The Shona and their ancestors have lived for centuries in Southeastern Africa, primarily in the land comprising modern Zimbabwe, which means "House of Stone."
The Shona people have expressed themselves through their unique sculpture and masonry for centuries, but their art form took a new direction in the 1950s with the development of a modern sculpture school under the Rhodes National Gallery in Salisbury (now Harare).
While rooted in ancient tradition, contemporary Shona sculpture of Zimbabwe is a sophisticated art form that plays with form, texture, perspective and color, all the while expressing human connections that transcend geography and time.
Sculpting with simple tools, Shona sculptors carve the stone of region, including serpentine, soapstone, springstone, firm grey limestone and semi-precious verdite and lepidolite.
Shona artists rarely pre-draw their sculptures; instead, the sculpture is inspired by the stone itself. The Shona believe that everything has a spirit, including plants, animals and rocks. Sculptors often say that the spirits come to them in their dreams and reveal the spirit that dwells in the rock.