Week8 Blog ( 3 ) | Collective Visit Fruit Market & First Group Meeting
⚪️Visiting Fruit Market
This week, our Avant-Prism group had our first week of “collective space” as planned, and we first went to the Fruit Market to see the current exhibition Portia Zvavahera.
Portia Zvavahera
Zvakazarurwa
Exhibition Description:
Portia Zvavahera is a contemporary artist from Zimbabwe known for her dreamy and emotionally charged paintings. Her work often combines personal dreams, spiritual experiences and elements of traditional African art, presenting a rich layering and symbolism.
Photographs of works at the exhibition⬇️
Group on-site communication⬇️
⚪️First Group Meeting
Date: March 13, 2025
Time: 5pm to 7pm
Venue: Summer Hall
Participants: All members of Group4
⚪️ What I shared
Judging from the introduction of her works and the preface to the exhibition, her paintings are full of symbolic, private and mysterious elements, integrating personal dreams, religious beliefs and emotional experiences.
Due to the artist’s own African background, her creations also reflect African cultural traditions, especially through the use of colors with strong visual impact and rich materials to create unique texture effects.
I Want to Stay in Love, 2017 Oil based printing ink and oil bar on paper
In addition, she is good at using repeated patterns and prints to enhance the layering and texture of the picture. For example, her exhibition work I Want to Stay in Love reflects her exploration of the intersection of dreams and reality. The distorted postures of the characters are like a visual expression of the inner state, and the overall presentation shows a strong sense of hierarchy and psychological tension.
⚪️ Conference summary:
The first group meeting explored the symbolism and privacy of Zvakazarurwa’s artworks and their integration with personal dreams, religious beliefs, and African cultural traditions.
Zvakazarurwa’s works have a strong visual impact and a prominent sense of layering. The distorted postures of the characters in the paintings express the intersection of psychology and dreams, the pain of female childbirth, and the awareness of family protection.At the same time, the important influence of religion and family background in artistic creation was emphasized. The artist presented spiritual experience and female aesthetics through symbolism and traditional African concepts.
In addition, the meeting also focused on curatorial practices, including label design, exhibition layout and the expression of feminist themes. At the same time, the challenges of funding, exhibition planning, and work collection in the operation of small art institutions were discussed.
I love how you highlighted the emotional and spiritual depth of Portia Zvavahera’s work. It’s fascinating how she blends personal experiences with traditional African symbolism to create such intimate yet universal pieces. It must have been such an immersive experience to see these works in person.