The National Gallery’s artwork of the week is ‘The Vendors’ by Ross West. The painting depicts “a typical scenario of people conducting vending in quest of making a living and alleviating the effects of abject poverty.”
The painting also hammers home the fact that vending is done by mostly women. Sadly some of them are even vending while carrying babies on their back. This is just but a glimpse of the reality of poverty.
Africa and the rest of the developing world have a surfeit of natural resources yet the people are the poorest. This is not just an irony but also a reality. Zimbabwe is a typical example with nearly 90% of its population is unemployed and the only the only thing there is to do is to buy and sell.
This week painting coincided with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty that’s running under the theme “ Moving from humiliation and exclusion to participation: Ending poverty in all its forms”.
The theme was coined to highlight a lot of issues like redefining poverty, to encouraging those that are doing a something to support their families like vending and total eradication of poverty.
