FOR INQUIRIES ABOUT ARTISTS AND ART WORK CONTACT:
Peggy Himoondo, PR officer of the CMCC and responsible for the Art Gallery by email at [email protected]
or Bert Witkamp, director of Zamfactor Ltd, by e-mail at [email protected]
Sales only by the Choma Museum Art Gallery in cash and carry fashion.
Note that increasingly rare and/or exceptional works of art are for sale, of interest for art lovers and collectors!
Peggy Himoondo, PR officer of the CMCC and responsible for the Art Gallery by email at [email protected]
or Bert Witkamp, director of Zamfactor Ltd, by e-mail at [email protected]
Sales only by the Choma Museum Art Gallery in cash and carry fashion.
Note that increasingly rare and/or exceptional works of art are for sale, of interest for art lovers and collectors!
GRAPHIC ART OF ZAMBIA
15 August through October 2013: Graphic Art of Zambia.
On display are drawings in pencil or pen, and prints (lino cuts, woodcuts, serigraphs and etchings). This exhibition coincides with the UN World Tourism Organisation conference which in August partially shall take place in Livingstone. This special exhibition highlights the pioneers of printmaking in Zambia: Cynthia Zukas, Henry Tayali and the members of the Lusaka Artists Group (Bert Witkamp, Fakson Kulya, Patrick Mweemba and David Chibwe); and those who became major printmakers after them: Lutanda Mwamba, Agnes Buya Yombwe, Jonathan Leya, Patrick Mumba and others.
The exhibition, apart from the print makers, displays work by major drawers and draughtsmen. Aquila Simpasse, William Miko and Peter Gustavus are amongst them.
Details about the exhibition also are in the leaflet, which has some notes about graphic art in Zambia by Bert Witkamp. You can access these notes on the Internet by clicking on the following link http://artblog.zamart.org/. A more extensive version is on the Z-factor Art Site under the Internet Publications tab.
The exhibition is a joint production of Bert Witkamp of Zamfactor Ltd. and the Choma Museum.
On display are drawings in pencil or pen, and prints (lino cuts, woodcuts, serigraphs and etchings). This exhibition coincides with the UN World Tourism Organisation conference which in August partially shall take place in Livingstone. This special exhibition highlights the pioneers of printmaking in Zambia: Cynthia Zukas, Henry Tayali and the members of the Lusaka Artists Group (Bert Witkamp, Fakson Kulya, Patrick Mweemba and David Chibwe); and those who became major printmakers after them: Lutanda Mwamba, Agnes Buya Yombwe, Jonathan Leya, Patrick Mumba and others.
The exhibition, apart from the print makers, displays work by major drawers and draughtsmen. Aquila Simpasse, William Miko and Peter Gustavus are amongst them.
Details about the exhibition also are in the leaflet, which has some notes about graphic art in Zambia by Bert Witkamp. You can access these notes on the Internet by clicking on the following link http://artblog.zamart.org/. A more extensive version is on the Z-factor Art Site under the Internet Publications tab.
The exhibition is a joint production of Bert Witkamp of Zamfactor Ltd. and the Choma Museum.
The official opening of the exhibition took place on Wednesday, August 21st 2013. It was a pleasant and instructive event. The opening was performed by professor Nkandu Luo, Minister of the Ministry of Chiefs and Traditional Affairs. The Minister, in blue dress, delivered off the cuff a good and interesting speech in which she praised the manner in which the CMCC had been set up. She is flanked right and left by her Deputy Ministers. To the right Mr Chellah, CMCC director and far right the profile of Mr Mizinga, Executive Secretary of the National Museums Board of Zambia. Between these men and the ministerial trio is the Vice Chair-lady of the CMCC BoD.
BELOW THE LIST OF PARTICIPATING ARTISTS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER.
David Chibwe (1948)
now is one of Zambia’s senior artists. He is one of the first members of the Lusaka Artists Group and started printmaking in 1976 at the Evelyn Hone College Workshop facilitated by the Art Centre Foundation. He is a versatile man; doing painting from small to large, making prints working in lino, and, when need be, does sign writing to have some money in the pocket. His prints are inspired by daily life in compounds as he knows it well, resulting in naturalistic imagery of Zambian urban and rural folk life. |
Peter Gustavus (1946)
is a multidisciplinary and multicultural artist. Born in Germany he moved in 2007 to Zambia where he and his wife established Shazula Cultural Forum near Mazabuka. His recent work mostly is concerned with the adaptation of African elements and themes in a mixture of figurative and fantastic imagery. He describes himself “as a wanderer between continents, cultures and cultures.” Water colour painting is his favorite medium. Gustavus has a predilection for sense and thought provoking art, loves discussing his art and believes that art in a visual way must have something to say. |
Fakson Kulya (1946 - date of death unknown)
was born in Luanshya rural where he also died. He was the first member of the Lusaka Artist Group recruited by Bert Witkamp. They first exhibited in December 1975 at the Lusaka City Library. Kulya had no formal education in art and did much of his learning at the LAG/ACF workshop at the Evelyn Hone College. Fakson was a sculptor, draughtsman, painter and graphic artist. Much of his two-dimensional work is inspired by folk culture and folk life. He was an original artist with an abundant fantasy creating figurative, humorous and sometimes bizarre imagery that often had a story to tell. You can read more about Fakson Kulya at the Z-factor art blog (several posts) and at the Z-factor Art Site by clicking at the i-net publication tab. |
Jonathan Leya (1958) is a professionally trained graphic designer who presently mostly does commercial work. He also is extensively involved in exhibition design and contributed greatly to the series of brilliant exhibitions at the Choma Museum Art Gallery during 1993 - 1997 under the curatorship of Grazyna Zaucha. He is a talented graphic artist making silkscreen prints and lino cuts He runs a company called Dreamgraphics.
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The Lusaka Artists Group (LAG, 1975 - 1980), initiated by Bert Witkamp, was the first Zambian association of co-operating artists. The co-founding Zambian members were Fakson Kulya, David Chibwe and Patrick Mweemba, all of whom are represented at this exhibition. Witkamp introduced printmaking to the group. The LAG as of 1976, supported by the Art Centre Foundation, operated from a workshop at the Evelyn Hone College. Its printmaking was greatly boosted by the use of a press made available by Cynthia Zukas, herself a graphic artist. Much of its prolific printed work can be labeled folk art, as it was inspired by folk culture and made by artists living in the folk part of society.
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Agnes Buya Yombwe (1966)
is one of Zambia’s outstanding artists - generally because of the quality of her work and specifically because her originality in giving form and meaning to her art being “African.” Material, location and identity are important in her art. She and her husband Lawrence Yombwe, also an accomplished artist, own and manage Wayi Wayi Art Gallery at Livingstone. They also provide art classes and host art events. |
William Bwalya Miko (1961)
is one of those artists who has both artistic and intellectual sense. Says he: "In all aspects of my art practice, drawing locates itself as a process of 'mark-making' using any available implement. This process is self-indulgence whose axis situates itself between mental and motor coordination that results in visual imagery as a graphic commentary. This visual art result can be an intermediary image or final experimentation of the past, present and future aesthetic paradigms.” He has been active in VAC, is involved in the Lechwe Trust and the Open University, and manages a prestigious gallery at Lusaka Intercontinental Hotel named Twayi Art - Zambia. Miko, like many of his academically trained contemporaries (such as Agnes Buya and Patrick Mumba represented at this exhibition) seeks his own kind of an African idiom and style; though often working in media that are of fairly recent introduction in modern contexts. |
Patrick Mumba (1961)
is a painter and print maker, well known in Zambia and abroad. He has been well exposed to the international art world. He manages his own gallery called New Residence Gallery at Lusaka, has been active in art organizations and is Head of the Art Teachers Diploma course at the Evelyn Hone College. |
Lutanda Mwamba’s (1966)
journey into printmaking took off with linocuts. His talent showed immediately by prints of outstanding, yet deceptively simple composition; prints both colourful and atmospheric. Studies in the UK turned him on to serigraphy - silkscreen printing - in which he is a master. He continued to experiment in graphic techniques and also ventured into painting. |
Patrick Mweemba (1946)
is one of Zambia’s senior artists. He paints, sculpts and makes prints. His printmaking started in 1976 when he joined the Lusaka Artists Group. Since then he has built up a large oeuvre of lino- and woodcuts. He developed his own manner of colour printing. He owns Chisungu Graphics and runs a small gallery at Tazimani Handicraft Centre, 14 km up Great North Road from Choma. He also farms and advocates conservation farming. His subjects in art arise from the incidents and accidents of daily life; now cast in imagery of his own. |
Aquila Simpasse (1945 - year of death unknown)
had a touch of genius. In his later years he liked to call himself a message man. He was an outstanding draughtsman and painter who worked equally well work in an European and an African idiom or style. He, like Tayali, was academically trained, but unlike Tayali, developed his own African style of (graphic) imagery. After a brilliant start his career gradually took a downward turn as he was increasingly troubled by mental instability and depression. |
Henry Tayali (1943-1987)
arguably still is Zambia’s best known international artist. He belongs to the first generation of academic Zambian artists. Tayali painted, made sculptures in several media and left a substantial graphic oeuvre behind. In graphics he developed a robust, expressive style that suited his personality well. Themes often were taken out of daily life, at times referring to hardships of the poor. Tayali was a hard working, ambitious man who spent his professional life at UNZA, where he also taught. He is one of the founders of the Zambian graphic art tradition. This exhibition offers visitors an increasingly rare opportunity to acquire one of Henry's works. |
Bert Witkamp
(1944) trained in the Netherlands in art and anthropology. He worked in Zambia from 1975 to 1980 and from 1988 till present. He established the Lusaka Artist Group where he introduced printmaking and mosaic murals, sharing his technical expertise with his fellow artists. He is the founding director of the Choma Museum and Crafts Centre Trust Ltd. He presently assists the institution with the organisation of exhibitions for its art gallery and administers/designs its website. Bert manages Zamfactor Ltd., a company with the motto MAKE ART WORK & this includes rearing and selling chickens to get the necessary money in. He is an ardent advocate of the Internet for the promotion of art. He publishes at several blogs including the ZamArt Blog and at several web sites including the Z-factor Art Site and the Choma Museum Art Gallery web site. |
Cynthia Zukas (1931)
is the first professionally trained printmaker of Zambia and one of the pioneers of Zambian graphic art. As a graphic artist she mostly is known for her naturalistic etchings. Her contributions to Zambian art have been and are enormous. Since 1987 most of these contributions are channeled through the Lechwe Trust which she founded and of which she is the chair-lady. The Trust has the largest private collection of Zambian art in Zambia, has given grants to many artists and supported several major workshops. She is one of the mothers of Zambian modern art. |