Opening Aug. 28, the exhibition features new boldly colored paintings born out of the artist’s dreams

(Boston, MA—MAY 29, 2025) This August, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) opens artist Portia Zvavahera’s (born 1985 in Harare, Zimbabwe) first solo museum exhibition in the U.S. Inspired by Zvavahera’s dreams, her layered compositions merge painting and printmaking techniques to create a dazzling array of flat layers and textures. These include the markings of wax relief, linocut stamps, cardboard stencils, lace, and palm leaves from her garden that form figures in atmospheric settings. This exhibition centers animals and the role they play in Zvavahera’s work and the many traditions she draws upon. Featuring a selection of seven of the artist’s works, Zvavahera’s ICA presentation includes three new paintings on view for the first time. Organized by Ruth Erickson, Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, with Meghan Clare Considine, Curatorial Assistant, Portia Zvavahera is on view from Aug. 28, 2025, to Jan. 19, 2026. 

Portia Zvavahera includes a selection of recent and new works that focus on the animals that populate the artist’s dreams and thus her pictorial world, revealing the significant and symbolic role animals play. A single powerful dream can produce several distinct and evocative paintings. Throughout the work, Zvavahera engages with Zimbabwean figurative painting as well as the Indigenous Shona and African Pentecostal faith traditions in which she was raised. Her works navigate a broad range of references, from the Shona belief that eagles travel between heaven and earth carrying messages, to the symbolic role of the snake in the biblical story of Adam and Eve, to the flattened pictorial field of modern art.  

“Zvavahera compares her practice to the act of worship,” said Erickson and Considine. “Her vivid paintings conjure worlds glimpsed in her dreams, where animals repeatedly appear, bringing with them foreboding and prophetic associations that she is able to visualize in her work.” 

In Ndirikumabvisa (2024), a hoard of rats is painted alongside a figure lying prostrate atop a dripping red background, referencing a nightmare during Zvavahera’s pregnancy. Rats reappear in Tinosvetuka Rusvingo (2024), where they gather underneath a trio of winged figures that evoke associations with angels in Western painting traditions and large birds of prey, which are powerful creatures in Shona cosmology. A bull appears to commune with a figure in Prayer amid a battle (2021), and coiled and double-headed snakes appear in her most recent paintings completed in May 2025. This exhibition will be an opportunity for a wider audience to encounter the work of one of the most exciting contemporary painters working in Southern Africa today. 

Artist Biography 
Portia Zvavahera was born in 1985 in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she currently lives and works. She studied at the BAT Visual Arts Studio, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, from 2003 to 2004. She then received a diploma in fine arts from Harare Polytechnic in 2006. 

The artist has presented several solo exhibitions with Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg (2014–2023), and a solo exhibition with Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles (2017), as well as solo and group exhibitions at David Zwirner, New York, Los Angeles and London (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, held her solo exhibition Walk of Life. She was invited to show her work as part of the Zimbabwean Pavilion exhibition Dudziro: Interrogating the Visions of Religious Beliefs at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. In 2022, her work was included in the Milk of Dreams exhibition at the 59th Venice Biennale. In October 2024,  Zvavahera had her first European institutional solo exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, part of their Open Space programming; in the same month the artist had her first UK solo institutional exhibition Zvakazarurwa, organized between Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge and Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (travelled in 2025).  

About the ICA   
Since its founding in 1936, the ICA has shared the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, imagination, and provocation that contemporary art offers with its audiences. A museum at the intersection of contemporary art and civic life, the ICA has advanced a bold vision for amplifying the artist’s voice and expanding the museum’s role as educator, incubator, and convener. Its exhibitions, performances, and educational programs provide access to the breadth and diversity of contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA is located at 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, 02210. The Watershed is located at 256 Marginal Street, East Boston, MA 02128. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our website at icaboston.org. Follow the ICA on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.   

Media Contact 
Theresa Romualdez, press@icaboston.org

Credits 
Portia Zvavahera is organized by Ruth Erickson, Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, with Meghan Clare Considine, Curatorial Assistant.