THIS THURSDAY, ART MEETS AFRICAN INSPIRATION AT A FROSTY GREENLAND
THIS is the last article in the three part-series reflecting on art and underlining the African Inspiration exhibition, scheduled to take place from Thursday, 2nd to 5th November 2017 at Lusaka Golf Club.
In those last two weeks, I have explored the reasons art needs promotion and how the art industry development can directly affect the economy including by its output multiplier for other parts of the economy.
I have also explored the positive impact of art on the individual’s health and intellect, on tourism, on the exultation of our imaginative faculties etc., Secondly, a lot of research confirms that regular personal interface with the arts helps with nurturing an individual’s resourcefulness to arduous tasks and that art inspires effective personal communication and expression. Furthermore, Imagine art as it engages, enlightens and relaxes. What is it worth to you? Can you envision that?
Imagine those few moments alone at the art exhibition as you search and ponder the meaning of the art pieces. As the creativity engrosses you in the circumstance, in its intuitive element, the appreciation of art will grow, and with that, the resolve to be personally purposeful begins to become immensely gripping, alluring, a potential feat waiting to live in an opulent grassland, if only temporally.
And that is the reason to be part of this event, notwithstanding the novel ideas that this event brings forth to support the advancement of the art industry. And so, as can be expected as I wrote this column in the past two weeks, I enjoyed observing the passion, the zeal, the tenacity that goes into organising these events by those in the organising committee. So what is to be expected?
First, the exhibition will be officially open on the first day on 2nd November to invited guests, then from this Friday, the event opens to the public through to Sunday afternoon. In the meantime, a golf tournament flags off on the 4th November with the medal award expected on the same day. The winning golfers will receive art artefacts donated by the exhibiting artists.
In terms of sponsorship, a number of business houses who include Lusaka Golf Club, First Alliance Bank Zambia Limited, Astro Holdings Ltd, Micmar Investments Ltd, Acash Travel and Car Hire Ltd, Hybrid Poultry Farms Ltd and Chicol Estates Limited answered the call to back the event. Other companies such as South African Airways have expressed interest to be part of the sponsors for this event next year. The developing interest by the corporate institutions in this event underscores the promise that this event can stimulate going forward.
So let’s look at the artists who will grace this event?
• Lawrence Yombwe has 30 years profile as an artist and has developed a unique technique; working with rudimentary materials such as sackcloth (hessian) developing artwork that borrows symbols from initiation rites practiced by the Bemba tribe of the Northern Province and also uses these traditional motifs to integrate locally spiky issues such as corruption. He studied art at the Africa Literature Centre in Kitwe, Croydon College UK and Evelyn Hone College. He taught art at Matero Boys Secondary School as well as in Botswana.
• Poto Kabwe likes to depict a realistic story of Zambian life in the high-density neighbourhoods, in his work he captures all aspects of life from street vendors to crowded bars in his marathon compositions working with both acrylic and oil.
Poto's work is also represented in Oprah Winfrey's private art collection. Among his many commissions, are the murals at Lusaka Museum and Dr. Kaunda's family portraits at Chilenje Old State House Monument.
• Vincentio Phiri came onto the art scene in the 70's and is one of the early mem¬bers of the printmaking group that used to meet at Evelyn Hone College. He is a self-taught artist who has participated in many exhibitions including in Europe. Vincentio specialises in abstract art similar to Jackson Pollock's style of painting. He is on the organising committee of the Insaka International Artists Workshop.
• Victor Makashi has at least forty years profile as an artist participating in several local, regional and international exhibitions. He was in public service for 36 years as an art teacher and administrator from 1981 to 2017 until his retirement this year as Director of the Department of Arts and Culture in the Ministry of Tourism and Arts. He has also served on several local and international committees including the Arts Examinations Sub Committee of the Examinations Council of Zambia, International Committee of Museums, International Networks for Cultural Diversity and the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies.
• Nezias Nyirenda trained at Rockston Studios and learned stone carving with David Chirwa during the early 1990s. Most of his work today is in wood graduating from realistic art to his more recent abstract work. He has exhibited at various local exhibitions.
• Patrick Mumba a Senior Lecturer and Head of School of Education at Evelyn Hone College, body of paintings engage with the impermanence of life and the time in between various forms of beginnings and endings. He relates ambiguity and processes of aging to the aesthetic process of moving from representational art to semi-abstract art, and to complete abstraction when the object or material reaches an unrecognisable stage. He graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, at the University of London in the United Kingdom with an honours degree in Fine Art and from Rhodes University in South Africa with a Masters degree in Fine Art.
• Adam Mwansa is a painter in a variety of media including oil, watercolor, acrylics and a pen. He has participated in numerous Art exhibitions locally and abroad and works with a range of subject matters representational to non-objective forms.
The strength of his images together with the portrayal of visual movement in most of the images makes one instantly get the outburst of the warmth and energy which the artist wants the viewer to experience.
He is a part-time Art lecturer in the School of Education at Evelyn Hone College in Lusaka and a member of the Visual Arts Council (VAC).
• Nsabashi has participated in many workshops at home and abroad, including Mbile international workshops and international workshops in Budapest, Hungary. Akwila 000Simpasa has been a big influence on Nsabashi's work.
• Eddie Mumba is a sculptor who has participated in many workshops and exhibitions at home and abroad and is also the recipient of several awards.
He was a manager of the Henry Tayali Art Centre in 1992 and Vice Chairman of VAC in 19971998, and from 2014-2015. He is a member of the "ADF" project committee of the Zambia National Arts Council and is Adjudicator for the Zambia Arts Adjudicators panel for 2015 L'A atelier art competition, a regional art project for South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Ghana and Kenya. He teaches sculpture at Evelyn Hone College.
• Rabson Phiri's work features an ingenious use of scrap metal that comprises mainly car and bicycle parts. The latter feature prominently in his work perhaps because he spent his teenage years as a bicycle mechanic.
Rabson has exhibited at various exhibitions and was awarded the second prize in Sculpture in 2010 for the Art for Wildlife Competition. His work features in the START Foundation's ongoing exhibition at 37d Gallery. Rabson has been covered on CNN's Inside Africa.
• Style Kunda is a selftaught painter who went to school at Mpatamatu and Luanshya Correspondence School. He started sign-writing in 1969 and moved on to painting on canvas in 1977.
Kunda worked as a gallery attendant at Mpapa Gallery in 1992, during which time he received an artist's working grant sponsored by NORAD. He served on the Mbile Committee as treasurer and secretary until 1995. His work focuses on social commentary and related aspects of Zambian life. He has exhibited at home and abroad and has widely participated in workshops in the Southern African region.
• Agnes Buya Yombwe is a painter and sculptor who received an art teacher’s diploma from the Evelyn Hone College, and a certificate in art and design from Wimbledon School of Art, London. She has been a successful experimental artist who has won seven awards and held several solo exhibitions.
She has also undertaken prestigious studio residencies at the Edvard Munch Studio in Oslo, Norway, and at the McColl Centre for Visual Arts in North Carolina, USA. She has exhibited in many parts of the world. Currently, she runs Wayi Wayi Art Studio and Gallery in Livingstone, Zambia where she also mentors 15 girls at her studio.
She previously taught art at Libala and Matero Boys Secondary Schools and was one of the four original founder members of the Zambia VAC.
The list above is of who is who in the visual art world in Zambia and combines sculptors, painters to the sketch artists, from the representational art, non-object to the abstract creation. There is quite a lot to sample for the art enthusiast, many gleaming relics will be on display to light the aesthetic minds, including pieces that can tap down the tempest moment.
And that is why as previously noted, it is extremely encouraging to see the resumption of the African Inspiration art exhibition, an outfit whose core theme is that of promoting Zambian visual art into an entrepreneurial enterprise. If their past is instructive, we can expect a great experience and witness how a golf event can bring synergetic experiences onto the art world.
Will we be seeing an emerging new take on art promotion? Perhaps, but either way, I will be there to sample the atmosphere as Art meets African Inspiration at a frosty Greenland on Thursday.