Shelton Mubayi
BY TENDAI SAUTA
CHITUNGWIZA-BASED visual artist and winner of the 3-dimension visual art award at the recent National Merit Art Awards (Nama) Shelton Mubayi said gender equality, education and entrepreneurship were the recurrent motifs in his artworks.
Mubayi, who works with the Chitungwiza Arts Centre, told NewsDay Life & Style that training under the tutelage of his father, virtuous stone carver Sylvester Mubayi, had helped him to be precise in his works.
He said clinching the Nama award had inspired him to do more.
“Having been awarded the Nama accolade, I intend to get further grooming to be a world-class communicator through visual arts. It is fantastic to be recognised on home soil, because my works have been greatly accepted internationally. But strength is built from home,” he said.
“I always put tenacious efforts on my creations, figures of human, birds and abstracts on serpentine, spring stone, leopard rock and lapidolite amongst other rock stones.”
Mubayi, who is also a trainer and a hospitality practitioner with a diploma in tourism and business studies and a certificate in art and design, said he had done several local and international workshops.
Despite being well-travelled around the globe, Mubayi said he also took time to train sculpturing to children in his neighbourhood, but his desire was to put Chitungwiza on the global map.
“It is part of my vision to have community tourism in Chitungwiza, whereby people fly to learn the Shona stone artwork at Chitungwiza Arts Centre,” he said, adding that for him, visual art was a combination of hobby, passion and profession.
