Portia Zvavahera

In her paintings, artist Portia Zvavahera (b. 1985) gives form to emotions that manifest from other realms and dimensions beyond the domains of everyday life and thought. Her vivid imagery is rooted in the cornerstones of our earthly existence—life and death, pain and pleasure, isolation and connection, and love and loss. These deeply personal visions are realized through layers of vibrant color and ornate, veil-like patterns that the artist builds up into palimpsestic surfaces through a combination of expressive brushwork and elaborate printmaking techniques. Zvavahera’s compositions draw on particular traditions of figuration in past and present Zimbabwe, first expressed in the work of Thomas Mukarobgwa in the 1960s, while also pointing to postwar artistic practices that probe the nature of the human condition.

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 2004, and Harare Polytechnic from 2005 to 2006, where she received a diploma in fine arts.

Zvavahera’s first exhibition with David Zwirner, Ndakavata pasi ndikamutswa nekuti anonditsigira, was held at the gallery’s London location in 2020. In 2021, David Zwirner presented Ndakaoneswa murima, the artist’s first solo presentation in New York, and in 2025, the exhibition Zvibereko zvemweya wangu was on view at the gallery’s Los Angeles location.

The artist has presented several solo exhibitions with Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg (2014–2023), 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 Zimbabwean Pavilion exhibition Dudziro: Interrogating the Visions of Religious Beliefs at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. In 2022, her work was included in the 59th Venice Biennale.

In 2024, Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, England, presented Zvakazarurwa, a solo exhibition of the artist’s work organized in collaboration with Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, where the show traveled in 2025. Curated by Tamar Garb, this exhibition marked Zvavahera’s first solo institutional presentation in the United Kingdom. Also in 2024, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, presented Imba yerumbidzo (house of praise), as the fifteenth iteration of its Open Space solo exhibition series. Zvavahera's first institutional solo exhibition in the United States, Hidden Battles / Hondo dzakavanzika, was on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, in 2025–2026. A solo exhibition of the artist’s work was also held at the Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, in 2025, and an iteration of the presentation—titled Kuzviramba Mamuri—will open at WIELS, Brussels, on October 31, 2026.

Zvavahera’s work is held in the collections of the Johannesburg Art Gallery; Minneapolis Institute of Art; National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare; Pérez Art Museum Miami; Tate, United Kingdom; University of Chicago Booth School of Business; Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town.