Meandering Lines
Amanda Shingirai Mushate, To My Baby My Heart Needs You to Shine Always Please Don't Dim, 2022, oil on canvas
Zimbabwean artist Amanda Shingirai Mushate creates her worlds, comprised of interpersonal and geographical connections, without the constraints of rigidly defined forms. Multicoloured lines meander against a background of vibrant amorphous colours, each line exploring, weaving in and out of the others, forming and dissolving suggestive figurative outlines.
Amanda Shingirai Mushate, Catching a Good Thing, 2022, oil on canvas
Whatever the intent of its creator, the perception of any artwork is of course individual to the person viewing it.
To me, the looping lines suggest the different life trajectories we took, or wanted to take or are now taking - the dreams, and hopes and choices, each one taking us in a different direction; each line affected by the interaction with the others, leaving a colourful trail of its explorations in some infinite space like footprints seen from some playful cosmic perspective.
Amanda Shingirai Mushate, Owner, 2022, oil on canvas
At times, the lines form suggestive figures - an outline of a face, a hand. See for example “To My Baby My Heart Needs You to Shine Always Please Don't Dim” and “Beneficiary”, suggesting - I think - the love between a mother and her child.
Amanda Shingirai Mushate, Beneficiary, 2022, oil on canvas
From a geographical sense, the looping lines (reminiscent visually if not conceptually of aboriginal paintings) suggest to me something that I wish we could achieve - a world without borders, flowing with the winds of change, shaping and reshaping its geography without artificial constraints that can be moved only upon conflict. We are far from it now but perhaps one day …
Amanda Shingirai Mushate, Babuyile (They are Back), 2022?, oil on canvas
I love Mushate’s painting, or perhaps that is to say I simply like my own perceptions realised in her vibrant colour palette and her sense of movement. Either way, I hope you enjoy her art, however you may see it.
Amanda Shingirai Mushate (b. 1995, Zimbabwe) is based in Harare, Zimbabwe. She received a certificate in fine art from the National Gallery of Zimbabwe Visual Arts Studios and has exhibited worldwide.
You can see more of her work on her IG account at https://www.instagram.com/amandashingirai/?hl=en