BY TENDAI SAUTA FARAI Rupende of Revival Shona Art Centre in Chitungwiza said if it were not for his passion and determination he might not have turned out to be the artist he is today.
The visual artist smiles each time he reflects back on his early days as an apprentice to Witness Bonjisi at Tsindi Gallery.
With over seven years’ experience and managing to fend for himself and family through art, he believes creation of resilient spaces for visual artists has been the missing link in the creative sector.
“There is no one-stop learning centre for visual artists and there is lack of conducive creative and production spaces,” he recalls.
“There is need to create and put in place standard places for visual artists. An ideal place should have a reliable source of power, a clean source of water, ablutions, a gallery and a warehouse.”
The perennial power cuts have not spared Rupende while working on hard stones like rose quartz, lapidolite, red jasper, yellow eunikite and leopard rock among others that require electricity.
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“I prefer abstract work because it opens up avenues that need to be explored. An abstract does not have a single meaning,” he observed.
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