When we first met with Frank Nkosiyabo, I was struck by his exuberance—an active, focused energy that informs not only the way he handles paint, but the way he steers his own career. I love how he folds tradition into a visual language that is unmistakably contemporary. His painting is a kind of magical realism: stories surface from the depths to remind and to heal. Fragmented, ever-flowing compositions chart the fragility of existence and the vulnerability of being human, while the work’s ritual undertow keeps one foot in ancestral memory and the other in the city’s restless now. It’s this tension—between reverence and reinvention, between silence and noise—that makes his canvases feel alive, urgent, and necessary.

When did you feel you needed to create?

I grew up in a family where tradition wasn’t abstract—it lived with us. Ceremonies happened at home; rituals connected the house to the ancestors. As a kid I drew all the time. In the village people remember me tracing with ash on walls—more graffiti than drawing, really. The impulse never stopped, but around 2018 it sharpened into a decision. I started going to drawing sessions, meeting older artists and peers—friends who took me around studios. We’d visit shared spaces at Mbare Art Space where different artists worked together. That community made the choice obvious. After high school I asked myself, “What else would I do if not art?” Nothing felt as necessary as drawing every day and experimenting. You mentioned mentors and a circle of artists around you. How did they shape your practice, and how did you find your own voice through strong influences?

At first I came to the studio just for lessons. I watched people travel, show, sell work, build lives from art. That was inspiring, but the real gift was critique—sometimes hard, always constructive. The studio became a family that pushed us, gave us books, pointed us to artists to study, and insisted we keep going. The more I absorbed, the more I realized influence isn’t mimicry. It’s learning to carry a conversation—then knowing when to speak in your own language. Over time, I began to hear my voice inside their feedback. That’s when things started to align.

Your work moves between spiritual tradition and contemporary urban life—there’s a background in graffiti and an attention to ancestral cosmologies. How do you balance those worlds?

It starts with belief and intention: what I want the audience to feel, learn, or carry away. Many paintings are set in spaces I’ve never physically seen—spiritual landscapes that arrive as images. I try to give them physical presence by inserting recognizable elements: textiles, vegetal forms, tools, fragments from daily life. Sometimes I reference traditional materials that hunters used, or garments that have ceremonial functions. I live and work in Harare, deeply connected to community, but the paintings are also anchored in “prayer points”—places that gather energy. I don’t always know where they are; I just know when I’m working, those places come alive.

Viewers sense social realities in your work—trauma, healing, the stubbornness of hope. Are you documenting, or messaging?

Both, depending on the day. Some paintings feel documentary—collecting what the streets and stories give me. Others are propositions: “What if we looked at this pain differently?” I want the work to speak back to whoever stands in front of it. The message doesn’t come to me first and stay with me; it passes through me to the next person. That’s why I accept losing control mid-process. Surprise is part of truth.

You once said, “Through hardships we conquer what’s ours. I’m a king in my own way, a king in my own vision.” What does that mean to you?

It’s not about dominance. It’s about self-possession. When you come from a place where your history isn’t widely known, you need to claim your path. No one can confirm or deny your story better than you can. “King” for me means accountability and purpose—owning my direction and my labor, not ruling over people.

Let’s talk about your fashion project, too. You use crochet, denim, second-hand garments, family textiles. How did the brand start, and how does it feed the painting—and vice versa?

It began as a hustle—something I could do outside the studio to buy materials. But the more I worked, the more I realized I was painting with cloth. I was drawn to denim and to crochet forms I remembered from my grandmother and great-grandmother. I collected their pieces and started re-composing them, almost like adding value to memory. My grandmother supported my mother and aunt by crocheting and selling garments; honoring that labor is part of the brand’s DNA.

I also gather clothes from the big second-hand market in Mbare. As a kid, I spent time there with my grandmother. Going back as an artist is like visiting a living archive: each garment carries a past self—unknown faces, lost homes, old jobs, untold stories. I ask: Who wore this? What did they carry? What did they survive? Recycling becomes remembrance. In studio, leftover scraps—offcuts from jeans or camouflage—refuse the bin. I stitch them into canvases to build texture and history. Painting and clothing share the same logic: fragments traveling toward a body.

Your practice often assembles small stories into large forms—whether a big canvas or a statement piece of clothing. What’s the mechanics of that composition?

One day I was painting and assembling a collection at the same time. Offcuts were piling up on the floor—little skins shed by the process. I couldn’t throw them away; they felt like wounds and repairs at once. So I started collaging them onto canvas. The camouflage pieces introduced a military memory, and conversations in the neighborhood brought stories of people still haunted by war—by loss and by what alcohol sometimes tries to quiet. A recent strand looks at self-medication as a ritual of grief, and asks how art can gather those scattered parts with dignity. Alongside that I’m collaborating with a media collective and a creative director to give these stories a platform—combining profiles, garments, and oral histories. Art becomes both archive and therapy.

Speaking of therapy—what do you see as your role in your community as an artist?

Education and connection. In Harare many people pass our gate at Mbare Art Space and don’t know what happens inside. Part of my role is to open the process, to show how art history and local histories can speak to each other, and to involve neighbors in building the archive. Another part is care. People need tools to heal: a conversation, a drawing session, a reason to show up sober, a shared goal. If the studio can hold that, then we’re doing our job.

In your paintings, you’re not afraid of the dark—both in tone and theme. You dive deep. Why is that important, and how does it heal?

Life moves between arrivals and departures. I’ve lost people; I’ve watched others arrive changed. Painting lets me test whether darkness is only absence or also a passage. I build layers until a structure appears. Sometimes it’s a scene of libation: a vessel poured on the ground to thank the ancestors or ask for protection. Sometimes it’s a haunted landscape. In Shona traditions there are ceremonies to welcome a spirit back to the family; there are also stories of power misused around graves. I paint these tensions because they shape how we live together—fear, respect, longing, greed. Healing begins by naming what we see in the night.

Your palette can be euphoric, vivid, and then suddenly melancholic. How do you balance those tonal worlds?

By accepting that I can’t control everything. I start with inks, which flow and drip. They resist fixed edges. For saturation and body I sometimes mix a little oil into the ink—it’s economical and it changes the way light sits in the film of paint. I think of the paintings as moving from dark to light—like walking through a tunnel. But it’s not linear: I make something, destroy it, bury it under layers, leave it for days, come back when it’s dry and thick, then carve a focal point. Recently I’ve stained canvases with traditional beer. It dries into a warm brown—like memory made visible. The cycle is construction and deconstruction, over and over, until harmony appears out of chaos.

Let’s stay with layers and fluidity. For me, they mirror life—nothing is stable for long. How do those ideas operate in your process?

The white of a newly primed canvas still scares me. It’s so clean it refuses my first mark. Inks help because they insist on motion: they drip, they spread, they misbehave. I scratch through wet paint to draw quick architectures. If frustration arrives, I let it draw with me. Fluidity isn’t softness—it’s a system that flows and jams. I paint most nights, when the city quiets and the studio holds whatever I’m wrestling—fear, desire, visions, the “demons”... Working at night keeps me honest. I want the line between vision and illusion to stay alive; that’s where the paintings breathe.

You often mix crisp, graphic linework with open, painterly passages. How did that hybrid language evolve?

Early on I over-drew everything. The impulse was to describe, to prove I knew. Then I learned to edit—let the line serve the figure, not drown it. The painterly fields became spaces where breath returns. Influences — like Salvador Dalí or Francis Bacon — helped me accept chaos as method. But I’m careful: influence should feed energy, not style theft. 

Your images sometimes feel dream-caught: surreal lands, hybrid figures. Do these arrive from dreams or from cultural memory?

Both. Sometimes I’m sure I’ve seen a place that I’ve never visited—maybe in sleep, maybe in a story I overheard as a child. Night is when images gather. In Shona culture there are specific hours people choose to pray, to pour libations, to ask for protection. I paint into that atmosphere—between fear and devotion.

How does your day actually look?

It’s a daily practice. Mornings I listen to music, write, sketch, or cut cloth. If I’m tired from painting through the night, I keep it light—conversations with studio mates, meetings for collaborations... By late afternoon I settle in, and when the building empties, I begin the heavy painting. 

You speak often about the value of shared spaces. What has the Mbare Art Space community given you?

Growth, first of all. Honest critique. A place to fail in public and recover. If I’d kept working alone from home, I might not have found the stamina to keep pushing. Here I’m surrounded by peers who understand when a painting looks wrong and why that’s good news. In our context it’s easy to drift—early parenthood without support, drugs, just giving up. The studio redirects that energy into work. I’m grateful for that.

What is the greatest challenge for artists in Zimbabwe today?

Material scarcity is real—paint is expensive; good canvas is expensive. There are fewer galleries than artists. But I’ve learned that scarcity can open other mediums: if you can’t buy oil, you experiment with ink, soil, cloth, beer stains. Opportunity isn’t always announced; you need hunger, education, persistence, and the right people around you.

What are you working on now—and what’s next?

I’m in conversation with a gallerist, who plans to open a new space next year; from January I’ll begin working closely toward projects with her. I’m also partnering with a media collective on documentation, music-and-fashion crossovers, and a recurring community event we organize every two months—bringing visual art, performance, and street style into one arena. That keeps me connected to the city and gives young creatives a platform. Parallel to that, I’m selecting works for a future solo—no date yet, just patience. The studio tells me when it’s time.