Dream Worlds: Portia Zvavahera’s Zvakazarurwa (Revelations) is a vibrant and dynamic exhibition at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, exploring the healing power of dreams. Curated by Rebecca Wallersteiner, the exhibition features colourful works by artist Portia Zvavahera and is free to visit until 16 February 2025.
Escape from the stress of your hospital role into an otherworldly dream world by visiting a free exhibition of autobiographical, large-scale, new paintings by artist Portia Zvavahera, drawing on both African and European artistic traditions, at Kettle’s Yard, in Cambridge, in collaboration with Fruitmarket, in Edinburgh. The exhibition has been curated by Tamar Garb, an expert on contemporary art from Africa, as well as the work of women artists and feminist aesthetics. Garb has followed Zvavahera’s work for years and made several visits to her studio in Zimbabwe to prepare for the exhibition, discussing the inspirations behind the artist’s haunting work. As Garb said: ‘The act of painting, which is closely tied to Portia Zvavahera’s Christian beliefs and desire to comprehend the metaphysical through her dreams, involves working through the potential prophecies and messages they encode. The connections between conscious and unconscious states and between painting and praying have been key from the start of her career.’
Portia Zvavahera’s Exhibition at Kettle’s Yard
Running at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge until 16 th February 2025 Zvakazarurwa (Revelations) marks Portia Zvavahera’s first public gallery solo presentation in Europe. Her paintings feature weird and unsettling forms that we may recognise from our own dreaming that first came to her during the night. Her works combine lino and cardboard printing, fluid brushwork and washes of printer’s ink resulting in a multi-layered effect with surreal shapes, forms and patterns from her real and imagined worlds.
Born in 1985, in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she still lives and works, Zvavahera works across a variety of media, including painting, block-printing and batik stencilling and weaves new worlds from her dreams. Over recent years, she has created a series of densely patterned, intensely coloured paintings that weave together dreams, visions, fantasies and the spiritual traditions she grew up with. Her pictures tell stories inspired by her sleeping and waking life that are not illustrative, but instead hold her feelings associated with life and death, pain
and pleasure, love, loss and connection.
The exhibition opens with a selection of the artist’s powerful paintings between 2012 to 2016, focusing on the female body – walking in wedding processions, kneeling in prayer and giving birth. As its title suggests Labour Pains (2012) depicts a woman writhing in discomfort, her head arched back, her mouth agape and limbs askew.
Alongside the unsettling beasts and spectres that populate Zvavahera’s paintings such as Fallen People (2022) are also angelic forms that promise respite and triumph, such as five huddled siblings who appear to float towards the heavens together.
Dreams have provided inspiration for writers and artists around the world for as long as humans have been able to record them – from the ancient Egyptians to Sigmund Freud, who was the first to bring a psychological perspective to the phenomenon. Dreaming happens when your brain is in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Most people usually go through four phases of sleep during the night, moving between REM and non-REM.
Matthew Walker, a psychologist from the University of California, Berkeley has unveiled research proving that REM state dreams have an important role in helping people to process experiences from the day, especially traumas. ‘That is because REM is the only time the brain does not produce noradrenaline, a hormone vital to the body’s fight, or flight response. Thanks to this the brain can make sense of even difficult memories in a safe setting.’ That is why it is important that we get enough REM sleep. If you have been kept awake worrying about the day’s problems, your body will usually compensate automatically the next or following night. Creating art, or even doodling can help calm the mind, ease anxiety and process memories or trauma, rather like dreaming.
Portia Zvavahera studied at the BAT Visual Arts Studio, National Gallery of Zimbabwe from 2003-2005, before receiving a diploma in Fine Arts from Harare Polytechnic in 2006. Her work was included in the 59 th Venice Biennale. The exhibition at Kettle’s Yard marks the artist’s first public gallery solo presentation in Europe. She lives and works in Zimbabwe.
Once you’ve seen the exhibition you can unwind in the beautiful, tranquil garden, fragrant with a relaxing lavender, created by Jim and Helen Ede, outside Kettle’s Yard, or enjoy a coffee, or a delicious lunch in the gallery’s vegetarian cafe. You won’t want to leave!
The Oldie magazines. She also works for the NHS and is the Hippocratic Post's roving reporter.
- Dream Worlds a new exhibition in Cambridge - 14th December 2024
- “All Our Stories” a major new exhibition - 26th September 2024
- Dance yourself well - 23rd June 2024
