Raymond Fuyana (b. 1995) is a Zimbabwean painter whose approach to imagery,composition and subject matter is influenced by Surrealism. As a deaf person living insouthern Africa, Fuyana’s experience of the world is charged by how meaning is conveyedthrough the visual. He harnesses a rich use of visual symbolism.
Employing his own personal colour coding and drawing on his dream life, Fuyana’s paintingsconverge around fantasy, technology and the environment. His most recent work is markedby a fundamental curiosity about the world’s iconic sites and their histories: in a singlesitting, the artist takes us from the ruins of Great Zimbabwe to the diamond mines ofKimberley, from the Statue of Liberty to the canals of Venice. In Fuyana’s abundantimaginary world, there are no limitations to time, space or other dimensions. “I can go anyplace,” he says, “ No need to follow a path or a road ”.
His deafness is part of this extraordinary mental freedom, as is his belief in the power ofscience, technology and gaming. “ My deafness works to my advantage at times; I cannotbe easily distracted when playing [video] game[s] because I will not hear any soundsaround me. I will be bold and say that if I play with a hearing person, I have a high chance of winning,” says Fuyana, who is also a passionate chess player. “ We already have electriccars; in the future we might have flying cars to beat traffic. It is not an idea that is too far-fetched…I believe in the future scientists will design something similar ,” says Fuyana.
Often a protagonist in his paintings, Fuyana reflects on the interaction of visual symbolism,technology, place, fantasy and dreams to express a full sense of self in a world where theability to access sound is taken for granted. In recent works, Fuyana links interior home-likespaces with iconic landmarks around the world, such as the Statue of Liberty, the EiffelTower and Table Mountain. The duality between interior and exterior worlds which recurs inhis paintings can be seen as a metaphor for his own continuous negotiations of isolation,independence and interhuman connections. Raymond Fuyana relocated from Zimbabwe to South Africa in 2009 to attend the StVincent’s School for the Deaf, where he learned Sign Language. Fuyana’s work has been shown at Art Joburg (2022), as part of African Galleries Now (2022)on Artsy, and was selected for a special Artsy campaign at public transport metro stationsacross America’s largest cities.
