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Lot Essay
In Portia Zvavahera’s This is where I travelled [3] (2020), ghostly presences float in shimmering veils of colour. Two large figures are cloaked with looping floral motifs, painted in white over blue and luminous orange. At the centre the pattern shifts to a whorled, block-printed linocut design. The large figures cradle two smaller beings, one deep purple and the other translucent white. Swift, spattered gestural marks in the same colours create a backdrop. The image burns out in bright orange towards the foot of the canvas. Zvavahera’s visionary paintings depict her dreams, and are informed by her Christian faith and the Shona spiritual traditions she grew up with in Harare, Zimbabwe. This is where I travelled [3] is one of a sequence of five major works she made during the lockdown of 2020: a time when the world stood still, and dreamt journeys took on new meaning. Another from the series is in the collection of Tate, London.
As is typical of Zvavahera’s work, This is where I travelled [3] is composed with oil-based printing inks and oil bar on canvas, merging painterly and printmaking registers. She began to develop her unique approach while studying at BAT Visual Art Studios—the art school affiliated with the National Gallery of Zimbabwe—which promoted formal experimentation and the expression of distinctly African subjectivities. She later studied under the painter Charles Kamangwana at Harare Polytechnic, who encouraged his students to experiment with multiple mediums in a single work. Zvavahera’s lacy layerings of colour and pattern evoke the wax-print textiles worn by women in Harare, but also conjure the veil that separates the material world from the realm of dreams. They play between transparency and opacity, disclosure and disguise. Their empty spaces—as in the present work—are intended to leave room for God’s presence.
The present work’s composition suggests a familial or ritual gathering, although the relationship among the faceless figures—perhaps protective, perhaps menacing—is enigmatic. Zvavahera’s canvases can be understood as autobiographical, portraying versions of herself and other female subjects, as well as images of her family and hybrid human-animal apparitions. For her, they have an actual revelatory function, allowing her to interpret the messages she receives in her dreams. While deeply personal, they resonate with universal and mysterious power. ‘I think that people can relate to what I’m experiencing’, she says. ‘I think dreams have something to do with the physical world. The dream is like the prophet, telling you about the future, about what’s going to happen or what is causing something to happen in the future. We all sleep; we all have dreams’ (in conversation with Netsayi, BOMB Magazine, 15 December 2015, online).
As is typical of Zvavahera’s work, This is where I travelled [3] is composed with oil-based printing inks and oil bar on canvas, merging painterly and printmaking registers. She began to develop her unique approach while studying at BAT Visual Art Studios—the art school affiliated with the National Gallery of Zimbabwe—which promoted formal experimentation and the expression of distinctly African subjectivities. She later studied under the painter Charles Kamangwana at Harare Polytechnic, who encouraged his students to experiment with multiple mediums in a single work. Zvavahera’s lacy layerings of colour and pattern evoke the wax-print textiles worn by women in Harare, but also conjure the veil that separates the material world from the realm of dreams. They play between transparency and opacity, disclosure and disguise. Their empty spaces—as in the present work—are intended to leave room for God’s presence.
The present work’s composition suggests a familial or ritual gathering, although the relationship among the faceless figures—perhaps protective, perhaps menacing—is enigmatic. Zvavahera’s canvases can be understood as autobiographical, portraying versions of herself and other female subjects, as well as images of her family and hybrid human-animal apparitions. For her, they have an actual revelatory function, allowing her to interpret the messages she receives in her dreams. While deeply personal, they resonate with universal and mysterious power. ‘I think that people can relate to what I’m experiencing’, she says. ‘I think dreams have something to do with the physical world. The dream is like the prophet, telling you about the future, about what’s going to happen or what is causing something to happen in the future. We all sleep; we all have dreams’ (in conversation with Netsayi, BOMB Magazine, 15 December 2015, online).