David Bangura

David Bangura was born on the 1^st of July 1955, belonging to the Shava Nematombo (eland) totem of the Korekore tribe. In 1959 his mother died, following the death of is father in 1962. Thereafter David joined his brother, looking after his cattle. After a few he went to reside at Mukaera church in Guruve, where he was taught basketry and tin making by their church leader Mukaira. David remained at the church doing the crafts until in 1985 when he met Henry Munyaradzi. Henry encouraged David to join him in the stone works. At first, David remained at Makaera church, starting working on small sculptures. In 1990 he moved to Tengenenge and became a fulltime artist.

David’s sculptures combine his imagination as well as his life experience, his past, present and future expectations brought together in a stone sculpture. Since he stated stone sculpting, David found not any reason to work on any other job rather than stone sculpting. He is earning a better living with stones as compared to tin-making and basketry.

“I realized that the income from stone sculpting was much better than all, the occupation does not require any academics and at Tengenenge we are getting raw stones for free rather than in basket making, where we would go out for long distances of more than thirty kilometers in search of raw materials that we normally make use of in basket production”.

David won a certificate of merit at the National Art Gallery in 1988. As according to himself, working at Tengenenge art community is of more importance in the sense that he acquire raw stones for free, there is no payment of rents and water charges above all, it is a place where one can showcase his or her talent to visitors who come from all around the world.

In 1978 he harried Ester Gatsi who passed away in 1998. In 1995 he married a second wife, Violet. From his first wife, he is father of three sons and five daughters.

Sculptures of David Bangura