Visual Artists’ Ideas Must Be Original

Zimbabwe Fri 06-07-2007

Visual Artists’ Ideas Must Be Original
By Stephen Garan'anga

Untitled By Nyandoro In the English language there are conversational turns of phrase, which double as both greeting and question as to how the person is doing in their work. In Zimbabwe, the favourite saying, greeting, conversational gambit, simply something to say or a genuine enquiry is "How's work?"

Among visual artists the common phrase is "how's the job?", a concession to the economic times in which we live. Making a work of art should be something the artists want and are compelled to do, something which can be done in "that uncertain time before the morning" when blood sugar and the conscious mind are at their lowest ebb.

Ideas are what make works of art, and those' ideas must be the artists’, not "repeats" of the ideas of other contemporaries. Even the commissioned portrait contains a great deal of the artist's interpretation of subject.

Hence a woman might wish for a portrait with her face tarted by makeup, her hair brightened by tints and colour shampoos, her shoulders sloping, her skirt in delicate folds, so as to represent her social standing to the eyes of the world.

The artist may see a woman whose beauty lies in the expression of her face, the bare bones of her cheeks, the slight crookedness of her smile, the movement of her bare legs as she runs along the beach.

But most artists even if they occasionally turn out a series of cats or a stock sample of a bird have a career, something lifelong, something with which they totally identify, something more important than wife and family, kith and kin, something by which they measure the success of their lives.

A career will compel an artist to work when there is no job, there are no sales and the materials do not have anything to say. Careers are common in arts and letters.

Many people see a career is some kind of indulgence, some kind of strange pursuit outside of the "systems" which dominate human activity and human lives.

But a career is not a compartment in someone's life which they enter at 8am and leave at 5pm, it is a twenty four hour engagement with oneself and how one can develop professionally in an overall sense and become respected for what one achieves.

A career involves a person doing one thing and at the same time working out what they will do next, a career can involve a person developing several professional personas, working the profession to which they belong like a chess player.

The career visual artists must choose materials which allow them to say what they want to say, by the stones, scrap metal, odd bits of glass, the rays of the sun, the light of the moon, the desert sands, found objects, paints, canvas, boards.

The career artists must manoeuvre and negotiate for the desired space to allow work to be created not simply made. The career artist's social responsibility is to themselves.

In mediaeval Europe the Catholic Church was the sculptors' greatest client. But a benevolent patron such at Pope Urban 10 who pushed Gianlorenzo Bernini to make his eloquent studies in water and stone to create ceilings for churches and cathedrals rivaling stage sets.

But the Pope did not watch over Bernini as some architects today who might say, "Your sculpture must be this and that to suit the concept of my build.

The artist must be like Mozart whose operas may have been commissioned but always the composer insisted he dwell on the nature of love as it was hampered or encouraged by social distinctions, ages or backgrounds of the lovers, and contradicted himself entirely in "Cosi Fan Tutte" where two love sick young ladies changed tack completely when they "fell in love" with each others lovers in disguise.

Progress for an artist is moving on, breaking through self-imposed boundaries or market expectations. Zimbabwe reels easily with the shock of the new but Benhura felt he owed his career the privilege of such moving on, of giving a new definition to Zimbabwean sculpture.

David Chinyama has introduced a third dimension into painting to make social comments straight from the heart. Masimba Hwati has turned from clay to glass to proclaim the truth of ancient prophecies.So visual artists might have professions and business, but they must also have careers, let their minds be dominated by thoughts of art and furthering their education as much as money so that one day they will say to each other "how's your career" rather than "how's the job?"

View Stephen Garan' anga's portfolio

Posted By: .

skip to top

Your Comments

skip to top

African Artists Portfolios

Ehoodi Kichapi Jes'se is a Mixed Media Artist

Sithabile Mlotshwa is a Mixed Media Artist

Attukwei 'Serge' Clottey is a Fine Artist

Click To View All African Artist Portfolios

Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery

Shades of Time: An exhibition by Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery National Museum of Kenya

Features By Regions

Featured Artist Portfolio

Title: Making Ways
Name: Tabitha Wa Thuku
Country: Kenya
Medium: Mixed media on heavy canvas
Size: 149 X 140 cms
Click here to view