Nicholas Mukomberanwa

Born in 1940 in the Buhera district, Nicholas Mukomberanwa was taught wood carving in the 1960s at Serima Mission, when Father Groeber was experimenting with new teaching methods in art. Initially inspired by Biblical imagery and the traditional African masks, Mukomberanwa, however, soon developed a personal style, using the edges of the wooden cubes he was gi ven to carve - aEways preferring right angles and geometrical forms.

Expelled from Serima for disobeying the school rules, he found a job as a policeman, which he kept for fifteen years, and spent his spare time drawing and carving. In 1962, he joined the Workshop School of the Rhodes National Gallery where he slowly moved away from religious iconography and strengthened his free, original style.

Mukomberanwa acknowledges the huge influence McEwen had on his artistic development: 'He disliked copying and asked us to create something unique and new. He gave us freedom to do what we wanted but with our own feeling. He would say: "Whatever you make, if it should be called Art, it should be the only one piece of the work and should not be repeated again".'6

Mukomberanwa never forgot the lesson and remains obsessed with the idea he has of struggling with the stone: if, most of the time, he sees in the stone a shape that should be 'freed', he also spends long periods when he fights against the 'external will'. Thus, he first cuts the serpentine block into smaller smoother blocks in order to impose his own inspiration, as if to convince the stone that the artist does, in the final analyses, decide on which way to go. He says: 'Who is the artist? The stone? Or myself? I have to control the stone.'7

His style is, therefore, constantly renewed, from soft, round shapes to angular, geometrical ones, marrying sharp edges to organic forms. Mukomberanwa favours symmetry, hard edges, stylization, a highly polished surface, an exaggeration of features; his sculptures sometimes suggest African masks and radiate a magnetism that is almost magical.

His main themes are the family unit, Shona myths (which have assumed increasing importance for him) the duality of being, and now to a lesser extent, religion. Mukomberanwa is fascinated by the difficulty man has in preserving his integrity. From time to time, he insists on being alone to think and work. He says that he is often surprised by his own creations, which reveal an unknown part of his self. He is obsessed with his pieces and parts with them regretfully, feeling dispossessed. He sometimes talks abou t his dream of 'one day, being able to buy back all my sculptures'. His mother's death, followed by the death by drowning of a family member (which gives to his 'water spirit' theme a deeper personal significance) have profoundly a ffected hinz. Through his unequalled feeling for matter and movement, his technical ability in the manipulation of stone, as well as
 through his ideas, he is recognized internationally as one of the best Zimbabwean sculptors.