Artist Database

Zimbabwean painter Portia Zvavahera was born and lives in Harare. She studied at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe’s BAT Visual Arts Studio between 2003 and 2005 and obtained a diploma in Fine Arts from Harare Polytechnic in 2006. Zvavahera is inspired by and depicts her dreams and emotions on vibrant colourful canvases. Drawing on traditions of figuration, her spontaneous mark making combined with printmaking techniques result in energetic, dynamic, and conceptually engaging images that she sees as a communication between herself and God.

Zvavahera was awarded the 10th Tollman Award for Visual Arts in 2013, and she won the FNB Art Prize awarded at the Joburg Art Fair in 2014. She was an artist-in-residence at Greatmore Studios, Cape Town in 2009, and has participated in residencies in Bangalore, London, and Lagos.

Zvavahera has exhibited extensively. She has held international solo exhibitions including Portia Zvavahera and Gustav Klimt: A Dialogue, at De 11 Lijnen, Oudenburg, Belgium in 2019; Walk of Life, a survey of her work presented by The Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean in Mauritius in 2020; and numerous exhibitions at Stevenson Gallery in South Africa and David Zwirner Gallery in New York and London. She has exhibited extensively in group exhibitions in Zimbabwe and internationally, including the Venice Biennale in both 2013 and 2022; the Lubumbashi Biennale in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2019; the Berlin Biennale in 2018; and with numerous museums worldwide. Her work is represented in prestigious museum collections worldwide including the Tate in London.