Eye for the Lord’s creatures

the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare would have been appropriate if there had been an admonishment to enter at own risk.
Venomous creatures were crawling all over the floors and walls of their entrapment.
A scollepindra, nocturnal centipede titled “Mbambarize” with poisonous nippers was out in the day lurking behind the sealed entrance, ready to pounce on anything with a heartbeat that would unwarily enter the dungeon. Its delicately carved boney head-front emerged from a metal cap attached to a smooth, shiny pitch-black streamlined and segmented spring stone body with numerous creepy spiky metal legs raising it from the ground.
A mere site at the curved and bent centipede sent one’s heart pumping blood 10 times faster and made a chill run through the body.
A tsetse fly titled “Ruma Mombe” of metallic wings and legs, boney head, wooden middle part and a thick black serpentine stone bottom flew round and round with the intent to cause excruciating pain and swelling.
That was how Victor Nyakauru, a mixed media sculptor, wanted it; a creator exercising his ability and power of creativity to put up a solo sculptural exhibition of high quality.
Like in the torrid Namib desert sands of Namibia, life on the gravel plains is a very serious business where camouflage is an essential asset for survival.
A potential predator made itself hard to see against a rock, a chameleon titled “Rwaaaaaavhi” melting its skin, uniquely among chameleons this species lives almost entirely on the ground.
In order to survive in such a dry habitat, its diet consists not only of insects and numerous beetles, but also scorpions, lizards and even small snakes including venomous ones as prey.
Victor Nyakauru’s detailed chameleon is an unmistakable blacksmith’s creation carved from a multi-coloured leopard rock body joined to a metal head, long tip end coiled tail and lanky tight grabbing legs.
Strangely, a shiny chromate black stony bottle fish with a long boney nose and metal fins hung on the wall in turmoil of birds of prey, scavengers, both crawling and flying insects as well as other predators in the form of a white hyena titled “Berejena”, a dog titled “Imbwa Nyoro” and a giant “Marabou Stork”.
A wooden-headed dung beetle titled “Ground Beetle” searched for bull manure in a glimmering coat of black serpentine high above the ground on support of limbed metal legs crawling adjacent to a sluggish snail titled “Hozhwa” out of its highly polished realistically sculpted heavy black serpentine shell, dragged on by a roughly chipped away body with twin boney antennas.
As the way of a desert, there is a variety of animal life but there is relatively few of each species.
There is not much food to share, but there it is has to be earned by constant effort. Though big headed in Nyakauru’s traditional materials (bones, wood, stone and metal), a geko titled “Mpurwa” tries to remain invisible on a rock above an imaginary horned adder that lurked inconspicuously in the shed below in a battle of camouflage experts.
The adder would have eaten the geko but it had to see it first as its hue was the same as the rock.
A shiny giant ivory black spring-stone millipede titled “Tshongololo” moved about carelessly on its hundreds of creepy nail legs safe in the knowledge that it has no predators.
It consumed the earth’s rotting matter slowly for several hours seeing off several changes in the daily state of the atmosphere.
Titled the “Green Bomber”, an uneasy site of a giant common wild green fly and a cholera vector was gliding in the room attracted to the pungent smell of human waste.
A piece inspired by the horrific cholera epidemic of the year 2008 that thousands of Zimbabweans succumbed to and sent many others across borders into neighbouring countries raising alarm in the region.
That is the way Victor creates his “Creatures” or “Tuzvipuka”, a theme that seems to be stuck on a hidden part of his brains since he turned professional.
His themes are rooted in the world of great and small animals that have inspired him with ideas and creations of these creatures.
Some of these insects and animals have been used in our Shona folklore.
Folk tales have been used to teach life lessons and as entertainment. The construction and everything involved in folk tales revealed much about the essential values of a society. The milestone solo exhibition was a follow-up project to “Insecta/Tumbuyu”, his earlier one may show what attracted him a lot of attention after portrayal of various myriad insects (tumbuyu) using similar materials. Victor Nyakauru has an extraordinary eye of observing the Lord’s creatures. A couple of years ago he created an outstanding mixed media sculpture of a white hyena titled “Berejena”.
It lazily faced sideways in a boney head with metal ears and manes running over to its high shoulders of opal stone supported by welded rusty legs.
The sculpture got him rewarded with two of the most prestigious national arts awards on the country’s calendar of year 2008 – the National Arts Merit Awards.
Eventually the piece was purchased for permanent collection by the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe.
Other live storytelling creatures of the wonderful exhibition in mixed media included Tsuro Kanga, Dora, Bete Resango, Marhabhu Stork and Gakanje.
Nyakauru was born in 1977 and embarked on his professional art training at the National Gallery Visual Arts School where he was honoured with an extra year of exploration with free resources.
Subsequently, he won two first prizes at the outgoing students’ final year exhibition.
Since then he has never looked back and has been rewarded with numerous awards for his outstanding work. Prior to the “Creatures/Tuzvipuka” solo project, Nyakauru had just come off a successful residence program with the National Gallery in Harare.
As a centre for contemporary art, the gallery seeks to develop the visual arts through nurturing talent and creativity at professional levels.
It offers artists the platform to showcase their expressions and at the same time give them a chance to be recognised by national and international audiences.
This hallmark will see the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe play its role of promoting the best artists and preserving their valuable works.
Nyakauru has shown an assured level of expressiveness and technical skill, which has contributed to the sustenance of sculpture in Zimbabwe.
The three-dimensional work uses mixed media to explore the unorthodox as it presents itself in the artist’s mind. Nyakauru’s next intended art project is working with wild animals and we hope his work continues to arouse interest, curiosity and discussion.