admin
At The Gallery
The artist’s true colours are not found in paints and brushes, but in one’s palette of talent. The first order of business, then, is recognising our talent, because it represents the greatest source of power and personal energy in performing any kind of work. That energy must then be released, developed and directed, because that is how we achieve something significant. One cannot think of any original masterpiece that did not involve a well-developed talent.
The National Gallery of Zimbabwe is hosting an open call exhibition, an exhibition which allows artists to showcase their talents, creativity and innovativeness to the best of their ability under the theme “Matarenda” from the today to October 5.
Matarenda is a traditional young artist exhibition, exploring the work and talent of the born frees following in the footsteps of last year’s born free exhibition. This will focus on work by artists under the age of 35.
With Matarenda exhibition the journey to creative excellence has begun with finding the key to unlocking that special artistry. This approach breaks with the traditional wisdom that would have artist decide on some dramatic destination. But a destination has little relevance if they do not have the means to reach it in the first place. Using natural gifts is the means to any significant end giving out the best of their ability.
This exhibition seeks to explore the importance of this talented generation of Zimbabweans in expressing themselves in any form. The exhibition will provide a form of search solutions through the artists’ work from their own informed context and more complete picture of the reality of their talent can be seen.
These young artists will exercise their own voices on the realities of the present day. Hearing echoes from the older generation of artists has been exciting, but one must not forget that talents finds inspiration in the day to day struggles they encounter.
This exhibition offers a platform for the young artists to posit the question: “What roles can the young artist play in bettering their own lives and that of the nation at large using their talents?”
The world has become fluid in terms of information flow and how people ought to conduct themselves in their respective societies because of lack of resources. The solutions are to be found in the Matarenda exhibition in which artists realise that the present is an interwoven mixture that requires several artists with dynamic ideas to continuously improve on past and present accomplishments by giving what they see as the best.
Matarenda is part of the mirror of our society, artists and their artistic expression, are as important as their parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters.
His mirror is here to reflect on different talents in which the young artists through this ground breaking exhibition that will see different mediums explored to the best of their capability.
This is because so many people are afraid of exploring their talents instead they hold on to them, sort of protesting them from being seen. Talent need to grow and be enjoyed. A talent is best kept secret ingredient to success.
Lilian Magodi’s Kubvumbamira Tarenda, Ngonidzashe Tsiga’s “Unleashing the Spirit” all point to the fluid nurturing of talent and Kudakwashe Dongo’s “Ghetto” resembles the anger, sorrow, suffering and bondage of the youth growing in the ghetto and their talent. Much of the ghetto talent has become more like our Zimbabwean diamond, precious yet without a market due to various reasons such as poverty and lack of upliftment. We hold on to it robustly whilst we are tied up, hoping for a change.
Talent Kapadza brings out the point that self-determination means finding and using your inner resources of peace, love and strength in order to become free from all past influence that leads to lack of clarity, wrong decisions, or mistakes, waste of time or energy, loss of senses of choice and negative emotions.
People must strengthen their internal influence and come to know their own mind in order to understand how it works by using their intellect from whence will come decision making, judgement, discernment, reasoning and will power.
Ngonidzashe Tsiga’s “Unleashing the Spirit” portrays a figure in a trance-like state with another figure like spirit, emerging from the chest. “Unleashing the Spirit” or inner-man aims to inspire the willpower within every individual. By unleashing the spirit or the inner man we are able to accomplish anything. As the saying goes, where there is a will there is a way.
Franklyn Dzingai’s “Zvipo Zviri Matiri” explores different talents which black people have such as our totems, as well as those talents which are not celebrated nowadays days as important aspects of life. “The endowment nature” by Tinashe Muskwe captures the beauty of imagination as well as reality and portrays them in an artwork for everyone to see, explore and wonder.
These artists are just a few of the young artists that are showcasing in this exhibition. Their work shows the various facets of their talents by showcasing the experiences and challenges they go through everyday. They are able to show the beauty of their ability as seen through their eyes. Young artists works are not mere artworks to show how good they are, but are artworks created to educate the viewer.
Online Reporter