Mercy Moyo

Zimbabwean-born visual artist and collagist Mercy Moyo shares, “Art and creativity have always been part of my life. As a child, I would observe my grandmother weaving baskets that were the main source of livelihood for the family. Fascinated by the techniques involved in patterns, designs and her skill of making each basket unique despite similar materials and colors. Through my observation, I realized that the more she made, the more creativity emerged from the process.”

From this experience, Mercy began to draw at a very young age. Her drawings describe the world around her and tell the story of life in contemporary Africa, specifically through women figures. This narrative is prominent in her artistic practice, where her images are primarily collages, incorporating objects that complement and reinforce the depicted images. She uses various mediums, including oil, acrylics, charcoal, pencil, and recently, smoke from candles. These diverse mediums help create vibrant images of contemporary women in Zimbabwe today, expressing their lived realities, aspirations, and dreams.

Ultimately, Mercy uses art as a fundamental element in depicting the beauty of African women, whether they come from rural or urban contexts. She emphasizes that she does not consider herself a feminist but wants to portray the real African woman—comfortable in her self-identity, wearing long skirts, with a fuller figure, and head nicely covered.

Mercy has participated in group and solo exhibitions in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the United States of America. These experiences have significantly influenced her work through encounters with the lived realities of different societies. For example, the young men working in the mines of South Africa, who live underground and surface only to socialize and sleep at night, inspired her experimentation with male figures. She captures the lives of these miners using charcoals and working in hues of black and brown, reflecting the loneliness and individualism associated with their daily lives, unlike most of her works, which depict people in community dialogues and deep conversations.