Portia Zvavahera Reviewed in Artforum

Portia Zvavahera’s paintings, closely connected to the culture of the ethnic and linguistic Shona community in Zimbabwe, where she grew up, reflect legends and religious iconographies that draw us into an atmosphere of profound mysticism. The surfaces of the works are a celebration of exuberant color, a layering of many techniques: drawing, gestural painting, scraping, stenciling. They generate a rich decorative vocabulary and a dynamic tension that manifests the multiplicity of the worlds to which the artist relates: the everyday, the spiritual, and the symbolic/oneiric. In previous work, Zvavahera has often used elements of her inner life—memories and visions—along with images taken from the broader history of Shona and regional traditions. Her paintings have a fresh and personal style, with overlapping of layers of abstract forms and naturalistic elements in colorful dreamscapes where groups of mostly female or androgynous figures are depicted in communal, possibly ritualistic gatherings.

Read more at Artforum.