The Mind Eater Print

''The finished work is often a stranger to, and sometimes very much at odds with what the artist felt, or wished to express when he began. At best the artist does what he can rather than what he wants to do. After the battle is over and the damage faced up to, the result may be surprisingly dull—but sometimes it is surprisingly interesting. The mountain brought forth a mouse, but the bee will create a miracle of beauty and order. Asked to enlighten us on their creative process, both would be embarrassed, and probably uninterested. The artist who discusses the so-called meaning of his work is usually describing a literary side-issue. The core of his original impulse is to be found, if at all, in the work itself. '' Born in Mberengwa, Zimbabwe, l am a Modernist painter, mainly inspired by Doménikos Theotokópoulos,, Picasso Pablo and Henri Émile Benoît Matisse . Before I start painting, I have to read as much as I can about the specific set of rules I would be about to recreate on my canvas. I do not want to just merely capture the image with my brushes, but rather to give that society life once more. I try with every finished work to breathe life into a long forgotten culture so that its design, ideas, innovation and lifestyles are displayed on my canvas. The challenge as with any recreated moment from the past is to not caricature the moment, but instead to capture it in all its former glory. My art does not speak only for me but for people who were long ago silenced.At first I made single figures without any freedom at all: blind houses without any openings, any relation to the outside world. Later, tiny windows started to appear. And then I began to develop an interest in the relationship between two figures. The figures of this phase are turned in on themselves, but they try to be together even though they may not succeed in reaching each other. Gradually the relations between the figures I made became freer and more subtle, and now I see my works as groups of objects relating to each other. Although ultimately each can and does stand alone, the figures can be grouped in various ways and fashions, and each time the tension of their relations makes for a different formal arrangement. In my most recent work these relations become clearer and more intimate. Now the single work has its own complex of parts, each of which is similar, yet different from the others. But there is still the feeling with which I began-the drama of one among many.