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Claudia Arana

Sacred Narratives

Arts Etobicoke Gallery, Toronto, Ontario.

David Chinyama Solo Exhibition

Sept 16 – 22, 2019

David Chinyama's first solo show in Canada, Sacred Narratives, represents artist's personal universe, shaped by re-appropriating cultural memory through familiar materials and objects placed within the new contexts.

For this exhibition, Chinyama has constructed sculptural compositions out of raw fabrics that are cut and flattened to create patterns, shapes, and movement. The folds and creases in the flexible composition are integral elements of an aesthetic meant to change with time and gravity. 

Chinyama's practice can best be described as a form of adaptation and reaction to the circular economy and consumer society that is imported every day to the African contemporary culture. Now in Canada, the artist is adapting himself to new elements and materials; familiar fabrics and objects are incorporated into a different frame, assigning to them new functionality.  Here, Up-cycling functions to promote the idea of social and cultural adaptation through reaction to (and interpretation of) artist's new environment; the idea that subtly manifests itself in added layers of meaning of his final creations. 

David Chinyama is a multi-disciplinary visual artist whose work is inspired by form, movement and color. It explores subject matters often centered upon aspects of identity, political, socio-economic and religious connotations. His journey and love for visual storytelling dates back to his childhood days in Zimbabwe. Between 1997and 2000 he studied at the School of Visual Art and Design of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and later at Harare Polytechnic in Zimbabwe. He received several National Merit Awards for his early work, leading to successful solo exhibitions throughout Zimbabwe as well as internationally in France, Germany and the USA. His works are found in permanent collections of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe as well as in various embassies including the Canadian Embassy in Zimbabwe. At the end of 2017 he moved to Canada and settled in Toronto, where he re-launched his independent art practice.