BY FRANK DROUZAS, Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG — For artist Jonathan Madzinga, his entry into the art world came with an ultimatum when he was only six years old.
As a boy in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Africa, he was always curious about the art studio his father had in the house. A man who did many things to put food on the table like buying and selling cars, buying and selling vegetables and even painting houses, Madzinga’s father turned to painting pictures whenever he wanted to escape from reality.
Son Jonathan was allowed into the art studio but only when his father was there too. When Madzinga’s father left the house, he always took care to lock the room up.
But did that stop the inquisitive young boy from continually checking the door, just to make sure? Hardly. But it was always locked. One day when he turned the knob, he realized his father had forgotten to secure the studio. He excitedly pushed open the door and took his first real steps into the world of art.
“No one was watching me so I went in, closed the door and I tried to finish his unattended painting,” Madzinga said with his laid back, lilting accent. “And I don’t know what I’m doing, so the next thing I know the painting, which was almost finished, looked like an abstract painting!”
All out of canvas space but determined to make the most of this rare chance, Madzinga looked up and found what must have seemed to a small boy a whole universe of empty space to color.
“I thought, let me jump on the wall! And let me take the big brushes this time, so I can understand how paint works,” he said, laughing.
So he began gleefully squeezing paint onto the palette and dipping in the brushes and applying generous strokes to the unadorned walls, in a hurry to slather as much of his art as he could.
“By the time my father had come back,” Madzinga explained, “I had painted the whole studio, wherever I could reach. That got me in big trouble!”
One good turn deserves another, his father must have thought because just as his son was determined to leave his mark on the studio walls, the unamused parent was determined to leave a mark of his own on the budding artist’s backside.
“Luckily enough, someone arrived just before I got the belt,” Madzinga recalled. “So he sent me to the bedroom instead. I could hear them talking in the next room, and when they finished talking, this man said to my father, ‘Why don’t you give Jonathan an offer he can’t refuse?’”
The offer was simple: if Jonathan didn’t learn to paint or draw by the time of the next family reunion, everyone would take a turn giving him the belt.
“My father used to host big parties for his family and his workers,” Madzinga remembered, “because in Africa everyone is your father and mother, so people who were not even related to me were going to smack me. That was my introduction to the art world!”
But Madzinga needed no further nudging, as he was already hooked. As a child he was exposed to the works of local artists, and every day after school he would go to the nearby gallery and spend hours drawing and painting, mostly with acrylics and oils.
Artist Jonathan Madzinga
