The Sunday News
Tafadzwa Gwetai
Africa’s landscape has been changing over the years.
There have been environmental changes that have shaped the horizon, wars that have altered river courses, mountains have been drilled through and cities have been built.
Our Horizons have been replaced by silhouettes of tall man-made buildings/ skyscrapers.
The emergence of what we call the “cityscape”.
Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment.
Urbanism’s emergence in the early 20th century was associated with the rise of centralised manufacturing.
Industrialisation gave rise to focused and concentrated areas from which production and economy was the driving force.
Cities like our beloved Bulawayo were born and our “landscape” has ever since never been the same as we know our beloved Bulawayo.
Our power station towers have defined Bulawayo for years.
The plant was commissioned between 1947 and 1957. Where the name “koNtuthuziyathunqa” (where the smoke rises) was lovingly derived from. Many cities across Africa and the world have defining structures that contribute immensely to the “cityscape”.
Artists are not immune to these changes in the traditional “landscape” to the new “cityscape” which are dominated by mankind’s way of choosing to live and technological advancement.
Artists see and exist in the spaces and experience the constant urban changes of lively hood.
Artists have always been known to mimic nature and interpret what they see through their creations.
The trend of mimicking nature can be observed through ancient cave paintings that mimic their village life and hunting life, artists in formal training are taught through painting their natural surroundings, imitating flora and fauna.
Our Zimbabwean artists have always found artistic languages to express how their condition of living affects them and how it influences them and society.
One such artist from Bulawayo who has an interesting take on the cityscape is Charles Bhebe.
He describes his painting explorations as “urban narratives”.
He assumes the stance of discussing the human condition in relation to the city.
The city that has attracted people from far in search of the bright lights, employment, financial and prosperity.
Charles Bhebe has a remarkable way of engaging dialogues about the cityscape with out using images of the actual city.
He focuses on the actual city dwellers which he refers to as his “elements”.
The city dwellers become “elements” in the painting as they are symbolic references for us to self reflect.
These city dwellers are all driven by their search for belonging, money, fame, false promises, false love and faith.
Charles Bhebe exploits these states of the human existence in the city and amplifies them to reveal how vulnerable, how addicted and how resilient mankind can be under urban circumstances.
The characters he paints constitutes what we term “urban hustlers” — street sellers or people who have their trade out on the street.
Some of his creations have now evolved technically in process as he screen prints images of the one United States Dollar into the fibre of his creations.
The Dollar that the world bases its prices and economic value.
It is a symbol that the street hustlers of Zimbabwe wake up to and calculate the days’ worth.
In his piece titled “o’sphatheleni” which loosely translates to “what have you got for us”, exhibited at National Gallery in Harare is an example of a fusion of both his painterly skills with the screen print technique.
The repeated use of the screen printed Dollar serves as a motif in the background.
In the foreground of the very lager than life painting are nine women sitting as they either count cash or are busy on their phones.
They appear to be waiting and have different moods expressed by their posture.
Their demeanour has both hope and despair.
These women are “money changers” whose existence is symbolic of the money/ cash race. They are symbolic of the powers that dictate our day to day hustle and economies of scale. A parallel market and a parallel existence to mankind.
Charles Bhebe engages urban lifestyle and city existence without the actual “cityscape” of buildings.
His characters or “elements” appear in a form of suspended animation as if to be in a dream world.
A world that only focuses only on its subject.
His paintings exclude all other visual distractions such as buildings and horizons and zooms in on the very human aspect of the human being in the city.
His work that he showcased at the 2017 Zimbabwe Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale under the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare were; The Zim Dolla-Redefining economic belonging, Perceived Realities, Isidingo-The Quest for belonging, Isifungo-Allegiance, Phakama-Levitate and Reality Check.
These pieces all discussed the well being and state of economic mind of mankind.
States of mind that reveal the hopelessness of people, that expose the greed that is in us all and how the powers that be control our very existence by dangling an unattainable dollar in front of us.
Artists do not just paint what they see and create from what they find, they create from what they experience.
Landscapes are not just mere landscapes as much as a cityscape is more than what it is.
If one takes their time, they can unravel many layers that the artist is attempting to communicate.
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