Open Space #15 Portia Zvavahera "IMBA YERUMBIDZO"
Vue d'installation (détail) Galerie 8, Fondation Louis Vuitton © Portia Zvavahera. Courtesy Stevenson and David Zwirner Photo : © Fondation louis Vuitton / Marc Domage
- Place
- Gallery 8
For Open Space #15, her first personal exhibition in France, Portia Zvavahera has conceived a new painting called Imba Yerumbidzo (House of Praise). Eight canvases gathered as panorama of near 17 meters long, this monumental painting unfolds in a curve covering the walls of the gallery 8, redesigning the space.
Free access with a ticket for the "Architectural journey, Franck Gehry".
Portia Zvavahera’s paintings are based on her dreams. Steeped in Christian convictions and indigenous Zimbabwean beliefs, the artist considers her nocturnal visions to be prophecies, the emotional intensity of which she seeks to transcribe through painting. They raise questions of life and death, the material and the spiritual, love and solitude, the personal that touches the universal.
Portia Zvavahera, Imba Yerumbidzo (Maison de Grâce), 2024
Vue d'installation (détail) Galerie 8, Fondation Louis Vuitton © Portia Zvavahera. Courtesy Stevenson and David Zwirner Photo : © Fondation louis Vuitton / Marc Domage
Here, the artist conjures her phantasmagorical universe through multiple silhouettes appearing across the surface of the canvas. Their deformed, roughly sketched limbs are diluted in an expressionist touch that emphasizes their ghostly presence. With no element of setting or context, these apparitions seem to float freely. The composition is based on a juxtaposition and superimposition of shapes, solids, and motifs, using a variety of techniques: from paint applied with a brush or stick, to stencils and etchings to create patterns using the traditional methods of Zimbabwean batik. On the canvas, rich in material and texture, these sections contrast with the areas left white, in reserve, evoking the "angels" that the artist saw in the dream at the source of this painting.
Portia Zvavahera, Imba Yerumbidzo (Maison de Grâce), 2024
Vue d'installation (détail) Galerie 8, Fondation Louis Vuitton © Portia Zvavahera. Courtesy Stevenson and David Zwirner Photo : © Fondation louis Vuitton / Marc Domage
Curator
Ludovic Delalande (Fondation Louis Vuitton)
OPEN SPACE PROGRAMME
Open Space is a program dedicated to contemporary art, offering the possibility of a first solo exhibition and the production of a new work.
Portia Zvavahera
Portia Zvavahera (1985) is a Zimbabwean painter who lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe. Portia Zvavahera studied at the BAT Visual Art Studios of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, from 2003 to 2004 before graduating in Fine Art from Harare Polytechnic in 2006.
The artist has had several solo exhibitions with Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg (2014-2023), as well as a solo show with Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles (2017) alongside solo and group exhibitions with David Zwirner in London, New York and Los Angeles (2020-2024). 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, presented her solo exhibition Walk of Life. She participated in the exhibition Dudziro: Interrogating the Visions of Religious Beliefs in the Zimbabwean Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. In 2022, her work was included in the 59th Venice Biennale.
In October 2024, Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge (England) and Fruitmarket Gallery (Edinburgh) will co-organize Zvakazarurwa, Portia Zvavahera's first solo exhibition in England.
Portia Zvavahera is represented by Stevenson (Cape Town, Johannesburg) and David Zwirner (London, New York, Paris, Hong Kong and Los Angeles).
