Eight canvases collected in a panorama almost 17 metres long, This monumental painting unfolds in a curve that covers the walls of gallery 8 of the Foundation, redrawing the space. Portia Zvavahera's paintings are based on her dreams. Steeped in Christian beliefs and indigenous Zimbabwean beliefs, the artist considers her nocturnal visions as prophecies, whose emotional intensity she seeks to transcribe through painting. They raise questions about life and death, the material and the spiritual, love and loneliness, the personal touching the universal. Here, the artist evokes her phantasmagorical universe through multiple silhouettes that appear on the surface of the canvas. Their deformed and roughly sketched limbs are diluted in an expressionist touch that emphasizes their ghostly presence. Without any element of setting or context, these apparitions seem to float freely.
A work that evokes angels seen in a dream
The composition is based on the juxtaposition and superposition of shapes, solids and patterns, using a variety of techniques: from paint applied with a brush or stick, to stencils and incisions to create patterns using traditional Zimbabwean batik methods. On the canvas, rich in matter and texture, these sections contrast with the areas left blank, as a reserve, evoking the “angels” that the artist saw in a dream at the origin of this painting.
Notes on the artist
Zvavahera was born in 1985 in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she currently lives and works. She studied at the BAT Visual Arts Studio, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, from 2003 to 2005. She then obtained a diploma in fine arts from the Harare Polytechnic in 2006. The artist has presented several solo exhibitions with Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg (2014–2020) and a solo exhibition with Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles (2017). The National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, presented her solo exhibition Under My Skin in 2010, and in 2020, the Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius, held her solo exhibition Walk of Life. She was invited to show her work as part of the exhibition Dudziro: Interrogating the Visions of Religious Beliefs in the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. In 2022, his work was included in the 59th Venice Biennale.
Cover image (detail), 2024
Portia Zvavahera, Imba Yerumbidzo. Oil and mixed media on linen on display from 17 October 2024 to 3 March 2025, galerie 8, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris.
