Biography

Peter Rujuwa is a stone and wood Shona Art sculptor who at age 6, with friends sculpted crosses and hearts and put strings around them to make necklaces. They also sculpted animals and toy kitchen utensils using river clay and soapstone from the mountains surrounding his village in Zimbabwe, Africa.

With scrap wire stripped from garden fences, they made their own toys, cars, trucks, and buses. This was their pastime whilst herding goats, sheep and cattle. Stripping garden fences always got them in trouble from parents and neighbors.

At age 7 Peter's village recreation co-ordinator took his toy wire bus to the village craft show where he scooped the first prize(green vest) for entries in his age group. Peter's sculptures are non-ceremonial or ritual functional but a symbolic and imagery expression of the visual interpretation of his surroundings.Inspiration is also brought about by the original ,natural appearance of the medium.

TOOLS
Peter's work is handcrafted using carving files, chisels, iron spikes, mallet,dry and wet sand paper, water, heat, bees wax to bring out the wood and stone's natural color, beauty and grains.


 

Stop by and see these beautiful sculptures in person. The photos can't start to do justice to these amazing sculptures!

MEDIUMS USED FOR SCULPTING

Serpentine stone is most suitable as sculpture and curving medium. Serpentine stone was formed 2 billion years ago and comes in more than one hundred and fifty varieties. Verdite stone is another semi-precious, scarce and very beautiful sculpture medium.It contains corrandum ( very hard and green/brown in color).The most common and easiest to curve medium is steatite/soapstone, a natural mineral found all over the continent and is over 10 million years old. This stone is priced for its qualities of workability, durability, and colorfulness and as an electrical insulator. All these stones are sculpture and curving mediums for products shown in this catalogue. The wood used for sculptures in this catalogue includes ebony, mahogany, jacaranda, mukwa and olive wood.



Visit Peter Rujuwa's Website:

 THE ART OF Peter Rujuwa
Couture's Gallery in Sebring, Florida