Born
and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe, Matindike-Gondo is the second child in a family
of three children. She is married and has a daughter. Tashinga is an artist and
works as the Curator for Education at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. She is
also a Board member of the Zimbabwe Youth Council.
For
her primary and secondary education, she attended the Dominican Convent in
Harare. In 1999, Matindike-Gondo traveled to the United States of America,
where she lived for a year in Wisconsin as a Rotary Exchange Student.
Matindike-Gondo then returned to Zimbabwe in order to complete her Cambridge A
level studies in Art, English Literature and Management of Business.
In
2002, the artist enrolled at the Michaelis School of Fine Art – University of
Cape Town in South Africa, in order to pursue her tertiary studies in Fine Art.
Matindike-Gondo graduated on the Dean’s Merit List with a Bachelor of Fine Arts
Degree [2007], as well as attained a Master of Fine Art, with distinction in
December 2009.
Matindike-Gondo
describes herself as a contemporary African artist, whose conceptual work
addresses issues concerning her personal experiences. The visual articulation of the artist’s
encounters is influenced by her individual,
cultural and religious characteristics.
For
her Masters body of work, the artist focused on the theme of memorialisation,
expressed as a creative process and she produced a body of work, which
manifested as the residue of her reflections on grief and memory that she chose
to exhibit in a commemorative manner.
This exhibition, entitled 14 Ways to Remember - Nzira gumi nena dzekuyeuka, was an end product of an investigation involving the
exploration and preservation of the memories of her brother.
This
year, Matindike- Gondo will anchor her first solo exhibition at the National
Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare. This show is entitled, ‘Beneath the surface: Bambanani,’ which opens on the 11th
of October 2012.
The
artist has chosen to create and exhibit a body of work, which by means of
creativity encapsulates her commencement of motherhood, juxtaposed with the
experiences of those individuals with whom she shares a maternal connection.
The artist explores issues related to the role of the woman in the traditional
society of the Ndebele people – the
group of people from whom her mother originates.
In
her production, Matindike-Gondo makes use of found objects and digital media
with the intention of generating an archival memorial. Her iconography
encompasses manipulated wording and encourages the viewer to engage with the
subject matter on a personal and/or social level. The body of work has been generated on the
basis of a concept related to the artist’s personal experience, which remains
open to interpretation.
Matindike-Gondo
has exhibited works at the Michaelis Graduate Show (2007), in the exhibition
Local Rhetorics (2008) and at the Michaelis Graduate Show (2009). All three
exhibitions were show cased in Cape Town, South Africa. Matindike-Gondo re-exhibited her Masters body of work at HIFA 2010 in Harare.
Matindike-Gondo
has ‘found her way home’ and presents to the public, a promising contemporary exhibition.
