The artist...

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 11^th 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.