Missing Painting At The Henry Tayali Gallery

We are sad to report that a painting has gone missing from the Henry Tayali gallery. If anyone has information on its whereabouts please contact us: lusakaartscene@googlemail.com

News Updates

Lusaka Art Scene Blog Well Recieved: Flyers for the new Lusaka Art Scene blog were given out at the recent exhibition for Black History Month at Lusaka National Arts Museum. As a result we have had great positive feedback.


Workshop for Busines Training for Artists: This week the Henry Tayali Gallery is hosting a workshop on entrepreneurship for artists, in the hope this will help them support themselves through what they create. More on this on the blog later this week.

Photography Exhibition Opens This Week: Zambian based photographer Fabrice Palacio will be showing his work from Tunisia at the Alliance Francaise in Lusaka, the exhibition opens on Friday 12th February at 6pm and will run for one week. Fabrice Palacio Site.

Art Bakery, Cameroon: Later this month, Zenzele Chulu will be travelling to take part in a workshop called 'Art Bakery'. This project was set up by Goddy Leye, the well known artist from Cameroon, in 2003. Goddy Leye Site .

New Exhibition for Danny Lwando: Lusaka based painter and photographer Danny Lwando has been given space at Alliance Francaise here in Lusaka to exhibit his paintings in March.

New Art Guide in Progress: Elizabeth Watkin and Zenzele Chulu are working together to produce a map of all artistic places of interest in Lusaka that will be published on this site. From this there is also a plan to expand it into a guide booklet for visitors to Lusaka and Zambia.

Upcoming Filler Exhibitons at Henry Tayali Gallery

Here is a brief run down of the themes for exhibition fillers until June 2010. Filler exhibitions are showcases of work from the Henry Tayal archive of works. They are not new pieces but are exhibited when there is a hiatus between more high profile exhibitions and still very much worth visiting. There are no firm dates as yet.
January - Market Scenes

February - Romance

March - Sanitations and Environment

April - Harvest Time

May - Harvest Time

June - Traditional Ceremonies and Rituals

Insaka Artists Exhibition Part 2

Review: Insaka Artists Residency Exhibition - Part 1

The exhibition at the Henry Tayali gallery on Friday evening was an amalgamation of work from the Insaka residency programme and portraits done by local artists.
The portraits represented a breadth of subjects and acted as a kind of visual journey, demonstrating work from artists at various stages in their development both technically and conceptually. The Insaka residency programme had played host to three women artists – Mercy Moyo from Zimbabwe, Misozi Moyo from Zambia and Sable Weldemanuel from Ethiopia. Their residency lasted 5 weeks.
Misozi Moyo

Misozi Moyo's pieces revealed an interest in local culture – paintings of clay pots for example - but her talent became apparent when looking at her abstract pieces. Her ability to emulate the random texturing of pain of Pollack and marrying this with an innate understanding of colour and pattern was fascinating. Her abstract work on first glance seems chaotic but on closer inspection one could see a method or narrative in the paintings. With the careful juxtaposition of random form with repetition, she successfully marries order with chaos.

Mercy Moyo

It was easy to identify Mercy Moyo's paintings her visual voice is loud and proud in each of her detailed and fluid paintings. Whether working on huge sheets of transparent plastic or more conventional canvases, her style shines through with vibrancy and generosity. Her subjects are often people but she also excels in depicting urban landscapes. The proportions of her people are often reminiscent of Paula Rego and her stylistic sensibility is impressionistic, however her intuitive use of earth –tones places these works firmly in Africa.

Sable Weldamanuel
Sable Weldamanuel's use of local materials and ephemera we used boldly on large canvases. Labels and logos from Zambia seemed to speak of the artist as an outsider, discovering, in the superficial and throwaway an identity of a country. Her work showed an ambitiousness and her fearlessness in attempting new paths of creativity.

The Henry Tayali Gallery

Within the surreal village of the Showgrounds sits the Henry Tayali gallery. Lusaka is not a city visited by tourists, most travellers are either passing through to visit the more famous and breathtaking Victoria Falls, or South Luangwa national park. Those travellers that stay on Lusaka are usually here on business, or to attend a workshop. Therefore, to find such a place as the Henry Tayali gallery is a pleasant surprise and well worth searching out.

The gallery was formed in 1989 in what used to be an old tobacco shed. Funding for the gallery was originally through NORAD - Norwegian agency for development. Since then, funding has come from various embassies and international organisations.

The gallery was named after one of Zambia's most important artists - Henry Tayali who died in 1987. The gallery was officially opened in 1995 and has since hosted artists from all over the world as well as across Zambia.

Aside from regular exhibitions, the gallery is the backdrop to many an artists' workshop and supports both established and new artists that use a myriad of mediums.

Thoughts from the Gallery - Scratching the Surface

When I come to Henry Tayali, I am often asked a version of the same question - 'What do you paint?' The automatic assumption is that I must be an artist to be hanging around, let's disregard my intermittent sketching and fiction writing (which I have been assured by my very generous friends here makes me an artist) and say that I am interested in art. It is a reasonable question to ask, I have only come across one person who does not class herself as an artist, and she has assured me she is going to start painting.



The individuals that work here and also with the partner groups Insaka Artists and AAW are not special because they work without any pay and don't necessarily sell much (though this is impressive), but because they are without artifice or prentention and have so much acceptance for anyone who comes and expresses an interest and what they do. I spend so much time here, surrounded by art - sculpture and paintings are to be found in the offices, in storage spaces as well as in the gallery itself - because by scratching the surface, I have found a new aspect to Zambia that wasn't sure existed.

Face 2 Face: Next Exhibition at Henry Tayali Gallery

Friday 18th December, 18:00hrs - Sunday 20th December

This mini, tandem exhibition will showcase work from the Insaka Artists' Residency Workshop and a portrait exhibitiont.

The Insaka Artists' group works with artists all over the world with support from Gasworks gallery in London.