Born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1985, Portia Zvavahera is one of the outstanding artists of her generation. She has developed a painting practice that combines a unique combination of techniques – painting, printmaking and batik – to construct a visually beguiling personal cosmology featuring figures, creatures, shapes and shadows that first appear to her in her dreams.

The earliest works in the exhibition combine images of childbirth and motherhood with repetitive mark making and pattern. They are visceral, even shocking. Recent works are equally direct, but are more closely aligned to particular dreams. The works Zvavahera made in 2024, specifically for this exhibition, relate to one particular recurring dream in which she struggles to protect her family from malign forces – ‘bad energies’ – that take the form of rats.

Zvavahera’s paintings are beautiful, complex surfaces which claim our attention immediately, yet also stay with us over time, unfurling in our mind’s eye as we take the artist’s singular vision with us out of the gallery and into the world.

This exhibition is organised in collaboration with Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge.