GARETH NYANDOROIPAPO - IPAPO

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Studio View | 2016 | Mixed Media | 253 x 253 cm

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Gareth Nyandoro

IPAPO - IPAPO

juxtapositions and commonplaces of urban societies, thus challenging audiences to ‘re-view’ and re-envision the things that frequent everyday street life, through his own relationship to them.

During 2005, while enrolled at Chinhoyi University of Technology, Gareth attended the Batapata International Artists Workshop. This event served as his introduction to the international world of art. Rooted in his participation in the Batapata International Artists Workshop, his experimentation with unorthodox or ‘informal’ media, such as torn or ‘damaged’ paper and found objects, became pivotal to his practice. His producing of works that function between traditional mediums of found-object sculptures and graphics has subsequently resulted in international recognition.

As a frequent Artist in Residence at Dzimbanhete Arts Interactions between 2006 and 2010, as both a mentee and later as a project coordinator for printmaking exhibitions and workshops, thereafter he became involved in the Zimbabwean based collective Village Unhu. Gareth has always had a keen sense of community, and interest in common societal practices, he is an observer of human behavior. In line with his ardent regard for a feeling of community, is a strong persuasion for a greener environment. In 2010, he was awarded for his work titled Recyclazation (2010) that was in Live and Direct, at The National Gallery of Zimbabwe. The piece, which chastised on environmental awareness, consisted of reclaimed domestic debris as medium.

In addition to his experimentation with alternative mediums, Gareth has also dabbled in performance, such as his piece titled Musika

wemaloli pop neeyatime (2011), translated to English, the title means “a market for lollipops calling-cards”. This work was performed at The National Gallery of Zimbabwe, and marked a turning point in his thematic approach by bringing ‘common’ street vending into the, otherwise sterile, gallery environment. Gareth used two very perishable objects; lolli-pops and calling cards as metaphors, for those superficial

PAPO-IPAPO, is Gareth Nyandoro’s first solo exhibition in South Africa and his first with SMAC Gallery.

This new body of work comprises of large-scale paintings and installations, both performative and static, that utilize his unique technique of ‘Kuchekacheka’. This method involves his inking, tearing, and peeling layers of paper to form an impression of his daily observations of African urban life. The Shona term “IPAPO-IPAPO”, which translates into English as “there and then”, is used colloquially in the same way as English speakers use the acronym ‘A.S.A.P’ (as soon as possible), indicating a sense of urgency, referencing the frenzied peddlers and stall-owners in a typically Zimbabwean commercial market place. In IPAPO-IPAPO, Gareth evokes this atmosphere of brisk business and production.

This exhibition comes at a time when Gareth’s practice has reached a point of conceptual resolve, while simultaneously displaying his complex visual exploration. Gareth’s initial core themes have since become tangled with the evolution of urban environments in Zimbabwe and further on the continent. With these city-style spaces going through a metamorphosis, whereby things appear static, yet are impermanent. Often appropriated elements, sit like mirages in uncanny spaces, Gareth reinterprets these

Chicken for Sale | 2016 | Mixed Media | 96,5 x 98,5 cm

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Timau Ichiita madhiri ayo| 2016 | Mixed Media | 248 x 309,5 cm

elements that, for some undocumented reason, have become objects of such tantalization to the public that they are found in nearly every urban space on the continent. One item intended for kids and the other for the adults, but each is more and more frequently used by both consumables; communication becoming more valuable than the previously ever-tempting sweet treat to children, and a quick sugar-rush of energy or lozenge to pass the time more appealing to tired or listless adults.

Gareth Nyandoro is first and foremost an artist. However as with his artworks, his role as artist is just the visible tip of the proverbial iceberg. The basis from which his talent as a visual artist grows is the sturdy combination of his practice as philosopher, teacher, observer, and scholar. He makes art with whatever is available, anything he happens to find in his immediate environment. What started as a practice of convenience and resourcefulness has since become akin to the process of alchemy. Assuming the role of visual philosopher, with a doctrine that states; ‘art is where you least expect it’.

One of Gareth’s new works from IPAPO -

IPAPO titled Sadza Pano $1 (2016), is his interpretation of a sales placard. This seems to be a reference to the recent commercial shift in Zimbabwe. Due to unstable currency and

therefore product shortages, the local food staple, ‘sadza’ or ‘pap’ (a maize-based product), previously did not have a street value. However, sadza now has a pegged value in the minds of local consumers. Gareth further points to the abundant, yet homogeneously empty, mass merchandising found in today’s street life in his work titled Chickens for Sale (2016). Inherent to the artist’s method of fabricating visuality, is the minimalistic use of spaces and latitudes. He manages to ‘globalize’ his subjects, seemingly reducing them to old maps, while targeting simplified commercial symbols, frequently sprouting up all around urban Africa.

Thus, Gareth Nyandoro has retranslated his ‘found object’ art making experiences into ‘found spaces’. These very spaces are conglomerations of memory, learning, and most importantly observations of the spaces in which he finds himself and calls ‘home’. The artist relies on his extraordinary ability to reinterpret any and everything in his environment as ‘art’ he is able to project atmosphere over great distances, allowing otherwise unknowing audiences to encounter a tiny piece of his experiences.

By Chikonzero Chazunguza

Chikonzero Chazunguza is Chief Creative Director Founder of the Dzimbanhete

Arts Interactions, as well as an artist, teacher, and personal friend of Gareth Nyandoro

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Gareth Nyandoro was born in Bikita, Zimbabwe in 1982. He obtained a National Diploma in Fine Art from Harare Polytechnic in 2003 before going on to further his studies in Creative Arts and Design at Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe, qualifying in 2008. Nyandoro participated as Artist in Residence at Dzimbanhete Arts Interactions, in Harare, between 2006 and 2010, and currently forms part of the Zimbabwean Artists collective; Village Unhu. In 2014 and 2015, Nyandoro was a resident artist at Rijksakedemie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Nyandoro has exhibited widely both internationally and locally. Since his debut solo exhibition titled Mutariri at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in 2012, other solo presentations have included Gareth Nyandoro at Art Brussels in Belgium and Paper Cut in London, UK both in 2016; Presentatie Gareth Nyandoro in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 2015 and Weaving Life in Harare, Zimbabwe in 2013.

He was one of three artists selected to represent Zimbabwe in an exhibition titled Pixels of Ubuntu/Unhu, curated by Raphael Chikukwa, at the 56th Venice Biennale in Italy in 2015. That same year, Nyandoro took part in Round – Tripping: Gareth Nyandoro and Richard Parry at Narrative Projects in London, UK; TREK: Following Journeys at SMAC Gallery in Cape Town and Group Exhibition in Cologne, Germany. Earlier group exhibitions include; Zamboni for the Moose at Galerie Juliètte Jongma in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 2014 and Live & Direct at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare in 2010.

Most recently, Gareth Nyandoro has been shortlisted for the Financial Times/ Oppenheimer Funds Emerging Voices Award for Art for 2016 and he will take up residency with SAM Art Projects in Paris, France, in 2017.

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