Prudence Chimutuwah is an emerging contemporary visual artist who is fascinated with collage. Her work mainly depicts women and the world they dominate or subordinate to. She is inspired by her gender and how it adapts to the ever-changing socio-economic environment. She has a soft spot for female young adults, especially those who have been through college, and how they are coping with despair and desperate situations. She hopes for her work to narrate, describe and inform the audience on the evolving world of women in patriarchal societies.
Prudence grew up in Chitungwiza and did her primary education there. She was surrounded by sculptors who worked from Chitungwiza Arts Center and near surroundings. Batik and primitive paintings were also a part of the art she initially took in from Chitungwiza art markets. She studied at the National Gallery Visual Arts School from 2009 – 2011 and majored in painting and sculpture. She got introduced to practicing art from high school and was inspired by Seminar Mpofu and Colleen Madamombe, both prominent female sculptors. Her achievements include participating in major group shows at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Wild Geese Art Fair, and other local galleries.
The stone sculpture seems to be a male-dominated field and this perception became an obstacle to her for a season as she wanted to focus on sculpture. From 2015 Prudence found an area that fascinated her – collage. From then on she has been collecting material for recycling to produce her work. Prudence’s work is subtly influenced by contemporary African fashion, text, and symbols. Her work fuses text from old novels, magazines, newspapers, old banknotes, painting, and print-making.
