Southern Guild, in collaboration with First Floor Gallery Harare, is proud to present Pachipamwe (We Meet Again), a solo exhibition of figurative oil paintings by Zimbabwean artist Wycliffe Mundopa. The exhibition of large-scale canvases bear visceral witness to the complex lives of Zimbabwe’s women and children. The collection will be on view at the gallery from 8 February to 20 April 2023.
For more than 15 years, Mundopa has harnessed his role as an artist to give visibility and voice to the unseen and unheard. The painter’s work is a response to life as he observes and experiences it. Each of his grand compositions, saturated in their carnivalesque colour and brimming with impassioned gesture, canonises the stories of Harare’s women. Believing in the power of truth-seeing and the drama and beauty of the ordinary, Mundopa’s paintings elevate the daily ongoings of his people toward historic significance.
Lurid hues, vibrant pattern, rich allegory and animal symbolism have come to define a potent visual language for the artist. The allegorical mingles with the mundane as a vividly spotted hyena is carried to the local market, fruit-sellers sit streetside in striped stockings and circus garb, a woman’s face bears the distinct snout of a pig. These symbols are visualisations of vernacular expressions.
Drawing from the tradition of the Old Dutch Masters, Mundopa presents a multi-dimensional image of his countrywomen. These audacious figures – breadwinners, sex workers, mothers and muses – renounce historically reductive modes of representation. His women are dynamic, desirous, joyous and resilient in the face of social circumstances that do not often lend themselves to a life of power. The fullness of this portrayal begs us to see both the pain and vibrancy of these women’s lives.
The exhibition proudly marks the first collaborative project between Southern Guild and First Floor Gallery Harare, which was founded in 2009 by Kabov, an art critic and art advocate, and Marcus Gora, a cultural promoter. Against the odds, in an embattled environment with little to no arts infrastructure, First Floor has grown into an internationally respected contemporary arts space. The gallery is committed to fostering the development of local artists, promoting intercultural dialogue, and bolstering education in the broader cultural sphere.
