Yellow Lines From Harare To Johannesburg

Zimbabwe Wed 14-01-2009

Yellow Lines From Harare To Johannesburg
By Caroline Kaminju

After waiting for more than one hour in a restaurant in Newtown Johannesburg, Kudzanai Chiurai finally arrives. I was worried because he had let me down the first time but when the interview starts with this shy, soft-spoken Zimbabwean artist, I see how he has come to make a name for himself.

“Kudzi” as he is known for short, he is a daring artist who can no longer show his work back home in Zimababwe: on the eve of the March 2008 Zimbabwe elections he made posters with titles like ‘Abuse of Power’, ‘Shopping for Democracy’, ‘Vote at your own risk’ among others.

At an exhibition, he invited people to come and cast their vote of ‘non-confidence in the Zimbabwe elections because what happens in Zimbabwe affects all of us’.

The revolution shall be televised

Ultimately, the politics in Zimbabwe makes it impossible to ignore the 27-year artist’s work, perhaps the reason he has sold out at four consecutive shows:

At Yellow Lines, an exhibition shown from October 26 to November 11 2008 at the Obert Contemporary in Melrose, Kudzi sold all his artworks some of which cost as much as R75, 000 (US$ 7,626).

Shows of his that have sold out were Propaganda, The Revolution will be Televised and Graceland.

Yellow Lines took two years to come to fruition. Kudzi coined this theme after he noticed most of his cityscape paintings had yellow lines on them.

“I have often painted city scenes and the most prominent thing you see are yellow traffic lines,” he says. “Just as yellow lines are used to define boundaries on the road or to channel traffic in a certain direction, in life there are invisible lines that guide or divide us like our identity, religion, music among others” says Kudzi. “If we don’t cross those lines, the status quo remains.”

He describes his style as neo-pop, which is a satirical look at pop culture and its existence. “I wanted to get different interpretations of the context through the words and pictures,” explains Kudzi.

His approach, as he describes it, is to take two issues and let them collide; his Shopping for Democracy looks like a magazine cover complete with a portrait of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Below it, a line says “Africans manufacturing poverty”. On the side is a beverage can with a warning that “Consumption of the beverage with result in depression and violence.”

This kind of approach has invited comparisons with American artists Jean Michel Basquiat, who happens to be Kudzi’s biggest influence. Basquiat, who died at 27, made a lot of reference to hip-hop, pop culture and ideologies.

Why wait Mixed media on canvas

Kudzi, whose full name means “one who respects other people”, was born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1981 and completed high school in 1999.

His parents wanted him to work straight after school but he preferred to use that time to produce some work to sell for his pocket money. That did not go down well at home and it took a few successful sales before his mother softened. Thereafter, she supported him until he joined the University of Pretoria in 2001 where he studied art.

University life, he says, “was testing, being the only first black student in the fine arts department there was so much pressure to prove myself. The black students that joined the department after me dropped out in second year.”

As a black student, he was not expected to finish. But a year before he completed his studies, he exhibited in London while on a visit in 2004. That opened windows and possibilities and more.

Intended as a student show, it ended up being Kudzi’s first solo exhibition entitled The Revolution will be televised. This came about because Michael Obert had failed to get students to exhibit in his gallery despite sending requests to various universities across the country.

The University of Pretoria Head of Fine Arts department asked Kudzi if he was interested and after Michael looked at his portfolio, he decided to exhibit his work.

Doubtless, because it focused on the land and political violence still going on in Zimbabwe, ‘The Revolution will be televised’, was bound to attract the media attention that it eventually did.

When I ask him whether he is scared for his life he answers, “An artist has the responsibility to balance between paranoia and saying what is on your mind”.

One of his greatest achievements was an invitation for the Dakar Biennale exhibition in Senegal where he also sold out. This is not new to him because since 2003 he has sold all work he has produced.

Sometimes Mixed media on canvas

“Art is a craft that requires constant practice and exploration,” advices Kudzi. To retain authenticity of his pieces, he prefers not to get briefs from client because he says it “kind of dictates what you produce and once it’s done they might not like it”, adding that it also limits the creative juices from flowing.

Despite his success, he says that he still finds it difficult to get funding to do more shows and despite his cozy relationship with his new country, Kudzi would like to work in a different setting, New York for instance.

He says: “The opportunity to have a studio in a new environment influences the way you work as you are shaped by the new culture”.

While there are pockets of South Africans who appreciate art, some, as Kudzi observes do not because there are few black students at the university doing Fine Arts – he was the first black student to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the University of Pretoria. Some do not consider it important since it attracts no funding from the government unlike music.

With the Zimbabwe crisis getting worse by the day, it will be interesting to see what this talented artist will come up with in his next exhibition.

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