adminDr Tony Monda Art Zone
THIRTY-SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Manasa Matambanadzo has been described as an artist who encapsulates the rhythm and pulse of Zimbabwean township life in his paintings. He is a social commentator whose eye, hand and brush conjure up social realism depictions of life in the peri-urban areas of Harare; capturing in his sweeping visions the social recreational aspects of life in the townships.
Here, children playing in dirty, dusty streets, gossipers, vagrants, drunkards and prostitutes mingle in nightclubs, outside beerhalls and shop entrances – all contribute to the colours, sound and content of his paintings.
In a recent interview, Matambanadzo described his work as: “poetic feelings of sadness, joy, the longing and hoping for a brighter day in the high-density suburbs are at the end of my brush when I paint”.
Manasa was born in Zimbabwe on July 3 1976 and attended Mufakose 2 High School and Chitimbe Secondary School in Magunje, Karoi.
Between 1999 and 2001 he attended the Harare Polytechnic College where he studied art under the tutorship of Chiko Chazunguza, where he honed his craft and aesthetic development. During his spell at the Harare Polytechnic he experienced what he describes as: “a period of illumination about the possibilities of art”.
The typical simplicity of his acrylic compositions of the swelling populations of life in the high-density suburbs and the environs of Harare won him immediate recognition as an artist.
In his artworks the regular and irregular formations of crowded stunted houses, incomplete buildings, tuck-shop fronts and beer gardens have a structural beauty of their own. The horizontal perspectives seen against the bustling energy of township life form agitated patterns within motionless outlines.
Drifting fumes of smoke in leaden skies, children at play, mobile vendors carting their goods about for sale, drifters and tramps looking for a space to occupy, prostitutes looking for a catch, radarless drunks milling around. Groups of anonymous people humble, resolute and poor reveal the stark realities of township life which Matambanadzo’s touch and vision recreates. In his work he removes every flounce of pretence and his observation captures a concentrated reality of life.
Technically, the ordered eloquence of his fluent paint stirs and moves our imagination and sympathies. Professionally Matambanadzo worked as an artteacher between 2004 and 2004 at Peter Birch School of Art.
In 2005, he was on the panel of judges for the Young Masters’ Exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. For the past nine years, since 2005 he has been the Hexco art examiner and curriculum consultant at the Harare Polytechnic.
During his career he has painted backdrops for Chiwoniso Maraire’s stages in 2004, also worked as an illustrator for Longman (Private) Limited between 2008 and 2009. The artist has taken part in the Veranda Gallery Annual Exhibitions since 2007, and the Gwanza Month of Photography in 2009, and the Religion and Culture Exhibition at Delta in 2011.
He has works in collections in Zimbabwe, France, US, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and the Netherlands.
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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