'Eye Witness' is an original opal serpentine sculpture signed by the Zimbabwean artist Josphat Makenzi. Makenzi was trained in the contemporary Shona stone carving tradition, and thus his works take on themes from African as well as from European art history. His sculptures of the human face have the abstracted qualities of traditional African sculptures and masks in how they reduce the features of the face to a series of layered geometric forms. Thusly, they also recall the work of Modernist artists who looked to Africa as a source of novel formal imagery, such as subtle ovoid faces of Constantin Brancusi and the cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The sculpture 'Eye Witness' is an elegant example of this, with the figure's head atop a long and slender neck and tilting to one side as though carefully listening.

opal stone (serpentine)
19.5 x 9 x 8 inches
signed "J. Makenzi" along base on reverse
Overall good condition; minor scratch above eyebrow and on cheek