“Blasphemous!” My husband teases me on the stained glass style I have chosen for this piece on Mbuya Nehanda. We both share the understanding that comes from a religious upbringing. I grew up in a Catholic family, although in the intervening years, we have all moved on from Catholicism, though not from God or faith. And so it is not lost on me that my choice of interpretation for this painting could easily be misconstrued or misunderstood. The title, ‘Deified’ notwithstanding!

I cannot say that I deliberately fell upon the idea of stained glass. Quite the contrary; I struggled with coming up with any kind of idea at all, that would not be derivative or on-the-nose obvious. What are my feelings and thoughts on Mbuya Nehanda? Before now I can honestly say, it was not an active thought I had, hers is a story not fully engaged with in my own mind. I began to read, to stir up facts long archived into the history books I studied in high school. I considered the statue that has gone up and my own inner conflict on the purpose and significance of said statue; the whys and the wherefores and the where-froms. Why now? Is the thought that has most plagued my mind. Why at all?

I pondered the raising up of the statue; the scandal that arose from an initially “overly voluptuous” representation the artist first created, before “artistic notes” were lent to them to assist their creative process, until we were landed with this final iteration — the ghost of a photograph made bronze flesh in Zimbabwe 2021. A woman, still in chains, stood in the centre of our capital city, lifted up, yet towered over by our buildings, and the dust and exhaust fumes of our streets. Forcibly transported from the dust of her grave. As I began my study, on the very edge of an idea, I found myself wondering, what would she think of our now, of the people daily passing beneath her bronze gaze? How would she feel? This also influenced the title of my painting. I wanted to consider not just Mbuya Nehanda, the legend, the story, but the person. Thus my piece is titled Deified Charwe Nyakasikana, not Deified Nehanda.

Because before our heroes were made legend, before our saints were canonized into saints — they were mortal just like us, with wants, with needs, with dreams. Charwe Nyakasikana could be any one of us, she had children, she had passion, she bled, she wept — yes she died — but she also lived! Before we made her bronze; before we painted her, she breathed as we do.

So I have chosen with my piece, to free her from her chains; to lend vibrant colour to her voluminous garb, worthy of any stained glass madonna, touched with gold, on trim and neck — and kissed always on every side, by an everlasting sun and heaven’s light glazing her cheeks. I wanted there to be an image apart from the bleak, colourless photographs that remain of her. Away from the cold bronze that sits on cement in the city centre. Stained Glass was made to dance with the light.