She is not doing it for praise.
What are you looking at?
By Nyadzombe Nyampenza
In chiShona a person can address another by directing the communication to an entirely different person. Sometimes a message is deliberately misdirected to a child or an animal. Nelly Guambes’ Leaning on her has such a feel, after the viewer ponders her goddess-like matriarchal figure.
The painting depicts a grim maternal figure surrounded by pained and hungry looking faces of her children. The number of children is representational rather than realistic. The woman radiates light while the hungry urchins around her are cloaked in darkness. She wears a brown kapulana with patches hinting at humility and hard work. A pink blouse signifies her tenderness.
On first sight the painting is a celebration of hard working mothers. The children lean on her for support. On second thoughts they might be weighing her down with the burden of raising them alone. The husband and father, becomes conspicuously absent. In the end one notices the subjects are gazing back, implicating the audience.
[Leaning on her — Nelly Guambe won the inaugural Emerging Painting Invitational Prize-2019, at First Floor Gallery Harare.]
