GN: How could you survive with one pair of jeans for a whole month, when did you wash them?

(laughter)

MM: I don’t think I washed them the whole time I was here. I also had a pair of shorts, but I only used them when I was in the house, and when going outside I strictly wore those jeans. It really became like a uniform.

GN: Did you also paint wearing them?

MM: No, I had a work suit in the studio. I wore them between the apartment and the studio. I wanted to have a familiar image, something that people would recognize, my presence became like a pattern that was repeated. It became a routine. I walked everyday. Of greater interest is I spoke to a lot of Zimbabweans on the way, but they actually thought I wasn’t Zimbabwean. I just became very local. That is one thing that interested me, you know, to enter a space with a sense of being vulnerable but somehow when you find your own rhythm to become local most of the other things start to have a different rhythm. So that was one thing that I enjoyed about working in Johannesburg.

Here I also got to work on older works that I recalled from the gallery and bought to the studio. One painting was quite interesting; I had painted it in 2012/13. When I placed it next to another painting it immediately became clear what was missing. It happened quite naturally. I did not dismiss what was already there because there was a foundation, another painting underneath. So, I just carried on with a renewed energy, but it was much more resolved in my mind. The scale and height of the studio space here in Johannesburg, also helped in terms of how I viewed the older paintings. I had a better view here; I could go up to the mezzanine to take some distance from the work. It was a chance to look at my work as an audience whilst creating it, this was very useful for me.

GN: How about Berlin, how did that work out for you? I caught a glimpse of you during the opening of the 10th Berlin Biennale but then you disappeared, into the shadows, your favorite place. (laughs)

MM: I was happy being in the shadows actually, because I was like an invisible company, people are aware that you are there, but you can also disappear… Berlin for me was really like going back to Europe ten years after my studies in Munich, just to gauge whether I still had some kind of connection or footing there. I enjoyed it a lot, also the studio space was bigger, and I guess I was also in the vibe that you and your Berlin Biennale team had created there. Meeting everyone there just gave me a lot of energy; it felt like I am within the current. Now I dream of taking a trip to Japan and having a private moment there.

GN: Can you explain why you feel the need to organize the VillageUnhu in the way you do. Since I’ve started visiting Harare I’ve seen how you’ve relocated three times, always looking for a bigger place that can accommodate not only you and your family but some artists too. Why is that so important to you?

MM: One part is that I believe in the artists, and it reminds me that I too needed a small nudge at the beginning of my career, a space to define my own freedom. Some of them take a bit long to find that freedom. So, it can feel kind of abusive at some points (laughter). It is not my intention to keep the space open to the extant that it is at the moment. I’m actually looking forward to having a different function to it. I do have moments where I feel I should just shut it all down but I’m also just beginning to be in a space that offers possibilities of doing something and not just being passive within that landscape. It’s good to know that the space can be occupied and used productively.

GN: And can you see it changing the environment in the city, in Harare, in the country, at least as a practice that other prominent artists embrace?

MM: Well, it certainly opens up more doors of possibilities. Imagine having a space where there is a wall, where you feel like you’re just waiting to find the right painting or object to put on that wall. Imagine that this wall is demanding of a certain particular thing. You don’t know what it is but everyday it creates that kind of dialogue. In a way it kind of evokes the spirit of a search; searching for something through others but also feeling like there are things pointing at me suggesting that maybe it is me who is actually not seeing what should be done.

So, I’m no longer looking at this as an opportunity for them, I’m also seeing it as a challenge and question to myself. But unfortunately, the space itself cannot function as a studio for me. The bottom line is, I haven’t seen a particular wall that is inspiring for me to actually work there. My studio is really just a watchtower. It’s as if I’m in a war zone (which is partly true) I have a good view to everything, so, half the time I’m just cleaning the guns rather than shooting at anything.

GN: Can you elaborate, what do you mean by that?

MM: Well, because, the works that I prepare there are always just a surface. They need so much more; they need a space for a conversation. Recently I started inviting other artists to group painting sessions. We actually take easels outside and we use a small green patch on the edge of the yard as an open studio. Now I feel like there’s a conversation happening, I feel I’ve been relying so much on not looking, relying too much on imagining. Now when I’m actually out there looking at things I make myself vulnerable to a new audience all together. I’m happy that this is happening as I’m seeing some good things happening with this group. I’m noticing how others are coming up with new solutions, how we are gaining new life, all of us. Essentially, we are going back to basics, some of it is just observational drawing such as looking at a tree. Half the time I’m not actually seeing a tree, so there is also that. Maybe after 30 minutes of looking I may try to make references to it, to allow for that destructive nature that comes with actually making a painting, where you pour something and wait for a perfect accident.

GN: Yes, which is very apparent in your work because as much as we can’t really say that your work is not figurative it is at the same time not purely abstract…

MM: I think it borrows from both sides; it is really about working from a hard edge to a soft edge. Somehow, it’s also about pouring emotions to it. It can be quite traumatic on one part, and very emotional, but at the same time there is serious control.

GN: I would also like to talk about your cars somehow. I had a dream… (the dream described at the beginning of the interview is told to Misheck.). You have a special relationship to speed, which I suppose makes sense for someone who is primarily a painter, or discourses with the world through the painting medium the way that you do.

MM: I think my interest in speed is somehow a real reality of time. We have been driving from Harare to Mutare quite often recently and I now drive that distance in record time and I found a specific car for that.

GN: A new acquisition?

MM: Yes, that is much faster. It’s quite effective in a sense that I forget that I am actually driving; I guess that’s really the idea. I don’t have to be on the road and participate, the road is just a tool. What I am trying to do is what matters, not to pay attention to what is there. I know it seems like a very reckless approach, but I believe that people who spend more time on the road have a higher chance of having an accident, those who spend less time on the road have slimmer chances… I’m not trying to justify speed but…

GN: But speed is something that feeds you somehow.

MM: Yes, it’s a form of release. To max a car is the most beautiful thing, to push a machine to its limits is actually amazing. So yes, there’s a relationship to how and why I paint to a certain extant. When I’m in the car driving, it’s both like a prayer and also an atheist position.

GN: How so?

MM: What I mean is, it’s like a prayer because I hope to know what is on the next bend, I need to have that kind of faith, that things are going to be all right for everyone who might be in the car with me. At this point, my faith is on a higher level than my vision. There has been near accident experiences when my heart would jump. In those moments the important thing is not to show it but to find a way of explaining it without fear, which is a similar thing when I paint. A good painting needs to hide its flaw very well, that’s how I look at it, when I hide those mistakes by making them seem as if they were something that was always meant to be. I have never been in a situation on the road where I have to put the breaks on, in most cases I actually attack, I see the opponent and my safety major is not necessarily to be safe but to see how near I could just survive. But you see, with painting it’s almost similar, I need to be able to go to that urge, where the painting needs to start to speak as a painting, where my idea is less important, somehow my idea becomes a companion, but I allow the painting to be.

GN: How long does it take you to… let me rephrase, what is the shortest time you have taken to make a painting? Is duration important to you? How do you know when you need to stop?

MM: I think the shortest time I’ve worked on a painting is, – if I’ve had a complete overload, which means I have been thinking about it and I’m paying less attention,– it can happen within hours actually. The hardest part is when a decision of what was meant to be is not technically right, then it can take much longer, but putting it down is the most violent quick thing that can happen. Sometimes I can have a painting that has taken me years and then at a certain moment I just need those few strokes to lift it up and reach a complete transformation.

GN: What would you have said if someone had offered to buy the car, as an artwork?

MM: It had no price, so…

GN: everything has a price.

MM: Well, even if someone had proposed to buy it, I guess for me the hardest part was how that would be explained to my children. Their names are inscribed on the car, so, I guess that’s why I do not see it as a commodity. I actually re-created the car as a conversation, as a lesson to my kids. I feel that, perhaps because of my way of driving, or as a painter, you know, I’m always questioning death. I’m really a daredevil; I can be senseless. But somehow with color I see more, I see people closer, I even try to mirror my own life to see how vulnerable life is. Each day I begin to feel like I’m building a legacy, one painting at a time. Inscribing my children’s names on the car is a proposed way of communication to them, to give them a certain kind of understanding of what it means to take something that was discarded and recreate it anew. In Harare many people feel like they want to be part of the car’s story. Others see it as a thrill-ride, whilst others look at it with complete astonishment – that these things we see everyday as carcasses, can all of a sudden possess beauty, that a new story is possible. Our beetle was not a pure restoration but was actually re-sculpted, most of the things were given new purpose and an aesthetic. That’s also why I felt like my children can learn that with great care you can always remodel yourself. The biggest enjoyment of actually being in that car are the conversations that I get through the open window, just the hope I give to a lot of people is gratifying. The true value of it, based on how much I’ve invested in it shocks them.

GN: When I saw the picture of the beetle inside the gallery, the fact that it had of course become a sculpture, made me recall the sculptures you made more than ten years ago, which, like the car were also often black in colour. One of them is a stretcher, am I correct? It has handles on each side and is made out of woven canvases that were then painted in black. There’s a soft one and then there’s the hard one. The hard one is titled Mishack we miss you, from dead mother and twin sister and the soft one titled Correct Mistake. You are not known for your sculptures but every now and then they appear, less frequent than the drawings. How do you situate them in your practice?

MM: Actually Correct Mistake is more of a coffin than it is a stretcher. The one titled Mishack we miss you… was actually a letter from the dead. I wrote a letter to myself, from the dead. The letter is within the artwork, hidden within the bandages. I don’t remember the content of it but I’m sure I wrote something there…

GN: Do you dream a lot? It seems to me that dreams are an important part of your visioning.

MM: I forget most of my dreams. But I had a beautiful dream recently. I found myself at an exhibition opening but it was the devil’s exhibition. He showed me three of his paintings, the first painting that was in the exhibition was about angels and what was fascinating was, no wait. I think the first was a self-portrait, but because I don’t remember his image very clearly, I can’t say much about the painting. The second one was about angels, and the angels were very interesting – when I looked closely at the painting I noticed that it had a kind of glitter that made the angels seem like they were moving. You know when you look up in the sky and see shooting stars? It was like that. I asked him if the movement of the glitter was timed and he said, “let me show you how I did the trick.” He took me close to the painting with a magnifying glass in his hand and asked me to take time with each and every piece of glitter, embrace the light and bring it in – once my eye hit on that glitter I noticed that it was actually my eye that was moving. None of what is there is actually changing. I was fascinated by this technique.
After this he took me to see the third painting, which was about the ghost. It looked like just a black canvas, but it had these beautiful greys and a beautiful graphic. But I told him I couldn’t see anything. He told me not to worry it will come to me and indeed the painting started coming towards me and covering the bed I was sleeping on. The hardest thing was that whilst parts of the canvas were coming towards me they were becoming very heavy. I started to feel uncomfortable and cried out telling him that this was too heavy. I was getting buried under these things. So, whist I was fighting this I woke up. But it was very interesting and frightening at the same time. It’s hard to forget a dream like that.