Artist in the dark

The exhibition featured beautiful art from some of South Africas finest painters, potters and glass makers. And, squeezed between elegant portraits of ballerina dancers and canvas photographs of Nguni cattle, were pictures depicting scenes of terror from Zimbabwe.

The painter is best known as The Zimbabwean Artist because he lives in fear of being hunted down by the same men who harassed him while he lived in his native land. Once a regular contributor to exhibitions in art galleries in Harare and Bulawayo, he now struggles to earn a living from his art while in exile in South Africa.

(Pictured: The hand-written sign that accompanied the paintings)

After the week-long exhibition in the Kwazulu-Natal town, he admitted to only selling one painting. The next day he packed everything up to return to Johannesburg with less money in his pocket than he would have liked. With paintings depicting scenes from the atrocities that took place during the Gukhurahundi massacres in Matabeleland, it is a topic that is clearly close to his heart. A hand written sign is hung in the midst of his art as a plea for a journalist to help him to write about the things he has seen. There are some things that I cannot paint, said the artist. These ones are fine, but how can I paint my sister getting raped? Who will want to buy that?

The Zimbabwean Artist feels that putting words to the things he has experienced is the only way to seek justice. His paintings do well to convey an atmosphere of terror. One shows a bus full of people being set on fire by armed men wearing red berets. The caption says: From Nkayi to Bulawayo. Fifth Brigade soldiers arrived at villagers with lists of the names of local ZAPU officials. If they were not produced, the soldiers would set fire or opened fire with their AK47s. With paintings that leave an indelible impression on the mind and stories that haunt the listener for weeks after they have been told, it would be a travesty if the world never heard The Zimbabwean Artists tale.