NZWISA: Samantha Vazhure's solo exhibition begins in Harare

 

NZWISA EXHIBITION; 17 to 25 October 2025

at PaMoyo Gallery, 24 East Rd, Belgravia, Harare.

Opening 17^th October, 6pm till late, thereafter 9am to 5pm daily.

Live Music by Hope Masike. Cash bar and traditional music

 

Artist: Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure (nee Majange)

On 17 October, I’m opening my debut solo exhibition, Nzwisa, in Harare. Curated by @pamoyo.gallery this exhibition brings together works inspired by the sacred landscapes of Zimbabwe, Shona cosmology & the Welsh countryside where I live. Each piece reflects my evolution from self-taught painter into an artist ready to take the next step in my journey.
Here’s a little glimpse of my process behind the scenes… building textures, layering acrylics and weaving memory.

My impressionist and expressionist art is vibrant and protrusive – touching and feeling my strokes and daubs of acrylic on canvas is gratifying to the tactile sense.

I am a self-taught painter and accomplished bilingual author and literary activist, who grew up in Zimbabwe. 

We exhibit limited edition prints made from 3D scanned images of my original paintings, so they look textured. The high-quality images are printed on acid-free, water-resistant, smooth fine art 320gsm giclee paper, using high dynamic range inks and delivered in robust postal tubes. All prints come in editions of 100, are numbered, titled, dated and signed by the artist, and include a certificate of authenticity. All the limited-edition prints are available in the following standard dimensions and prices: A3 - $70, 50 x 70 cm - $250.

I am the Publishing Director and Founding Editor of Carnelian Heart Publishing Ltd. (established in April 2020) and was named African publisher of the year in 2023 by Brittle Paper.  My journey into painting started in 2022, almost by accident, but it quickly became my freedom, my passion and my path.

Here; descriptions of a few samples of the exhibits:

1)      Munhu Wangu (2025)

A tender evocation of intimacy, Munhu Wangu reflects the personal claim of belonging: “my person.”

The work celebrates the sacred bond between two people, balancing vulnerability with strength. The brushwork suggests both protection and exposure, reminding us that love is not ownership but communion.*Illustrated for SoulDeep Music Zim’s latest single, Zvakanaka.

2)      In the embraces of struggle (2025)

After Dambudzo Marechera in House of Hunger: “Something fighting floated down from a pale blue sky. As it floated down to my level, I saw that it was a black man and a white man locked in the embraces of struggle.”

Illustrated for the cover of Cynthia Rumbidzai Marangwanda’s novella, The Toppling, where spirit medium MaMoyo battles the ghost of imperialist Cecil John Rhodes, this piece acknowledges hardship not as defeat but as an enveloping force that shapes identity. The strokes carry tension, yet within them lies resilience.

3)      Iwewe neni 1 (2025) Iwewe neni. You and me. The painting explores togetherness beyond the physical, delving into emotional and spiritual partnership. It portrays the invisible thread binding two beings across space and circumstance. *Illustrated for SoulDeep Music Zim’s latest single, Zvakanaka.

4)      Ziroto (2025)Ziroto, meaning a significant dream or prophecy, in Shona, is a visual elegy of memory, loss, and the violence of historical silence. It is a depiction of Chaminuka’s prophecy of the coming of Europeans to what is now Zimbabwe. In Ziroto, history is not a neutral record, but a battleground. The work is a quiet indictment of cultural displacement and the dangers of forgetting. Through it, we are asked: who controls remembrance? And what happens when even our descendants no longer recognise us?

Vapfuri Vemhangura (2025)

Literally, iron smelters. Figuratively, the artisans of old Zimbabwean societies. The painting recalls craft, labour and innovation. It situates metallurgy as heritage, linking human creativity to elemental transformation. The Soko Vhudzijena clan are acknowledged as iron smelters who migrated from Hwedza, in their praise poem. The Lion Totem clan are also said to have migrated from Mutoko via Hwedza, to Chivi. It is believed that they may have been Soko people who changed their totem to Shumba for strategic purposes. Inspired by the history of our people’s migration during the spread of iron age farming from the north to the south of what is now Zimbabwe, three men leave the iron smelting scene, accompanied by a protective Chapungu, the Bateleur eagle.

 Iron ore was broken up and placed in a smelting oven, together with charcoal. Air was pumped into the oven with goatskin bellows. When the heat in the oven reached a very high temperature, the iron leaked down to the bottom. When the iron cooled into a lump, the furnace was broken open. The iron was then ready to be heated again and ‘smithed’ or hammered into tool shapes. Neil Parsons, Focus on History Book 1, 1985 p52

“The clay furnace is in the shape of a womb and has symbolic breasts. Possession, dance and mbira music accompany the process.” Gillian Atherstone & Duncan Wylie, Zimbabwe Art, Symbol and Meaning, p65

 Silence (2024)

Silence is a small-scale textured painting that speaks volumes through subtlety and colour. Set against a warm yellow base, the painting centres on a pair of lips whose quiet presence suggests withheld words and unspoken stories. To one side, textured patterns in shades of orange, red, mauve with touches of violet-blue evoke the rich and intricate beauty of African artistry. The interplay of vibrant hues against the subdued backdrop creates a powerful contrast, embodying a silent strength and the layers of expression that words alone cannot convey. 

 …and many more!

Regards

Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure

 

 

 

 

 

Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure: 3 Art events

the 3 EVENTS:

17 to 25 October: Nzwisa Exhibition

18 October: The Toppling book launch 

19 October: Carnelian Heart Publishing poetry reading event

ALL at PaMoyo Gallery, 24 East Rd, Belgravia, Harare.

Creative writing workshop in Harare

 

Andrew Chatora on Ngugi's global stature

 

Ngugi wa Thiongo – Decolonial Icon, Mwalimu and Writer: A Voice Silenced, but Never Forgotten –

(Obituary by Andrew Chatora)

Behold, a great mountain has fallen! A titan of African Literature, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o has passed on. A pioneering writer who told the African story relentlessly, he critiqued colonialism and the excesses of post-independence governments, with wild abandon. The inimitable Ngugi, go well, son of the soil.

I am deeply saddened by the passing on of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, a colossal figure and scholar in decolonial thought, literature, and activism. One of Africa and Kenya’s most celebrated author, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o died last week, aged 87. The highly regarded writer published his first novel; Weep Not Child  in 1964. He began writing in English, later switching to write primarily in Gikuyu. His works includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. His writing took on colonialism and also faced up to new evils by the post-colonial governments.

Today I mourn and celebrate the passing on of a literary giant and icon. Born in 1938, his writing examines the myriad of effects and legacy of colonialism. He was among the pioneering writers to tell the African story. His legacy is immeasurable and far-reaching. Ngugi leaves behind an admirable aspiration and an enduring impact.

“They came at night, in silence, their faces shadowed by masks. Those who spoke the truth or questioned the ways of power were never seen again. Their absence was a warning to the rest, a silence more deafening than words.” Petals of Blood.

This excerpt from Ngugi pretty much typified his writing and why many resonated with his works, myself amongst those many.

I studied A Grain of Wheat at the University of Zimbabwe taught by a Kenyan Lecturer Kimani Gecau, who’d been heavily involved in community theatre in Kenya where he directed Ngugi wa Thiongo’s plays at Kamirithu Community and Educational Centre. I remain forever fascinated by Ngugi’s representation of his protagonist Mugo introduced by a mesmerising first line to the book: ‘‘Mugo felt nervous.’’

Years later, after graduating from UZ, I was overjoyed to find myself teaching A Grain of Wheat to my A Level classes at Sakubva High in Mutare. Earlier, I had also taught Matigari to my students at St Matthias Tsonzo High School in Mutasa District, Manicaland. Ngugi’s writing made me sceptical and scathing of the establishment something which endeared me to my Literature students. But I only got to know of this, years on when I bumped into some of my erstwhile Tsonzo students and interacted with some of them.

We grew up with Ngugi, Achebe, Mungoshi as our staple literary diet in Zimbabwe. As a little boy growing up in Dangamvura, Mutare, I ravenously devoured a plethora of Ngugi’s gems, among them; the classics: The River Between, Devil on The Cross, The Tral of Dedan Kimathi, Decolonising the Mind among others. I may have been living in Mutare, Zimbabwe but already I was transported to the world and ridges of Kameno, Makuyu and Nyeri! Who can forget Waiyaki, Mwalimu, the teacher in The River Between, Ngugi’s enduring protagonist?

At Dangamvura high school with my peers Peter Chemvura, and John Sibanda; Decolonising the Mind was our go to manual blueprint which facilitated and fostered our Afrocentric arguments as fiery students of Literature at that nascent age. Though years later as a writer I respectfully disagree with Ngugi’s championing of indigenous languages over English or European Language’s usage perspective when one writes. As I’ve argued consistently, a writer needs to establish themselves first on the international stage before they start dissing English as a medium of writing in favour of their vernacular languages.^[1] You do this, you run the risk of being perpetually on the fringes or being thrown into oblivion.

But more critical; Ngugi had already gained global recognition writing in English when he decided to turn his back on it. So, we can all learn through how contradictory his position was on this. And besides, much as writers like Ngugi championed the use of indigenous African languages, which they did very well, they still later went on to translate their works into English and other so called imperialistic languages, which action I perceive as undermining their very argument on sticking to vernacular language use in their works. This is not meant to dent Ngugi’s contribution to the debate on the use of African Languages, but it’s just a difference of opinion and pragmatism on my part as a writer who understands the intricacies and nuances of making it big on the international  literary scene – the road to literary stardom.

Writing from a self-confessed position as an ambassador of the French language, Alain Mabanckou suggests that advocates of going back to African languages as unwilling to declare their interest. “Better yet, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s English-language publisher goes so far as to underwrite the publication of some of his books in Kenya but also in his native Kikuyu! So here we have the colonizer coming to the rescue of the colonized’s language!” Mabanckou's book, The Tears of the Black Man, is scathing and controversial, at times playing the devil's advocate on the racial question, while essentially beating the "black man" around to take responsibility. The likes of Ngugi are almost taken up as being guilty by association. Mabanckou lumps their authenticity politics with the superficiality and hypocrisy of Mobutu Sese Seko’s “Zairenization.” Ngugi, in fact, fought both Western imperialists and African nationalist dictators throughout his career. Few points, however, stand out in Mabanckou's counter-crusade, his argument that: literature is to be merited talent not activism; authenticity politics is mired in ambiguities and undeclared privileges; the languages of the coloniser allow Africans, who are, in fact, not a homogenous culture, to interact as different communities; and then, the idea that dealing in African languages requires as a working infrastructure, missing in most cases in African countries.

That said, Ngugi excelled in doing what the essayist of, “A Dead End for African Literature,” Obiajunwa Wali saw as the duty of any writer anywhere to test the duty of his language. For diaspora writers like me, this undertaking can only be daring. Prolonged disconnect with your mother language means you may ultimately dabble in it with classicist bias whereas the language has, in fact, evolved in your absence. Dambudzo Marechera confessed to this problem, that his Shona countrymen sounded like foreigners on his return from exile. Gonzo H. Musengezi also accused Solomon Mutswairo of editing his Shona book with rigid classicism when he came back from exile, crossing out his English-contaminated words for, one assumes, high-minded new Shona coinings which nobody really spoke like. These are problems that resolve themselves in trial and error, the only path available to a writer. And then there is the question of infrastructure – the unquestionably great works of Ayi Kwei Armah and Sankomota guitarist Frank Leepah, for example, are better preserved under big-machine labels, while their “self-published” efforts are largely out of print. Again, one has to doff to the imperfect empire-building of the great Africans as an initiative a future generation may be better resourced to perfect, the vision being all.

Ngugi remains a towering figure in terms of his legacy and contribution as a writer and Literature scholar. Such is the mark of a maestro who evokes so many controversies. But in scenes reminiscent of Mark Anthony’s eulogy at Caesar’s passing on: I am here to mourn the loss of Ngugi! You fought your race brilliantly. Go well the doyen of African Literature. 

It's an African loss. Yet, it's an African celebration. We mourn the loss of an African giant. Very sad loss. He was a candid and brilliant literate. His works live on as testimony of the gigantic strides and landmarks. He will remain one of my most cherished authors and critic.

As writer Charles Onyango says; ‘‘The old lion is gone. But the roar echoes.’’

Rest in peace Mwananchi Wa Thiong’o. May your words continue to cast their spell on generations to come.

[1] [In a 2021interview with Tanya Mackenzie a Doctoral Student on her Decolonial study thesis on the interplay between Zimbabwean identity and Zimbabwean Literature, in response to an interview question on Ngugi’s argument on the use of English Language medium, Andrew Chatora first advances a similar counter argument that a writer needs to establish themselves first on the global literary scene before they start dissing writing in English. Andrew Chatora is consistent in advancing his counter argument that, it’s all right for writers like Ngugi to berate English, but the elephant in the room is they’ve already made it as internationally recognized writers using English in the first place. Besides, why do they go on to translate their vernacular written works into English and other so called imperialistic languages? In addition, where a writer makes it on the international Literary Circuit, it remains their agency and personal choice whatever Language, they elect to use in their writing.]

Andrew Chatora is an award winning Zimbabwean writer and noted exponent of the African diaspora novel. His forthcoming fifth book Darkness in Me offers a poignant, haunting examination of action and consequence, fault and attribution, acceptance and resolution.

 

 

 

 

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