Since its founding in 2001, London gallery Tiwani Contemporary has established itself as one of the world’s most prominent and influential champions for African and African diaspora artists. That mission continues with their latest exhibition, featuring the works of Zimbabwean artists Gareth Nyandoro and Mostaff Muchawaya.
The focus of this show is Ruwa, in Zimbabwe’s Harare Province, where both artists live and work, with each artist offering their own depiction of the town that they call home, in both its physical and psychological senses. While their styles and mediums differ, both Nyandoro and Muchawaya brilliantly capture daily life and the mood of the town.
Nyandoro’s ink on paper works, mounted on wood panels, provide an intimate observation of the town’s urban development, and the dichotomy of the public-private ‘partnership’. Meanwhile, Muchawaya’s energetic, colourful portraits layer together the real people he observes with his memories, creating rich, textured works that capture the mood of Ruwa and its inhabitants. Together, Nyandoro and Muchawaya’s works invite London viewers to experience the place they call home with their psychogeographical portraits that are visually striking and evocative in equal measure.
If you spent lockdown perfecting your banana bread recipe, artist Jessica Carter is about to put you to shame – she spent nine months of lockdown painting over 40 abstract butterfly wings in support of the Artist Support Pledge, so she could donate 10% of all profits to Mind, the mental health charity. A cause she felt especially strongly about because of the mental health issues exacerbated by lockdown.
It’s not just her generosity that inspires this week’s champion, author, editor and family friend Dylan Jones, but her talent that belies her age.
Jones says: “Jessica Carter’s work completely confounds her age and experience, as it is rather extraordinary. In fact, I think it’s better than that. The first time I saw her work I tried to buy it, and was disappointed – and not a little annoyed – to find it had been bought by someone else (I am currently working out a way to steal it from them without them noticing).”
After studying Fine Art, with a particular focus on photography, at Leeds University, Carter set about developing her own unique visual language using ephemeral phenomena – raw flesh. In her works, the discarded and otherwise wasted meat’s existence is captured in a moment of time and promptly given a purpose. She uses a variety of mediums, including ceramics, oil painting, machine embroidery as well as photography, to turn the grotesque into the beautiful and examine the transience of nature, to create abstract pieces with a strong visual impact.
Jones says: “She is developing quickly as an artist, by managing to combine an innate sense of design with genuine artistic flair. Her sculptural works have an organic quality about them, again one that belies her age. It is unusual to see such maturity and sophistication in a young artist, and I for one am fascinated to see how she develops.”
You can see Carter’s latest creations, a collection of unique butterfly prints, on display at Scarborough Hospital until September. Carter is also currently working on a butterfly painting, which will be hung in The Carter Room at London’s Groucho Club once it is ready. In September, she will also be starting an art and business course at Sotheby’s.
