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Beginning August 31 and continuing to October 8, 2007, the award-winning Zimbabwean stone sculpture exhibit, Zimsculpt, returns to Royal Botanical Gardens. Mining the richness of Zimbabwe’s geology, featured artists Vimbai Mashaya, Passmore Mupindiko and Lincon Muteta create powerful works of art that depict the stories of the natural world and the culture and traditions of their home land, as well as abstract forms that are powerfully evocative.

Zimsculpt, a non-political company based in Harare, Zimbabwe, represents over 100 sculptors from across the country. Royal Botanical Gardens is the exclusive North American host of this award-winning Zimbabwean stone art exhibit. Over 300 hand-made sculptures will rise amid the blooms of Hendrie Park Gardens, creating a unique outdoor gallery where visitors can view sculpture, meet the artists and purchase one of these remarkable works.

During Zimsculpt Royal Botanical Gardens offers a wide range of educational programs for all ages that explore the history of this 2,000 year-old art form, the geological richness that provides more the than 100 different types of stone from which the artists create their works and the techniques and tools used by the artists to carve their stories.

ARTISTS -
Every year ZimSculpt selects several promising artists to be featured overseas, providing for their travel and lodging to enable them to attend events in which their sculpture is exhibited and to meet with admirers of their work.

SCULPTORS ON TOUR -
The sculptors you see here today are Vimbai Mashaya, Passmore Mupindiko, and Lincon Muteta. Sales from the works they are creating around them go directly to them; this goes back to their families in Zimbabwe.


Vimbai Mashaya: click here for profile.


Passmore Mupindiko: click here for profile.


Lincon Muteta: click here for profile

THE STONE -
Zimbabwe houses The Great Dyke – a 500 km ridge of 2.5 million year old hills which cuts across the country from north to south, rich in minerals of every description. Most of the stones the artists use are quarried from this Dyke, by hand. Different areas of The Dyke produce a different variety of stone. Over 200 colours of stone have been geologically catalogued, ranging in various scales of hardness from 1-5.5 on the scale of hard stones, with granite being 6.

TECHNIQUE -
Every sculptor works on their sculpture by hand, no power tools are used at any stage in the process. Artist’s stone tools consist of hammers, points, chisels, rasps and chasing hammers. These tools give quite different effects which you’ll see throughout the exhibit. The finishing of a sculpture takes almost as long as the actual creation. The smooth effect is achieved by using wet and dry sandpapers - sanding the piece for hours in water. This is called ‘washing’. If the artists want a high polish on the stone (which gives the dramatic difference in texture and colour) the stone is heated, which expands the pores of the stone, and a natural floor wax is applied to the designated area. This is left to soak into the stone until cooled and then buffed up to a high gleam, which finishes the work.

FAIR TRADE –
ZimSculpt profits are re-invested in new art works, used to bring artists overseas and to market Zimbabwean talent internationally. The sales from their sculptures pay their rent and school fees, like any of us. Five percent of sales from ZimSculpt.com’s e-commerce website are donated to Inter-Country People’s Aid (IPA), a community-based charity in Zimbabwe.

WHAT THE PRESS SAY –

‘Shona sculpture is perhaps the most important new art form to emerge from Africa in this century.’
       —Newsweek, New York

‘...unlike art found in much of the rest of Africa, Shona sculpture ... has become a wholly indigenous modern art form created exclusively as a form of artistic expression.’
       —New York Times, New York

‘There is a widespread assumption today that art must necessarily be international. …. But against this trend one finds isolated pockets of resistance, which suggest that good art can (perhaps must) be a local affair – the product of a particular place and culture. And one of the most remarkable in the contemporary world in the last 30 years, placed beside the dismal stuff so beloved of the international art bureaucracy – as they were in the 1990 Biennale – these African carvings shine out in a desolate world.’
        —Sunday Telegraph, London

‘Picasso was an admirer of early Shona sculpture; now evidence is surfacing that he was influenced by it, too.’
        —Town & Country Magazine, London

‘The world's best unrecognized sculptors.’
        —The Economist, London

‘This is the birth of a great national art, capable of speaking about the whole of Creation, from personal and family to the world of spirit, soul and self. It is a thrilling adventure of contemporary art.’
        —Arts Review, London

‘During the past decade, Zimbabwe Shona Sculpture has become the most collected form of African art. It has found its way into important repositories such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Rodin Museum, and into the homes of the Rockefellers, the Prince of Wales and Sir Richard Attenborough.’
        —The Oregonian

‘If the perfection of art is measured purely by emotional expressive power, then this art is beyond perfection.’
        —West Indian World

‘It is extraordinary to think that of the ten leading sculpture carvers in the world, perhaps five come from one single African tribe, the Shona. These marvellous Shona sculptors from Zimbabwe speak for Africa but they also speak for us all; they restore a dignity to art which it is in danger of losing.’
        — The ‘Sunday Telegraph’ art critic

‘Now that Henry Moore is dead, who is the greatest stone carver in the world. In my experience there are three outstanding contenders. And all three come from Zimbabwe.’
        — Michael Shepherd, Art Review

‘This art has meaning. This art is imbued with extraordinary, intense spirituality. It will get in you and work on you forever.’
        — Frank McEwan, First Director, National Gallery of Zimbabwe

ANNUAL EVENT CALENDAR
Click here to see our year-long event schedule.

Local toursim organizations also offer events. Click below for more information:
Burlington
Hamilton