adminDr Tony Monda Art Zone
Early this year an important art collector-agent from Southeby’s London asked me why Zimbabwean paintings have a dark, dull, dusty palette when the natural countryscape, environmental atmosphere and people exhibit so much heightened colour and the natural light is so perfect for painting the brightness of the country’s vegetation and its people.
Several questions arose:
- Is it because the artists lack a colour sense?
- Is it because the artists’ enclosed habitats or studios have dim lighting?
- Is it because many painters do not practice plein air painting which is practised outdoors?
The questions were many, the answers were few. Having recently received a similar question from a well-known UNWTO General Assembly representative and art collector, who I met in August, this writer set out to investigate indigenes artists’ colour prejudice.
The perception of colour in Zimbabwe is in many instances perceived with a cultural colour prejudice – based on one’s beliefs and idea of the impact and secondary meaning of colour in an Afro-centric cultural idiom.
According to the traditional Shona con-text, for instance, the wearing and exhibition of bright primary colours is often perceived as showing off – kuwonererwa.
This means to exhibit oneself unduly and are generally frowned upon. I believe this could be one of the socio-psychological reasons local artists prefer to paint with a subdued palette.
Another take could be that today’s practicing local artists have not been exposed to various other colour schemes and the brighter possibilities of colour in artworks.
In the visual arts, colour is often defined as an effect of light. The range of colours that we see in a given context depends upon the quality of illumination created by the available light.
However, colour is a real phenomenon, not an illusory or transient effect. Each material or substance that we perceive as having a particular colour is reflecting certain light wavelengths and absorbing others. Its ability to do this is inherent.
Part of the excitement of working with colour lies in the fact that it presents many possibilities of creating the unexpected, especially via means of colour interaction.
For the artists the practical points at issue are the visual sensations of light and colour and the ways these are experienced. Given light is the source of colour, it can thus be said that when artists work with colours, they are trying to capture the effects of light.
In the mid-1990s one of the group’s of progressive young artists, namely Chiko Chazunguza, Charles Kamangwana, Louis Meque, Hillary Kashiri, Barry Lungu, Fasoni Sibanda, Sheppard Mahufe, Richard Witikani, Chrispine Musadyanga and a few others, presented a heightened colourful palette which gave a more truthful, positive and honest impression of the landscapes and people that they painted.
Similarly, mature artists of that time such as Steven Williams, Kate Raath, Diane Wright, Henry Thompson, Chrystal Wynn, Taylor Nkomo and Dumi Ngwenya, Rashid Joggee, Tommy Ndebele, Clifford Nkomo Thakor Patel, Paul Wade and others bring the sunlight in their art and show a more vivid and truthful palette with heightened colours, textures and atmosphere.
Even today as late as the last two decades, many Zimbabwean indigenous painters have not assimilated the natural colourful palette and translated it into the vibrant expressiveness endowed on Zimbabwe.
We have a sheer wealth of colour in our natural and manufactured objects, with variations created by form, surface texture and effects of light and shade which our artists are not acknowledging in their works.
Colour in painting has a material presence and a sensory presence which expresses an artist’s responses to the real world. In general today, a wide group of Zimbabwean artists paint with a colour scheme darkened with browns and umbers that are more perceptually prejudiced than actual.
Perhaps this is intrinsic to the artist’s environmental disposition than the actual colours of the land, its features, people and objects.
The creative use of colour can be affected by all sorts of personal preferences with complex and often obscure socio-psychological origins.
It is time Zimbabwean artists explore the world with stereoscopic colour vision, sharpen their colour perception and ability to analyse various colour effects.
Art history provides a great wealth of work from other artists whose responses to colour and the means they have found to represent them can serve as legitimate sources of insight that parallel that of local artists.
It is time Zimbabwean artists let go of their undue colour inhibitions and blinkered vision. Zimbabwe is more colourful than you think. Let us show it in our art!
Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA (Doctorate of Business Administration) in Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a writer, musician, art critic, practising artist and corporate image consultant.
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