Anne Zanele Mutema
Soft Equinoctial
First Floor Gallery Harare (Harare)
Soft Equinoctial
First Floor Gallery Harare (Harare)
Artist Statement
A present moment in time where the simple act of “doing” supersedes incertitude of Time, of Space, of Objects and of the Body. Doubt to all ”known”, doubt that renders one stultified…until!
This body of Work (literally) is a physical construction of an unrelenting attempt to discover and connect to my Vault of Heaven. The conscious moving across the spheres of the Present, Desired, Actual and Forbidden. Spheres where edges are blurred and occurrences and events mergae marking a trail and with it a familiarity is forged and this “knowing” brings about a tenderness, a softness, a consolation and what remains are memories coated in golden streaks that at times still tug at the Source. ...I Connected…It is through that connection that the doubt was soothed by a “re-knowing” and “re-trusting” in the One who made the Heaven itself. This Work is an invitation to one and all who would like to share my softness, but to you all it is only a ”fleeting moment feeling” that can only be accessed by recall.
Anne Zanele Mutema
©2023
A present moment in time where the simple act of “doing” supersedes incertitude of Time, of Space, of Objects and of the Body. Doubt to all ”known”, doubt that renders one stultified…until!
This body of Work (literally) is a physical construction of an unrelenting attempt to discover and connect to my Vault of Heaven. The conscious moving across the spheres of the Present, Desired, Actual and Forbidden. Spheres where edges are blurred and occurrences and events mergae marking a trail and with it a familiarity is forged and this “knowing” brings about a tenderness, a softness, a consolation and what remains are memories coated in golden streaks that at times still tug at the Source. ...I Connected…It is through that connection that the doubt was soothed by a “re-knowing” and “re-trusting” in the One who made the Heaven itself. This Work is an invitation to one and all who would like to share my softness, but to you all it is only a ”fleeting moment feeling” that can only be accessed by recall.
Anne Zanele Mutema
©2023
Soft Equinoctial
There is an old wisdom which says that each person should have two pockets, in one pocket there should be a note which says ‘a I am but a piece of dust’ and in another a note which says ‘the world was created for me alone’.
As human beings we are always in conversation with the universe which is intimately and inevitably centered on us even when we feel powerless and insignificant Our self is both permanent and transient, we at once drivers and passengers in our lives.
In Zanele Mutema’s work this conception of self through time is palpable and immanent. Her own physicality, her silhouette is used both as a point of departure and an anchor for the conversations she proposes about who we are in different contexts. Are we made up of our memories which shift, change and deceive us, are we our context, are we the people seen or touched by those around us. And how does that conversation bring us closer to understanding the even bigger questions in life.
At a time, when the question of identity has been reduced to micro levels of personal and intimate details, the level of abstraction from the particular to the shared human is overwhelming in Mutema’s work. The level of fragility of each one of us as a physical being reducible and disempowered in so many ways is poignant in these works. How evocative are silhouettes trapped in clear resin, while we look at formal appealing canvases are we prepared to walk with the feet of the person who made it happen. As we walk through the forest of bodies we pass on the streets daily, how often do we register the sacred humanity of each life we don’t engage with, while we are preoccupied with our own.
At a time when compassion often feels out of reach, Mutema helps us to zoom out of our differences, let go of ego and to tread softly towards a place of greater light.
Valerie Kabov
©2023
There is an old wisdom which says that each person should have two pockets, in one pocket there should be a note which says ‘a I am but a piece of dust’ and in another a note which says ‘the world was created for me alone’.
As human beings we are always in conversation with the universe which is intimately and inevitably centered on us even when we feel powerless and insignificant Our self is both permanent and transient, we at once drivers and passengers in our lives.
In Zanele Mutema’s work this conception of self through time is palpable and immanent. Her own physicality, her silhouette is used both as a point of departure and an anchor for the conversations she proposes about who we are in different contexts. Are we made up of our memories which shift, change and deceive us, are we our context, are we the people seen or touched by those around us. And how does that conversation bring us closer to understanding the even bigger questions in life.
At a time, when the question of identity has been reduced to micro levels of personal and intimate details, the level of abstraction from the particular to the shared human is overwhelming in Mutema’s work. The level of fragility of each one of us as a physical being reducible and disempowered in so many ways is poignant in these works. How evocative are silhouettes trapped in clear resin, while we look at formal appealing canvases are we prepared to walk with the feet of the person who made it happen. As we walk through the forest of bodies we pass on the streets daily, how often do we register the sacred humanity of each life we don’t engage with, while we are preoccupied with our own.
At a time when compassion often feels out of reach, Mutema helps us to zoom out of our differences, let go of ego and to tread softly towards a place of greater light.
Valerie Kabov
©2023
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