Newman Huo

    SHENZHEN residents will soon be able to see how African artists see us. A group of five resident artists at the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute (SFAI) will render their impressions at a joint art exhibition scheduled to open Saturday and run until Nov. 7.

    The five artists are Tonely Ngwenya of Zimbabwe, Thakane Lerotholi of Lesotho, Gordon Shamulenge of Zambia, Daniel Asfaw Taddese of Ethiopia and Bento Oliveira of Cape Verde.

    They have been working on a Sino-African cultural exchange program at SFAI since early September.

    Over the past month, the five artists have visited many places in Shenzhen. Based on their experiences here, they are now preparing works for the joint exhibition.

    Ngwenya is the only artist who is married. He flew to China only three days after his second child was born in hospital.

    “After our joint exhibition, I’m going home as soon as possible because I miss my family very badly,” said Ngwenya, who says he has enjoyed a quiet life and creative work during his stay. He has finished nine paintings for the exhibition.

    In his paintings, Ngwenya has realistically portrayed landscapes he saw on his visit to Dafen Oil Painting Village, the Shenzhen Civic Center and the Damesha and Xiaomeisha beaches.

    Among the nine paintings, Ngwenya said his favorite was one of the Shenzhen Civic Center.

    “The painting of Shenzhen Civic Center is my favorite because the Civic Center is the image and identity of Shenzhen,” Ngwenya said.

    Born in 1976, Ngwenya has been working as a graphic designer since he finished his studies at the BAT Visual Arts Studios at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.

    Since 2003, he has been working with the Southern African Research and Documentation Center, a research and publishing company in Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe.

    Unlike Ngwenya, Lerotholi, an energetic and talented painter and sculptor, doesn’t seem to have adapted to the quiet life at SFAI.

    “I like Shenzhen because people here are very friendly. My only regret is that I don’t have the opportunity to interact with the local people and learn more about them,” she said.

    Born in 1978, Lerotholi worked as a freelance artist in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho after he graduated from the University of Kwazulu Natal in South Africa in 2008.

    Lerotholi has finished 12 paintings for the joint exhibition. Among her works are Chinese elements such as chopsticks, local fruit, and migrant workers.

    In her painting titled “Shenzhen Through My Eyes,” Lerotholi depicts an urban landscape in downtown Shenzhen seen through the stone wall of an African cottage.

    “Through the painting, I want to show two different worlds — in Africa and Shenzhen — one is quiet and old, and the other busy and modern,” Lerotholi said.

    The most creative thing with Shamulenge’s paintings is probably his use of Chinese lanterns as people’s heads in works created in Shenzhen.

    “In my old works, I usually used African drums as people’s heads, but here I decided to use Chinese lanterns as people’s heads,” he said.

    In a painting titled “Chinese Restaurant,” Shamulenge depicts four Chinese people, with lanterns as heads, sitting around a table and enjoying a meal while a cook is busy making food in the kitchen and people are walking in the street.

    Born in 1979, Shamulenge has worked as a freelance artist since he graduated from the Evelyn Hone College in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, in 2002.

    Taddese concentrates on the daily lives of ordinary people in Shenzhen. A painting of a seated woman — who Taddese met on a bus — has a touch of melancholiness and there is a canvas depicting the colors of autumn.

    Born in 1976, Taddese worked as a freelance artist after graduating from the school of fine arts and design at Addis Ababa University in 1995.

    With poetic paintings created with Chinese ink and rice paper, Oliveira is probably the most unconventional of the five African artists.

    Although unable to express himself clearly with his limited English vocabulary, Oliveira freely expresses his thoughts and emotions through the newly discovered media of Chinese ink and rice paper.

    Oliveira likes doing things quickly. He spent only one week finishing his works for the exhibition.

    In the painting titled “Look!! A Poem About Shenzhen,” Oliveira said he had poetically depicted a black bird flying over the Shenzhen Civic Center.

    Born in 1973, Oilveira has been teaching in a high school in Cape Verde since he graduated from the Federal University of Para in Blem, Brazil in 2002.

Exhibition

Time: 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Oct. 10-Nov. 7

Venue: Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, 36 Jinhu Street 1, Yinhu Road, Luohu District (罗湖区银湖路金湖一街36号深圳画院)

Buses: 4, 5, 7, 201, 218, 222, 301, 315, 360