Joram Mariga

Career

Mariga was introduced to Frank McEwen and soon they were in regular contact: Mariga exhibited at the Gallery extensively from 1962 but always worked on his own in his spare time and later at his studio in Greendale, Harare.

Later, McEwen would remember him thus: The sculptural expansion developed in only 34 years. To give a true example, among others arriving from different parts of the country came Joram Mariga. He was not the first to come to the workshop, but one of the best...He brought me a little milk jug carved in soft stone. I realised this was an English milk jug for an Englishman who loved his tea! I asked if he could make a head. The head came, made also for an Englishman, in the style of airport art as acquired by tourists. "If you made a figure for your own family or your ancestors?" I asked. "Oh, that would be different." The figure came, this time of pure African concept - the enlarged head, seat of the spirit, a frontal static pose, a visage staring into eternity with formally posed arms and clenched fists. It was pre-Columbian in nature, as if a spirit image applied to stone could create similar results in spite of a difference of race, place and time.

The milk jug and two of Joram's early stone sculptures were part of McEwen's bequest to the British Museum.

After 1962 Mariga abandoned the use of soft soapstone and began to use larger, harder blocks of serpentine that he found in the course of his work.[8] He also began working with new tools. As his technique developed, he taught numerous others what he had discovered. These other artists included his former roadbuilders, as well as artists such as Joseph Ndandarika who were sent to train with him by McEwen.

By 1967, Joram was arguably the leading Zimbabwean sculptor, and his compatriots followed working in newer stones such as serpentine and springstone that he pioneered. One of his sculptures was depicted on a Rhodesian postage stamp, part of a set issued on 12 July 1967 to commemorate the Tenth Anniversary of the opening of the Rhodes National Gallery. Other stamps in the set illustrated works by Auguste Rodin, Roberto Crippa and M. Tossini. In 1966, the first Tengenenge serpentine springstone deposit was discovered by Crispin Chakanyuka, a former apprentice of Mariga's who was working for Tom Blomefield.

1969 was an important year for the new sculpture movement, because it was the time when McEwen took a group of works to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and elsewhere in the USA, to critical acclaim. It was also the year that his wife Mary (née McFadden) established Vukutu, a sculptural farm near Inyanga, which the artists could work. Mariga found the location for the McEwens and was promised by them that he would lead the artistic commune. After he was suspected of harboring ZANU insurgents and transferred to a distant region, McEwen refused to have Mariga at Vukutu and installed Sylvester Mubayi as the leader.

The list of names of Vukutu sculptors who would become internationally well-known grew to include Bernard Matemera, Sylvester Mubayi, Henry Mukarobgwa, Thomas Mukarobgwa, Nicholas Mukomberanwa, Henry Munyaradzi, Joseph Ndandarika, Bernard Takawira and his brother John: together with Joram Mariga himself they formed the “first generation” of new Shona sculptors. All contributed work to an exhibition called Arte de Vukutu shown in 1971 at the Musée National d'Art Moderne and in 1972 at the Musée Rodin, arranged by McEwen, who had lived and worked in Paris prior to his appointment in Harare. Mariga was a member of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe's Board of Trustees from 1982 till 1993.

He participated in the 1989 Pachipamwe II Workshop held at Cyrene Mission outside Bulawayo, Zimbabwe alongside such luminaries as Adam Madebe, Bernard Matemera, Bill Ainslie, Voti Thebe and Sokari Douglas Camp.

While many of these artists went on to successful careers, Mariga's career suffered after his transfer to Chipinga. In this region he quickly ran out of stone, and found nothing available locally to sculpt with. Depressed after his betrayal by the McEwens, his artistic output largely consisted of elaborate woodcarvings made for his own household. He would not resume stone carving until a triumphal return in the late 1980s.

Later Life

Mariga was married four times. With his first wife, Doreen, he had a daughter, Mary. His second wife was Philipa, the mother of Owen, Richard and Robin. Anne was his third wife who was the mother of Walter, Daniel, Aaron and Jay. In 1976 Joram married Maud but they had no children.

Selected solo or group exhibitions

• 1962 New African Talent, National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe
• 1963 New Art from Rhodesia, Commonwealth Arts Festival, Royal Festival Hall, London
• 1972 Shona sculptures of Rhodesia, ICA Gallery, London
• 1989 Whispering the Gospel of Sculpture, National Gallery of Zimbabwe
• 1989 Zimbabwe op de Berg, Foundation Beelden op de Berg, Wageningen, The Netherlands
• 1990 Zimbabwe Heritage (National Gallery of Zimbabwe), Auckland, New Zealand
• 1990 Contemporary Stone Carving from Zimbabwe, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK
• 1991 The Thirty Five Years, Chapungu Sculpture Park, Zimbabwe
• 1993 Talking Stones II, The Contemporary Fine Art Gallery Eton, Berkshire, UK
• 1994 Joram Mariga: An Exhibition of Recent Sculpture, Chapungu Sculpture Park, Zimbabwe [19]
• 2000 Chapungu: Custom and Legend – A Culture in Stone, Kew Gardens, UK
• 2001 Tengenenge Art, Celia Winter-Irving, World Art Foundation, The Netherlands

References