Poetic Brush

As part of the Intwasa festival, Tswa and some others organised a really interesting collaborative event called Poetic Brush, held at the Bulawayo Theatre. It was a creative combination of fine art and music/poetry which saw a selection of artists from the National Gallery of Zimbabwe (Bulawayo) collaborating with musicicans/poets in front of a live audience. Each pairing of a fine artist with either a soloist or group took place and lasted for the duration of a song, during which the artist would create a work in their chosen discipline.

The blend of music and image was exciting, as was the process of watching a piece of art emerging live in front of you. Each artist's style was distinct and it was particularly interesting to see this playing out. From the techniques used to apply paint, to the influence of the music on the pieces. The most exciting moments were when there were alignments and parallels between the two, and the collaboration expressed something of the influence each had on the other. Also contributing to the excitement was the time-pressure each duo was under given the relatively short period of time for creating a piece of artwork. At times is became a battle against time to complete the piece and there were several humorous moments such as Soul Familiar's improvised ending to his song to encourage the artist to wrap up painting!