Nhamo Chamutsa was born in 1979 in Harare, Zimbabwe. He began to sculpt after leaving school in 1997, joining his uncle Arthur Fata, an internationally respected artist who was a resident artist at the Chapungu Sculpture Park at that time. Nhamo credits his uncle with giving him the confidence and inspiring him to learn the art of stone carving. Nhamo has followed in his footsteps and is himself now a resident artist at Chapungu Sculpture Park.

“It made me very excited to see the work of Arthur Fata, to realise that I could work with another sculptor, be inspired by him but not copy him or be overly influenced by his work. My work must mark the stages of my life, my maturing, my growth. But it also must record the stages in the lives of others around me and pass a message on to future generations. I get truly inspired by bringing a good subject out of the stone, something which people can recognise and which means something to them. Sometimes what I sculpt comes from within, sometimes from what I see around me. Sometimes I move around the country seeing how people live, how they move and how they behave and I put these things into my sculpture.”

In 2001 Nhamo was officially invited to join the Chapungu Sculpture Gallery which led to some opportunities to travel and be part of international exhibitions and lead sculpting workshops in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Nhamo says he strives to make each sculpture a departure from the work which went before. He would like to learn more about sculpting in all media, to travel, to meet sculptors from other countries and cultures. The more people he meets, the more places he experiences, the more he feels he will learn about life and what he wants to convey in his art.

Nhamo’s work has been sold to collectors and galleries in the US, the UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France and South Korea. He has been represented in Canada since 2014.