By Selma Neshiko
WINDHOEK– Contemporary art is certainly the new cool in the arts world but when one stares without fail at Zimbabwean artists, Chikonzero (Chiko) Chazunguza’s artwork, there is this angel on the left who says- ” it is really just scribbling and should no longer be looked at.”
However, should one continue along the paintings on exhibition, titled “They are you,you are they” one cannot help but sense that Chikonzero is a hopeless fellow not because that he is hopelessness himself but because of the hopeless situation his native country which the mass of his fellow in his painting the mass of people in his paintings seem to share as depicted in the paintings.
Though extremely chaotic and senseless to look at, one of the paintings is nevertheless persuasive in its own way that the subject in the painting is tired, exhausted with no fight left in him any longer. In another painting he manages to scribble a little more neatly, a string of people who has left their former selves (clothing) and resigned to the backseat.
This could easily mean that an average Zimbabwean has become a shadow of themselves unable to be themselves. Chikonzero’s paintings is a tale of an artist who is very untidy, weary and with no hope, while in some paintings one sees people with their hands pointing up yonder, as a sign of surrender and hope that salvation would come from somewhere above. However this could also mean no less than complete surrender.
The exhibition is currently running at the National Art Gallery of Namibia (NAGN) until May 26.