Portia Zvavahera
Kuzviramba Mamuri
Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera paints the worlds she encounters in her dreams. Her large-scale compositions mix printmaking and painting techniques to capture scenes, human figures and ghostly creatures that visit her at night, when the conscious mind goes to rest.
Portia Zvavahera dreams, prays and paints in Shona, the language and cultural sphere most widely practiced in Zimbabwe. For her, dreams act as intermediary spaces through which messages of an ancestral or prophetic nature are delivered: porous membranes connecting the world of earthly matters to the sphere of the invisible.
“Transferring the energy of my dreams into my paintings has helped me heal myself and remove the negative energy from my nightmares. Painting my dreams allows me to resolve experiences in my life.”
In dialogue with Zimbabwean art scenes, European avant-gardes and Christian iconography, her work speaks to intimate yet shared experiences of womanhood, pain, grief, tenderness and care. From canvas to, most recently, ceramics, she gives shape to expressive compositions inhabited by angels, creatures, lone figures and collective bodies.
Zvavahera invites these otherworldly figurations into the waking world. Kuzviramba Mamuri (Falling in Surrender) is a call for the self to let go of itself and embrace a renewed sense of being with the world.
Curator: Sofia Dati
The exhibition is organised in collaboration with Fridericianum, Kassel; David Zwirner, New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Hong Kong; and Stevenson, Cape Town, Amsterdam.
The exhibition is made possible thanks to the generous support of Philippe and Martine Haspeslagh-Van den Poel, Guido and Griet Van Middelem-Dupont, David Zwirner, and those who wish to remain anonymous.
Related Events
Baby, Welcome! (FR/NL/EN)
Look Who's Talking: Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide (NL)
Lecture: Tamar Garb on Portia Zvavahera (EN)
Look Who's Talking: Sofia Dati (FR)
Artist Talk: Portia Zvavahera (EN)
