OPTION NYAHUNZVI DZIKAMAI
The inaugural edition of Wunika Mukan Gallery's artist residency hosted Zimbabwean artist, Option Nyahunzvi Dzikamai from August 1 2022.
On the residency, Wunika Mukan, Director and Founder of Wunika Mukan Gallery says “It’s a wonderful opportunity for the artist, gallery and community to participate in this cultural exchange. It is especially refreshing to see genuine stakeholder commitment to the arts in Africa from an organization like Yawoa Foundation...”
Further to the primary goal of cultural exchange, the residency aims to provide opportunities for networking, and expansion. We believe in reciprocity and exchange to foster multicultural dialogue. To this effect, our AIR program hosts artists from across the continent and the African diaspora to expand our offering, providing our audiences with fresh and innovative points of view.
Commenting on the initiative, and their contribution as sponsor of the residency, Yawoa Foundation’s Founder and CEO, Estelle Dogbo added “This is a fantastic initiative that will further enable Galleries like Pacers and contemporary artists, to amplify the already blooming sense of community that exists in the art space, while making pan africanism a cultural reality in the Artist's Creative processes.
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Harare 1992 and raised in Rusape, Option began sketching at an early age.
The Harare-born artist originally studied print design before moving into new mediums, and has exhibited and taken up residencies both locally and globally. Understanding and enjoying Nyanhunzvi’s practice offers a sense of new beginnings or origins - a catharsis of sorts. The process of making the work, a technique of building up acrylic and paper collage and then peeling away and etching into the surface, is in itself a healing process for the artist too.
Option stands out for his compelling and provocative projects, where otherworldly figures represent “the unseen spiritual presence of everyday people,” which are sometimes “distorted and recreated” from the artist’s friends and relatives. A frequent feature in Nyahunzvi’s work is the zebra- a totem that connects the artist and his clan to their ancestors. The artist inserts the Zebra print into his artworks as a profound ode to his own culture and ancestry. It serves as a point of departure for exploring and asserting the importance of traditional story-telling and mythology, from a contemporary angle. The scenes invite the viewer to participate in the creation of a narrative and to imagine what could possibly be.
Option Dzikamai Nyahunzvi graduated with a Certificate in Visual Arts and Design awarded by Harare Polytechnic College in association with the National Gallery School of Visual Arts and Design in 2015. In this same year he graduated, Option was the First price (winner) in Graphics for the work “Homeless Migrants" in an exhibition called Migration at Gallery Delta in Harare, Zimbabwe. Harare, Zimbabwe and has since featured in several exhibitions and Art fairs both on the domestic and international scene.
, Yawoa Foundation’s Founder and CEO, Estelle Dogbo added “This is a fantastic initiative that will further enable Galleries like Pacers and contemporary artists, to amplify the already blooming sense of community that exists in the art space, while making pan africanism a cultural reality in the Artist's Creative processes.