Panel Discussion: Portia Zvavahera: Zvakazarurwa
29 January 2025, 7-8.15pm
Join us in the Kettle’s Yard house for a discussion on our current exhibition Portia Zvavahera: Zvakazarurwa, with exhibition curator Tamar Garb and a panel of guest speakers.
About the Speakers
Tamar Garb
Tamar Garb is Durning Professor in the History of Art at UCL. She has published widely on questions of gender and sexuality in Modern and Contemporary Art as well as on photography from Africa, the work of women artists and feminist aesthetics. Her curatorial practice includes ‘Gauguin: Maker of Myth’, Tate 2011, ‘Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography’, V&A, 2011, ‘Distance & Desire: Encounters with the African Archive’, Walther Coll. 2014, ‘Conversations in Letters & Lines: William Kentridge and Vivienne Koorland, Fruitmarket,,2016, ‘Made Routes: Berni Searle and Vivienne Koorland’, Richard Saltoun Gallery, 2019 and ‘Beyond the Binary: Santu Mofokeng and David Goldblatt’, Walther Coll. 2023.
About the Exhibition
Presenting new and recent paintings, this exhibition will be Portia Zvavahera’s first solo exhibition at a public gallery in Europe. Drawing on southern African culture, Christian iconography, traditional European painting and African printmaking, this exhibition will show artworks informed by the artist’s own dreams and the spiritual traditions she grew up with as a child.
These semi-autobiographical works use layers of colour and texture and various artistic techniques including batik stencilling, block-printing, drawing and painting with ink.
