Ngoni Mashaya was born in 1973 in Nyanga, a beautiful mountainous region near the Mozambique border. He completed both his primary and secondary education at Avila Missionary School where he excelled at art and craft from the outset.

The Mashaya family is one of the most respected sculpting clans in Zimbabwe and Ngoni feels that sculpting is in his blood. His brothers, Precious and Tinei, were his first mentors and he learned not only technical skills from them but also what he calls his “eye”. Ngoni started carving small sculptures at the age of 14.

In 1990 Ngoni was invited to join the sculpting studio his brothers had established in Harare. Since then he has he has never looked back. The human family is his greatest source of inspiration and he says he is deeply influenced by Shona traditions and his ancestors. “I try to tell the story of my people in stone,” he explains.

His distinctive sculptors, often carved in the hardest stones, are at times totally abstract and at other semi-representational.

Since joining the Mashaya studio Ngoni has gained exposure to a wider audience and his work has sold to collectors and galleries in the UK, the USA, Germany, Holland, Australia, South Africa and Canada. He has been represented in Canada since 2004.