated transition from literary work to visual expression lends credence to the choice of impasto, impressionist, expressionist, cubist and dot-art styles whose general effect is vibrant and protrusive. Vazhure intimates that “feeling the strokes and daubs of acrylic on canvas (which is a general characteristic of the styles) is gratifying to the tactile sense”. And, even though the possibility exists that these may not have been conscious choices, they could still not have been haphazard choices but rather logical developments or natural evolutions. One feels that the poet’s impasto, impressionism, expressionism, cubism and dot-art styles are not haphazard choices but organic outgrowths of her poetry or literary creations. They come across as permutations of her poetry or literary creations. They come across as free verse transmuted to 3-D illusions on canvas; like energy that cannot be created nor destroyed but simply changes form, so that the light of the sun is also electricity and heat and light again. By their very nature, impasto, impressionist, expressionist, cubist and dot-art styles are styles with the capacity to simultaneously carry the multiple meanings in the manner her poetry, and for that matter all poetry, does.

The piece Universal Oneness (2023) speaks to that. Vazhure’s paintings have appeared in Writing Woman Anthology Volume 3 by Mwanaka Publishing, Zana Zine (Mother Nature) and The Artful Prize Magazine (2024). She has exhibited with several groups in the UK, including at the prestigious Royal West of England Academy (RWA). The Nzwisa Exhibition comprises 31 limited edition prints of original paintings of acrylic on canvas and two Shona stone sculptures. The prints are 3D-scanned specifically to project the textured impressionist, expressionist, impasto, pointillist as well as cubist look of the originals. The high quality images are printed on acid-free, water-resistant, smooth fine art 320gsm giclee paper, using high dynamic range inks and delivered in robust postal tubes.

All prints come in editions of 100, are numbered, titled, dated and signed by the artist, and include a certificate of authenticity. The originals can be purchased from www.chitendefineart.com or by direct arrangements with the artist. Vazhure’s case is the reality of many ‘born-free’ Zimbabweans who have lived decades in the Diaspora. It is a reality that cannot be ignored, side-stepped or brushed aside as many are beginning to migrate back to a land and culture that, in many ways, is now only theirs by descent. Their interpretation of the ground through art is mitigated by a lived experience their audience may not be familiar with. More often, theirs actually comes across as an attempt to belong to a strange homeland after failing to belong in a foreign land. Some, among the exhibited works, show the conflict, in which case, the styles of impasto, impressionist, expressionist, cubist and dot-art also become the message. In world art history (which is euphemism for European art history) these styles did not emerge as peaceful evolutions or reform of what was already there. They came as rebellions and revolutions.

In the foregoing context, Vazhure’s multidisciplinary capacity is a special one because it can be depended upon to help unpack, for those who cannot, the identity crises that come with immigration. This is particularly in the sense in which artists often come across as a voice for the voiceless. This may, of course, sound like an overused analogy, but there still remains some truth in it. A useful alternative would be war analogy in which the artist would be both vanguard (scout) and rearguard. The vanguard is the fore party; the unit that often meets and engages the enemy for the first time and without the relevant experience to guide offence or defence. As vanguard, artists operate on a time frontier, experimenting, creating, testing, breaking barriers and presenting new worldviews. What the people popularise is what artists as rearguard preserve as traditions. Vazhure’s paintings appear to do that in many ways.

The feminism in Vazhure relates to the foregoing notions in less obvious but critical ways. The feminist element in the exhibited work is a statistic. Of the 31 paintings on exhibition, only one has an exclusively male subject while 15 include female subjects. Of the 15, a majority of nine are exclusively women. The one with the male subject is titled ‘Tiri kuenda kupi senyika?’ A hopeless man is lying down, contemplating the way forward surrounded by empty beer bottles. His distress (without a woman) is palpable. The suggestion of comparison with the Unfazed Woman, the Rebel Woman, Portrait of Harmony (2024) and How Great Thou Art (2024) is unmistakable.

The human subjects of Mwari aka Mai NdiMwari are exclusively women and children. The women are nurturing life while Kupfura Mhangura is exclusively men fashioning arms of war. But, Vazhure’s feminism is decidedly not obdurate or militant. There is no attempt to de-construct manhood. Indeed, no piece comes across as a war cry. There is no intimidation to men going through the exhibition. What one feels is, rather, an invitation to celebrate womanhood but not in the brazen sense of Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party — where dinner places were rendered as women’s genitalia. A tender evocation of intimacy, Munhu Wangu reflects the personal claim of belonging — ‘my person’. The work celebrates “the sacred bond between two people, balancing vulnerability with strength. The brushwork suggests both protection and exposure, reminding us that love is not ownership but communion.” Vazhure’s feminism is rendered as ubuntu — “balancing vulnerability with strength”. Energy Exchange (2024) sums up her humanism or ubuntu and it is concretised in the romance of Munhu Wangu and the two versions of Iwe Neni.

The statistic diminishes The Embraces of Struggle to a conflict more informed by race than gender. The artist’s position is that “love is not ownership but communion”. Munhu Wangu stands too unique to ignore. The cubist style is one-off, inviting both a closer look and a conversation. Incidentally, all of Vazhure’s human subjects are black, except the white man in The Embraces of Struggle. Even the animal subjects are African primates, Makudo eDzimbabgwe and Vhudzijena. It is a bias that celebrates the artist’s African identity without apology. Vazhure’s exhibition includes Shona stone sculpture. She feels, very strongly, that Shona stone sculpture is more Zimbabwean than painting.

The reason is, of course, not difficult to see in that African art traditions have not done a scientific analysis or break down of colour to a spectrum as wide as that done by other civilisations. We have remained stuck in analogue where others have refined it multiple shades. Tsvuku is still the name for red, orange, crimson, mauve and scarlet, among others. About her interest in Shona stone sculpture, Vazhure says she doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed. She wants to be multi-dimensional. She wants to be everything she can be and, in that spirit, she exhibited two stone pieces both done in residence under the mentorship of renowned female sculptor, Agnes Nyanhongo. These are Chembere yekwaChivi and VaChifedza Vezamo Guru. Both are in abstract and the finesse in both as firsttime pieces speaks of an easy hand on the part of Vazhure. Chembere yekwaChivi is a cast shorthand to the idiom: “Zvinhu zviyedzwa, chembere yekwaChivi yakabika mabwe ikamwa muto.”

The artist insists that Chembere yekwaChivi is not a myth but VaChifedza, the real matriarch of the Dziva people and, in that respect, her ancestor. This means that VaChifedza Vezamo Guru and Chembere yekwaChivi are one person and her ancestor. It means that both were made in homage to her. They are powerful pieces whose success lies in their organic connection to Shona orature. Stillness in Bloom is worth mentioning. It is the painting of a lone sheep in a field. She called it her favourite because it carries sentiments of the passing on of her father in 2024. The biblical reference to the ‘lost sheep’ comes to mind. And then there is something very English about the background and the colour preferences. The colour explanation came in a discussion in which Vazhure commented on how her experience of colours always transforms from nondescript to high definition every time she lands at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport from the UK where the skies are almost permanently grey.

Read the review here: https://www.thepatriot.co.zw/columns/nzwisa-exhibition-a-tale-of-artistic-alienation/