Portia Zvavahera - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale - Afternoon Session New York Thursday, November 18, 2021 | Phillips

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    Characteristic of Portia Zvavahera’s otherworldly aesthetic, Ndiregererewo Murume Wangu, 2014, evokes the transcendental realm of dreams, where the artist’s subconscious reveals itself through complex layers of painting. The present composition embodies the artist’s preoccupation with the spiritual, materialized in compelling portraits of pain and pleasure, isolation and connection, love and loss. Rather than painting subjects from life, Zvavahera engages with archetypes of experience; moving beyond literal autobiography and self-portraiture, the figures she depicts become expressions of feminine experiences of faith and motherhood. 

     

     


    Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907–08, oil on canvas, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna

     

     

    Born in 1985 in Juru, and currently living and working in Harare, Zvavahera tessellates visual references to contemporary Zimbabwe in her uniquely surreal compositions. The language of dreams and mysticism Zvavahera articulates with idiosyncratically palimpsestic surfaces shares a somnambulistic quality with the ethereal compositions of Gustav Klimt; enclosing her painted protagonists in weblike ornamentations that exude lush shades of crimson, purple and blue, she transforms them into lingering visions, akin to textured poetry.

    • Provenance

      STEVENSON, Johannesburg
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Johannesburg, STEVENSON, Portia Zvavahera: Wayfinding, July 3–August 1, 2014, p. 37 (illustrated)

306

Ndiregererewo Murume Wangu

oil-based printing ink and oil bar on canvas mounted to panel
60 x 38 3/4 in. (152.4 x 98.4 cm)
Executed in 2014.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$50,000 - 70,000 

Sold for $170,100

Contact Specialist

Rebekah Bowling
Head of Day Sale, Afternoon Session, New York
1 212 940 1250
rbowling@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale - Afternoon Session

New York Auction 18 November 2021