Portia Zvavahera
23 PZ Riason interview

11 December 2023
Africa is a Country

When paintings are dreams: On the occasion of Pane Rima Rakakomba, Portia Zvavahera speaks to Riason Naidoo about printmaking and the centrality of themes such as womanhood, religion and spirituality across her practice 

Ocula, 22 September 2020

Portia Zvavahera's Painted Dreams: Stephanie Bailey reflects on the artist's process and language, noting, a 'sense of deep timelessness is what Zvavahera's paintings convey'.

Artforum, September 2019

Athi Mongezeleli Joja reviews Talitha Cumi by Portia Zvavahera, observing: 'We find depictions of deathly solitude again and again in Zvavahera’s oeuvre, but not so insistently that familiarity with it breeds indifference to the plight it registers. Her work, neither fatalistic nor uncritically hopeful, seems to thrive on darkness.'

9 More Weeks, August 2018

'The path of the heart': 'Transferring the energy of my dreams into my paintings has helped me heal myself, and remove the negative energy from my nightmares,' says Portia Zvavahera in conversation with Sinazo Chiya

Frieze Magazine, January 2018

'Sumptuous, with a fine sense for balancing gesture and detail, these new paintings are characterized by various descriptions of hopeful containment and ambiguous embrace,' writes Sean O'Toole on Portia Zvavahera's Take Me Deeper

I'm with You, February 2017

'Ekphrasis for a Veiled Dream': Nomaduma Rosa Masilela observes Zvavahera's process, media and formative encounters in the essay accompanying the artist's most recent monograph

Sunday Times, January 2017

'Clawing at the sublime': Percy Mabandu considers paint, spirit and the spectral in the work of Portia Zvavahera

BOMB Magazine, Winter 2015

Zimbabwean singer and musician Netsayi in conversation with Portia Zvavahera about painting and congruencies in their creative processes

ArtReview, October 2015
Complex influences make Zvavahera's art contemporary and of profound interest, argues Matthew Blackman in his review of I Can Feel It in My Eyes at Stevenson, Cape Town

Cape Times, August 2015

'Waiting for the Muse: Unique Afro-expressionist style': Lucinda Jolly reviews I Can Feel It in My Eyes at Stevenson, Cape Town

Business Day, July 2015

'Twin exhibitions conjure the depth of feeling of love and loss': Ashraf Jamal compares work by Portia Zvavahera and Penny Siopis in twin exhibitions at Stevenson, Cape Town

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