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DRIVING along Livingstone’s Airport Road, there is a clearly identifiable poster of Wayi Wayi Art Studio and Gallery.
It is owned by Lawrence and Agness Yombwe. The couple is acclaimed artists. In fact, a visit to their premises gives out an artistic ambience that tells, but many stories.
It is there that Yande Yombwe is found. Perhaps you might be wondering who this Yande is?
Yande Yombwe is the 24 year old female mixed media artist whose picture of her painting and decorating a ceiling board went viral on social media recently.
The Sunday Mail caught up with the budding female artist who shared her story.
She was born in November, 1994 in Livingstone, to the Yombwe’s as a first born.
She completed her school at Livingstone’s St Mary’s Secondary School in 2011.
Growing up and being a child of accomplished and well decorated artists, her fate was probably determined already.
“I have always wanted to become an artist just like my parents,” she says. “In fact, if I hadn’t been one, maybe I would have become a Journalist.”
Mr and Mrs Yombwe’s other child, Kondwani, 21 decided to take a slightly different form of art – automobile photography.
Sharing her childhood, Yande started her grade one at Phakalane Primary school in Botswana where her parents were working as teachers of art, before they relocated back to Zambia in 2007.
“I wrote my Grade Seven exams at Livingstone Basic School and was at St Mary’s Girls Secondary School from Grade Eight up to the time I completed in 2011,” she says.
Yande was among the first people to write Art as a subject exam at St Mary’s Girls Secondary School at a time when the school had not even introduced it as a subject.
“I passed and got a distinction at Grade 12,” she says. “I used to practice it at home with the help of my parents.”
Because of her love for art, she later enrolled at Evelyn Hone College in 2013 where she pursued an Art Teachers Diploma course, and graduated in 2016.
“Growing up, everything around me was art,” she says. “I decided to do the course because I have always loved art.”
She adds: “If you asked me in grade one that what do you want to become, I would tell you that fashion designer. I even have my drawings from my young age.”
Before she graduated from Evelyn Hone College, Yande found a job as a teacher of Art at Tongabezi Trust School – something that her father didn’t really like.
“I knew she had so much potential and that she could have achieved much more as an independent artist. But I didn’t want to stand in her way, I just supported her,” says her father, asked why he didn’t fancy the idea of his daughter teaching.
But make no mistake; Mr Yombwe did not force any of his children into taking up art. In fact, the only thing he was sure of is that he wanted a wife that was into art too. “This wasn’t my wish. What I only wanted for myself was to find a woman who is also into art and I was lucky that I found Agness,” he says.
“As for my children, I cannot blame them because maybe they were influenced by the surroundings, which is basically a bonus to me. But I didn’t force anyone into it.”
Coming back to Yande, she continued working at Tongabezi Trust School, teaching children even after she graduated.
She was there for two years, before quitting in April 2018, to pursue art as a career.
“My parents, dad in particular was happy when he heard that I was stopping. He has so much faith in me that I will become good at what I do,” she says.
She adds: “I stopped because all this time, it was trial and error and it was a bit difficult to juggle the two.But now, I spend more time in the studio and I make much more than I used to get there.”
So far, Yande who is currently living and working at Wayi Wayi Art Studio and Gallery with her parents helping run the family business has taken part in five exhibitions.
In 2017, she took part in a one week Financial Sector Deepening Zambia workshop on Creating Women’s Financial Inclusion which took place at Wayi Wayi Art Studio and Gallery in Livingstone.
In February last year, she took part in a one week creative entrepreneurship workshop which took place at Modzi Arts supported by the British Council in conjunction with Modzi Arts.
In May last year, she again took part in a capacity building workshop for artists, held by Ministry of Tourism and Arts in partnership with Zambia breweries at Livingstone Lodge.
She has to this date, participated in five exhibitions with the first one being a children’s art exhibition which was held in Livingstone in 2009.
She took part in a women’s exhibition in Choma, in 2014, and in 2017, she was among the exhibitors at another art exhibition organised by FSD themed ‘Know, Plan and Live’, which was held in Lusaka.
In the same year she participated in another women’s art exhibition called Kuboneshango which was also held in Lusaka.
In December 2017, she exhibited at the Deli in a Christmas small artworks exhibition in Lusaka. Yande was the youngest exhibiting female artist in all three women’s exhibitions that she has participated in.
“The highest I’ve sold a piece for is for K3, 500 and I feel I undervalued it,” she says, remembering her artwork made from a collage of chitenge pieces titled break the silence.
The piece depicted a woman who multi-tasks and bears children, and considers a mother of a home and a wife. It was collected by the National Arts Council (NAC) at a recent family exhibition that was held in the Lusaka showgrounds.
Yande says she loves being a mixed media artists because she gets bored doing the same things over and over.
“I like to change,” says the dreadlocked Yande.
Currently, she is working on a series of sculptures which she has termed Utwanakashi, made from re-usable things such as bottles.
She is also looking at how to collaborate other forms of art into her work.
“I would also love to work with scrap and exploring ways of involving music and video in my artworks.”
She adds: “It hasn’t been easy but it looks very promising and I know I can be a very successful artist if I work hard which my parents have proven. I have seen it with my parents who have been exemplary in the industry.”
Apart from her parents who have been consistent in the industry, she draws her inspiration from female artists, Mwamba Chikwemba, Mukwase Tembo, Eva Middleten, and males Doubt Makala and Owen Shikubeta.
Being a child of accomplished artists, Yande tries not to carry the burden of expectation with her even though it has not been an easy thing to do.
“The pressure is there, I cannot avoid it. But all I do is not let it get to my head as much,” she says.
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| Yande working on her Utwanakashi sculpture series at the workshop |
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