Sole Provider
By Joe Mutasa
Category: Sculpture
About
Sole Provider portrays a widow with her children and symbolizes the suffering caused by civil strife that has reduced a formerly rich country to starvation and chaos. This work is made of a single piece of spring stone. The rust-colored areas are a result of the oxidation of minerals in the stone, while the black areas have been carved, filed, smoothed, and polished.
From Missouri Botanical Garden website.
Dimensions: 12′ x 3′ x 3′
Year Completed: 2001
Material: Springstone
Owner: Missouri Botanical Garden
About the artist:
Joe Mutasa
b. 1964
Born in Rusape, Zimbabe, into a family of sculptors, Mutasa initially carved representational heads and figures for the tourist trade. At Chapungu Sculpture Park, he was encouraged to create art rather than to mass produce repeated themes. In 1997, three of his large works were included in the Kirstenbosch Chapungu show in Cape Town, South Africa to much acclaim. He prefers the hardest stones–springstone, granite, lepidolite, and dolomite–and is inspired by family, daily life and the environment.
