Zimbabwe
AfricanColours Artist Association (AAA) 4 Deary Avenue, Belgravia, Harare, Zimbabwe. Phone + 263 4252 962 / aaa@africancolours.com
Unexpected Protocols
The National Gallery of Zimbabwe is currently showcasing ‘Unexpected Protocols’, a solo exhibition of some recent contemporary art works by Paul Wade. The dynamic contemporary visual artist arrived and settled in Zimbabwe from England in the early eighties and immediately was able to find himself a situation which offered him the conducive environment to exercise his obvious calling - that of being a practicing artist.
Paul arrived in Zimbabwe very much a textile artist, having obtained a degree in sculptural weaving that employed the soft fibers of wool and cloth to create in essence very robust and sculptural forms. The dedication to the craft and the imaginary forms was all consuming and certainly something entirely new in the emerging artistic community that was hungry for new art forms and expressions.
Ten years later Paul's work had undergone radical transformation. After undergoing a period of painting mainly in a realistic and figurative manner, he moved into the abstract realm transforming the forms of the fiber materiality and crafting into two dimensions, employing different materials including paint, metal strips and various industrial materials in order to create works that made use of three dimensional sensibilities and presented in a two dimensional format. As time went by paint emerged as his first love and the medium into which he was able to infuse a three dimensionality using the paint in its unadulterated form, pouring onto the canvas in sheets of pure colour imbued with exciting and emotive texture. The paintings of the late nineties and early 2000s began to reveal his consummate skill as a colourist and his essentially abstract renderings were anchored in aspects of his emotional life and experiences. Colour is sued to convey mood, emotion while marks bring additional dimensions and rhythm. Paul's most recent works show evidence of increased maturity, control and complexity. His colours are more subtle and his concepts more convoluted as is his character, responsibilities and life.
“There is a need to express yourself in the first place, where does that come from? It is a spiritual journey within oneself, the whole process of making is more beneficial than the end result... Yearning, a need to communicate visually.. .
BAT workshop, National Gallery, Harare, 1980s
Anybody can teach and learn techniques, but my aim at the workshop was to bring out the individuality of the student. To try and get that individual in touch with his/her own creativity. Otherwise you are not exploring the infinite possibilities of your own creativity. The idea is to expand the parameters that you subconsciously impose on yourself, always trying to grow, learn and relate to your surroundings.
Is Thursday blue and Friday yellow? Saturday Star, Johannesburg, 8 July 2006. Life section on Colour. On the condition of synaesthesia which applies colour to the products of other senses, ie sight, sound, taste, smell, feel, and even the days of the week. Surely it must be a sensual aspect of the human being and not a condition special to a select few... Monday is light blue, doesn't everyone see Wednesday as green or purple? Phyllis
Composition
Doing research into the laws of composition...What is a picture? What is a song? Country and western, R&B, hip hop, rap, jazz... I always see jazz as the fine art of music... Always boils down to composition, I am not doing anything new, I am exploring what I have got... I am not an innovator, just a hard working painter...
On marks and colour...
I see the colour of blue and yellow as a creative thought I see colours as a creative thought.. .There are colours that are not challenging, comfortable, pink, purple is challenging, they have their own connotations... Nothing is more beautiful than exploring the palette... after the palette is the mark... There is nothing more satisfying in my life than making these marks, putting a picture on the wall... I see visual language, I see colours, I see pictures, I see composition... Its hard to explain the joy... there's nothing else I can do... You look at the canvas and you decide to put a bit there, a bit here. . .
Expression is painting pictures, painting as painting... cancel the subject matter, explore colour and mark... I am tired of painting pictures for causes... like Malcolm, but he's an icon that works. The only two issues in my expression: there's Malcolm knocking at my door all the time, and there is painting. Malcolm brings on the birds in the morning... painting pictures for painting is difficult, the sun hasn't come but you have these birds singing... My idea is to be able to paint for paint but I am still caught up with subject matter. I am over 50 years old and I still cannot escape subject matter... This is the struggle, to get beyond this subject thing... But title is a coat hanger... There's a triangle involving the artist, artwork and the spectator... The title is a guide, untitled gives you the spectator more room to interpret, but it doesn't give you an indication of the artist's intentions....
Discovery
Gauguin said the difference between music and art is transitory, art is impact, it's in your face. Analogy of the concept of creating something. A story, anything. Not biographical but this is what people do when they are creative. They tell a story. Its part of the creative process... painters, musicians, writers, poets... Logic, emotion, seeing, science and art... A scientist can see germs with a microscope... they are creating, It's creative to find penicillin... All levels of study boil down to a fine art... Difference between science and arts, I don't understand difference, everyone is adding onto knowledge... Creative scientists have changed the world... What is fine art? Is it science? Or an art? Copernicus said we all go round the sun, he got imprisoned for that, people said he was crazy. But that is a creative thought. Galileo came later, but it was science. Creative thought is needed for Copernicus or discovery of penicillin or Steven Hawking on time, the history of time. A contribution to knowledge, that is the goal, that is the aim, for science or art. There's rules about painting, it's a science... abstract or realism, there's no difference, there's rules, it's either good or bad painting, it's about composition... Paintings add on to human knowledge... I feel blessed by the influence of my mother, she saw development and encouraged me...
Exploration of self discovery; Exploration of self realization
Best exhibition I ever saw was called Sacred Circle (late 70's), this is an introduction to me... on all four floors of the Haywood Gallery, London... is where you actually understood the indigenous people of North America, from Alaska to Mexico, it was amazing... What can be deeper, we were painting pictures before we started writing? Is that not beautiful... because one of these natural instincts, the base, is that we see things in colour, in pictures, language came later... We made pictures before we talked in writing... people saw pictures...
A selection of his paintings and drawings together with extracts from his letters. Vincent van Gogh.
Edited by Bruce Bernard. First published by Macdonald & Co, 1985.
... What I am saying in this letter amounts to this. Let us try to master the mysteries of technique to such an extent that people are deceived by it and will swear by all that is holy that we have no technique. Let our work be so savant that it seems naive and does not stink of our sapience...
I have been given the gift of imagery... making it possible to see the real gem in Emmie. Crystallised in the past four years looking at pictures and I am the better for it... love Paul”
By Stephen Garan’anga