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Dr Tony Monda Correspondent
From Hartfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, to San Jose, California, to Sentura, Colorado, the art of a Zimbabwean born stone sculptor, Gedion Nyanhongo, has mesmerised American audiences with his figurative evocations of life.
Currently participating at the spectacular, 2024 Celebration of Fine Art, the Tempe Spring Festival of the Arts and the Cave Creek Sculpture and Wine Festival, US-based Nyanhongo is romancing the stone in America, keeping the profession lively and buoyant in his unique renaissance of quality and content which is distinctively Zimbabwean.
Outstanding amongst the Second Generation of Zimbabwean contemporary stone sculptors, the artist is at the prime of his career, producing astounding cabinet and monumental artwork that stand the test of time.
“The human figure and its endless capacity for expression,” has fascinated sculptors from the beginning of time. Zimbabwean sculptor, Nyanhongo attests to this creed and continues to fascinate international audiences with his multi-faceted figurative sculpture.
Nyanhongo transmutes intangible human experiences into tangible works of art.
He draws the viewer into the world of senses; tenderness, maternal love, compassion and familial affection reside in his sensual figurative sculptures that turn human gestures into human empathy and give his work universal appeal.
His sculpture, based on family bonds and family values are uniquely personal and universally appealing. Nyanhongo’s works embodies the essence of good design and reveal his keen eye for observation and the steady hand of the perfectionist.
The fluid sculptural lines that bind his works expressed in colourful serpentines, presents a shifting perspective in art and cultural diplomacy — creating multi-cultural audiences for Zimbabwean art and attracting tourism at his US base and to Zimbabwe.
His hand made stone art, executed with sensitivity, a unique style and representational accuracy and form, currently enjoys immense popularity on the West Coast of America.
Nyanhongo was born in Nyanga, Zimbabwe, on December 22, 1967.
From a young age he was influenced by his father, Claud Nyanhongo, a prominent artist among the First generation pioneers of the Shona Sculpture Movement that began in the late 1950s.
“I used to watch my father sculpt when I grew up, and although I was young, I remember loving it and knowing that it was what I wanted to do,” admits Nyanhongo.
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After an apprenticeship with internationally acclaimed sculptor, the late Joseph Ndandarika, Nyanhongo embarked on a solo career in 1988.
Swayed by this writer, he debuted in 1989.
He has since exhibited his works in solo and group exhibitions at numerous venues around the world, including: England, France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, South Africa, the U.S.A, and Zimbabwe.
Due to the interest generated in the USA, the Zimbabwean born artist’s sculpture has come into sharper media focus in recent years and now ranks as a world renowned artist whose works are procured by sophisticated art collectors and international art gallerists.
Two of his works are featured in a collection on permanent display at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and a sculpted Zebra stands in the Phoenix Zoo.
It is not surprising that Zimbabwean-Italian art collector and co-proprietor of Springstone Art Gallery at 5 Idlehurst Way, in Avondale, Harare, Michelina Andreucci described Nyanhongo as — “A dedicated, cheerful, extremely hardworking — a master artist, totally absorbed in his work and attuned to the rhythms and heartbeat of Zimbabwean cultural life, figuratively narrated in his sculpture.”
Historically, Nyanhongo’s works acquaint the viewer to the First Generation of Zimbabwean sculptors such as his mentors, Joseph Ndandarika, Sylvester Mubayi and his father, Claud Nyanhongo, but has consistently worked with contemporary universal themes that broaden the appeal of modern sculpture, yet pays homage to his native culture.
Looking at his work, the characteristic doe-eyed human figures in stone, gaze back at the audience in solitude, peace and tranquillity – an aspect of his work described by a San Francisco architect, Tony Delaney Jr., as “A transcendent experience” for many an audience.
Narrative in content, Nyanhongo’s tributes to Shona family values and the Zimbabwean way of life confronts our jaded moral values that are consumed by the rat race and often ignore the tender and emotional moments expressed in his works.
His morally charged stone art confronts our enfeebled and isolated digital generation.
Of the infinite modes of expression in the world of modern contemporary art, Nyanhongo’s figurative stone sculpture, conceived in the tradition of the ‘Old Masters’ of Zimbabwean contemporary sculpture, is outstanding and universally accessible.
His groups of figures animated in Shona gestures and body language, embody the whole gamut of human expression.
His composite figures designed and sculpted in the round, embody youthful courage and resolution.
The artist’s visual explorations of Zimbabwean cultural life in an urban context gives expression to the profoundly elemental in motherhood, the deep down instinctive female, without the trappings of urbanity.
He sculpts the eternal primeval feminine, the mother of the race; serene and majestic; an elemental force of nature.
To many art enthusiasts, sculpture is primarily an art of form; it must succeed or fail chiefly as an art of shapes in three dimensions, and in the sequences and relations of these shapes.
In the true spirit of Ubuntu philosophy, Nyanhongo is an artist that inevitably shapes our understanding of the artist’s life, his native identity and the traditional moral compass of the people of Zimbabwe.
Essentially a traditionalist, brought up in a traditional Shona family guided by principals of Ubuntu.
Nyanhongo’s concern with the subject and vitality of his works is evident in his animated figures that quiver with the flow and rhythm of life in an indigenous Shona context.
Cultural mores, norms and values that are central to Zimbabwean African way of life where the extended family plays a vital role in maintaining a unified and productive society, are expressed powerfully in his art works.
He uses the sculptural medium to express idea, character and life.
The mass appeal of Nyanhongo’s work is that his figurative sculpture has visual, emotional and mental impact. Their strong characterisation and the startling vitality embodied in his works, directly correlates to a sense of empathy experienced by the spectator when beholding them.
Sensual, sombre, intimate and sublimely relaxing, Nyanhongo’s art exudes the gentle spirit of the artist and of the Shona people of Zimbabwe.
Dr. Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA in Post- Colonial Art and Heritage Studies. E-mail: [email protected]
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