In 2000, Kew Gardens -- or the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew -- hosted an outdoor exhibition titled "Chapungu" of works borrowed from the Chapungu Sculpture Park, Zimbabwe.
The exhibition was widely praised and was very worthy. But it seemed rather bland. Too many of the works represented ideas and ideals: love, mother, peace, and so forth. A lot of it was the kind of stuff that you might find plonked down in front of a railway station or department store.
The works of Bernard Matemera (b. 1946) are different. They're ambiguous, a bit disturbing, and memorable. Here are four, all carved from serpentine.
Bernard Matemera, "Earth Spirit" (1988). ("All things have a spirit -- nothing is inanimate. Trees, rivers, mountains, stones, carving stones. I come from the earth. I am the earth spirit.")
Bernard Matemera, "Metamorphosis" (1995). ("A man marries a girl of the same totem as himself. A wild animal becomes host to a wandering spirit. . . .")
Bernard Matemera, "Great Spirit Woman" (1988). ("The spirits empower both men and women. Throughout our history there have been individual women possessed of great spiritual powers.")
Bernard Matemera, "The Man who Ate his Totem" (1998). ("My totem is 'Nguruve' the wild pig. I have disobeyed the law by eating its delicious flesh. Now both my son and I change into our totem animal.")
Some links:
Any comments? Corrections? Write to me (Peter Evans), or tell the whole world.
First sellotaped together 1 October 2000; last fiddled with 14 October 2000.
