AWARD-WINNING and globally acclaimed visual artists Lin Barrie Kelli Barker (body, art and beauty) and Johnson Zuze (found objects sculptor), better known as Burnt Offering Collective, are inviting bookings from art lovers to their Summer Studio walkabout scheduled for September 11 to 13 at their private Harare Gallery.
To book private viewership, art lovers can contact Barrie on 0772 255 202.
The Burnt Offering Collective was born out of the trauma of losing their property and work to a devastating wild fire.
The collective turned personal tragedy into powerful storytelling through visual art, proof that from embers, beauty can emerge.
In brief, Barrie’s art dwells on mixed media, earth pigments, mono-print and collage, which has expressions on wildlife, culture, snail shells, conservation, dance and ecological storytelling.
With a strong aesthetic appeal, Barker’s works of imagination include body art, make-up, film human expression, ritual, compassion and visual storytelling through the body.
Zuze, on the other hand, is a found-object sculptor who uses snare wire and waste to make environmental commentary, repurposing harmful materials and conservation narratives.
He began exhibiting in 2008, with his debut Enriching Women exhibition coming second.
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He won a National Art Merit Award in 2016 and held notable exhibitions such as Animal Kingdom at Gallery Delta in 2018, supported by the Swiss government.
A luminary on the Zimbabwean contemporary art scene, Barrie was born in Harare in 1959 and trained in fine art at Durban University of Technology.
Her studies in printmaking, ceramics and painting merged with global influences picked up through travel to Asia and Europe.
Since returning to Zimbabwe in 1991, she has immersed herself in full-time art practice, shaped by her life across Harare, Mahenye village and the Save Valley Conservancy.
Deeply rooted in the rhythms of nature and culture, her artistic journey also serves as a narrative of conservation, ancestral connection and ecological reverence.
Barrie’s body of work embraces a rich palette of earth pigments, collage, monoprints and found materials, delivering raw yet spiritually refined interpretations of landscapes, African wildlife and cultural rituals.
Signature themes include snail shells, pangolins, wild dogs and dance rendered through layers of emotion, movement and metaphor.
From master pieces like Red Earth Pangolin or the fire-drenched collage Ngano and Fire, Barrie captures moments that whisper and roar with ancestral echoes and urgent ecological messages.
Barker stands at the intersection of body art, make-up and film, and has a profound understanding of the human form as both canvas and communicator.
A Zimbabwean creative with a strong aesthetic appeal and meaning, she explores themes of ritual, empathy and self-expression.
Her journey into visual storytelling is less about decoration and more about transformation crafting immersive experiences that allow the audience to confront vulnerability, identity and rebirth.
At one Burnt Offerings exhibition, Barker adorned herself with glowing red beads and mosaic tiles, becoming a living sculpture — a symbol of both trauma and triumph.
This daring use of the body as a message transforms her art into a spiritual rite of passage, where pain is confronted and beauty is reborn.
Her style is both intuitive and calculated, developed through journalistic roots and matured into an expressive emotionally intelligent practice.
That the three artists could channel the anguish of loss into a collective artistic awakening is nothing short of miraculous.
After the fire devastated their creative spaces, Barrie, Barker and Zuze could have walked away but instead, they rose, coalescing their strengths to form the Burnt Offerings Collective.
It is more than a name and is stead a philosophy, rooted in rebirth, resilience and reimagination.
The collective is a testament to courage, a revolutionary blend of visual art, spiritual restoration and environmental activism.
Their work transcends gallery walls; it builds community, ignites dialogue and dares others to turn pain into power.
