adminStephen Garan’anga
Signs of heart-felt explosive and expressive painting by profound painter Cosmas Shiridzinomwa were revealed as far back as the mid-90s when he was still an art student at the Harare Polytechnic. He confronted his figurative subjects in his favoured oil on canvas media at an aerial view with a developing impasto technique.
As he nurtured his technique his painting began to reveal indiscriminately the secretive social unjust by some unscrupulous policing authorities and the other behavioural unbecoming elements of society.
As the earth spun, his painting subjects imposed themselves on anyone who gave viewed them and that saw his work being accepted in many high profile exhibitions in Zimbabwe. More significant was the “Annual Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibition” of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe which was the most prestigious art show in the land where only major artists and the most creative and imaginative minds showcased.
Some of his work of that era was purchased by the National Gallery of Zimbabwe for its permanent collection.
Cosmas has been like a “single gallery artist”, exhibiting about 95 percent of his shows at Gallery Delta Foundation for Art and the Humanities. Understandably he was not economically desperate to hip-hop around seeking the market and the gallery has nurtured him from his early days.
It provided him with an unlimited platform to showcase his work and pleasant access to the gallery.
His professional mentor has been, Helen Lieros, who is the co-founder with her hubby Derek Huggins the director of the then Gallery Delta now Gallery Delta Foundation for Art and the Humanities.Lieros is a senior major artist who has contributed immensely to the country’s fine art for several decades.
Shiridzinomwa an art educationist now dean of students at the Harare Polytechnic has over the years been recognised with various art awards for his efforts.
He went for a lengthy period without showing his work to the public only to emerge with an astounding one man show in 2006 at his art home, Gallery Delta.
His paintings have transformed in various ways except the aerial view approach. A manipulative power of brush strokes combined with a vibrant palette providing luminosity to his work had been born. He expressed that “this exhibition consists of the work I have done over the last four years, and comprises of the various moments and seasons that I, and others, have lived and pass through.
“Being the eye, that my subjects are unaware of, I do my observations from above, looking at the landscapes, people, dwellings, their exterior outlooks and their interior furnishings and moods.
“The subject matter stretches from moments of happiness, to sadness, to emptiness, to solitude, and to loss. This solo exhibition gives the opportunity for my works to be viewed collectively: the relationships are one with each other”. That was the “Cosmas World” solo exhibition that had intensified his imagination and execution.
He followed it up in 2007 with another high profile body of work in a solo effort at the same venue titled “Observations, Chronicles and Captions” besides participating in other selected group shows.
In 2010 he unravelled “Chronicles” in yet another one-man show but this time at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.
Titled ‘The Chronicles’ he unzipped the “don’t ask or tell policy” in a total package, unravelling mind-provoking chronicles in a sophisticated way outside our pattern of thinking.
The struggle to find peace from within, heal from pain and suffering from the menacing emotions devouring the hearts of many because of the genuine injustices of mankind had prompted him to unveil “ The Chronicles”.
The phenomenal art show with huge canvases executed with intricacies on each of the various subjects using unforgiving timid brush strokes had relieved him to reveal to the surface people’s daily concerns. The exhibition featured such pieces like “The Deep Analysis”, that covered six square meters of thick canvas to bring to the fore a rare mixture of an office.
Another featured piece titled “Dying Faculties” reminded many Zimbabweans of the sad times when the country’s health sector totally collapsed as they witnessed the suffering sick people lying in hospital beds without adequate medication or at times without any treatment. The painting portrayed a total breakdown in communication of the ill as they sadly covered themselves with old worn out hospital blankets on wheeled hospital beds without any medical practitioner in sight.
In the foreground a man who was supposed to be monitoring the patients sat asleep on a chair covered with a white dust-coat, his head over his folded arms on a green-blue top table before a clipboard with the patients’ list.
Ahead of him to the right was an empty hospital stretcher bed that blocked the way to the patients’ hall. Further blockade was from a cylindrical blue trash-can that was placed in tandem with the stretcher bed as a sick man lay uncovered on a waiting wooden bench to the left of the trash can.
“Lest We Forget” brought another story of a room full of human skulls in shelves and filing cabinets, files, weapons, masks, clothing and shoes of various sizes filled the room without any one in sight. But strangely through the open doorway into another bright room, two chairs faced each other with a small table in-between that had two wine glasses and an empty bottle of whisky.
Shiridzinomwa’s most recent solo show at his art home, Gallery Delta, titled “Episodes” has matured miles further in abstraction with non-human representation. In his statement he said “these chairs are characteristic, they move, have emotions, they can build or destroy, they choose to unite and revolt or unite to submit, they have ability to love or hate or hurt, they can accept or reject”
This is how Cosmas Shiridzinomwa feels and reacts. This is how he has become a major expressionist painter in Zimbabwe. What the future holds for the 40-year-old’s art career is everyone’s guess, but be rest assured that what he is capable of imagining and executing.
Online Reporter