Sydney Majengwa

Sydney was born in 1972 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

He started to make sculpture with the late Biggie Kapeta and realised that his social role was to reincarnate in his work the Shona values which have been eroded through modernisation and globalisation.

In the early 1990s he worked for the owner of a stone mine who introduced him to Chapungu Sculpture Park, where he realised the possibilities he might have in sculpture. He then joined the Tengenenge Sculpture Community in Guruve where he worked alongside the late Bernard Matemera who told him sculpt what you feel you should in the way that is completely yours. At Tengenenge he began by making heads and owls. But his torsos have elevated him to being one of the most notable sculptors currently working in Zimbabwe. At Tengenenge a double torso in exotic and colourful fruit opal stone stands supported by a tree outside the main gallery. In his torso, the limbs and trunks of two people are entwined and the torso is as much a sophisticated study of the human figure in stone as it is a classical torso.

Sydney has made opal stone his own. He acquires his stone from a mine in Chiweshe on the way to Tengenenge. The pale green of opal stone allows for a detailed worked surface which he uses to advantage in his sculptures to define detail.

Sydney belongs to the Jehovah Church and his strong Christian beliefs have not cancelled out his understanding of his African traditions as heritage and of social value in modern life. In owl he harks back to these traditions. This is a massive portrait of an owl, with two feathers which look like horns and strange eyes and a cat like face. This owl is a confirmation of the rule of witchcraft in an African setting.

Sydney aspires to work on harder stones to experiment with other media in his sculpture and to express sentiments coming directly from urban and rural society in Africa. His work is represented in collections in Australia, The Netherlands, Germany and the UK.

Related Sculptures

There are currently no sculptures by: Sydney Majengwa

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