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'I love to see colour, and different combinations of colour. Even on a personal level, colour helps me express myself more than anything else. It is colour that makes things beautiful. When I go into my garden, what I take from there and bring into the painting is colour and design.'
- Portia Zvavahera in conversation with Naomi Rea, Artnet, 2020
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‘This painting is about me. In Zimbabwe when we bury our dead we usually direct their heads to the west, the direction of the sunset. I had a dream where I was being buried alive. I saw my mother fighting with an animal outside – this appears in another painting which forms part of a series that tells this story. The cocoon shape is for protection but also preparation for new life: I was preparing myself for rebirth.’
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I am praying for you, 2021
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Portia Zvavahera was born in 1985 in Harare where she currently lives and works.
The Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean presented a small survey exhibition by the artist titled Walk of Life (2020); and a two-person show, Portia Zvavahera and Gustav Klimt: A Dialogue, took place at De 11 Lijnen, Oudenburg, Belgium (2019). She held a solo exhibition, Under My Skin, at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, in 2010.
Zvavahera has exhibited in the biennales of Lubumbashi (2019) and Berlin (2018); she represented Zimbabwe at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 as part of the exhibition Dudziro: Interrogating the Visions of Religious Beliefs at the Zimbabwean Pavilion.
Her work is currently on view in The Power of My Hands at Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris (2021) and Witness: Afro Perspectives from the Jorge M Pérez Collection at El Espacio 23 in Miami (2020).
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Photography: Gideon Gomo
Studios: Portia Zvavahera | Harare
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