Portia Zvavahera brings dreams and nightmares to life in ICA solo show
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The dream world comes alive in “Portia Zvavahera: Hidden Battles / Hondo dzakavanzika,” an installation of seven gripping, large-scale artworks at the ICA Boston. This is the first solo U.S. museum show of Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera featuring three works that have never been exhibited.
The large scale of each piece allows viewers to see up close all the different materials used to create these compositions. Painting and printmaking techniques are the base of the artworks. Zvavahera uses cardboard stencils, wax reliefs, linocut stamps and lace to create layers of intricate, painted patterns, not unlike the many interpretive layers of a dreamscape.
“Zvavahera compares her practice to the act of worship,” said Ruth Erickson, Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs and Meghan Clare Considine, curatorial assistant, the duo that put together the exhibition. “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.”
Portia Zvavahera, Ndirikumabvisa, 2024. 99 5/8 x 82 5/8 inches (253 x 210 cm). Oil based printing ink and oil bar on linen. Courtesy the artist, Stevenson and David Zwirner. Photo by Jack Hems. © Portia Zvavahera
Animals are a core theme connecting these artworks and viewers can spot a large bull, rats, snakes and winged animals throughout the exhibition. Many of the symbols repeat; there are rats and snakes in multiple paintings representing foreboding and danger. Zvavahera will often make multiple paintings about one dream.
The artworks are multilayered not just in visual patterns but also in symbolic and cultural references. Zvavahera visually alludes to the tradition of Zimbabwean figurative painting, while also drawing on her experiences with the indigenous Shona and African Pentecostal faith traditions.
“Ndirikukuona (I can see you)” shows a nest of owls with sharp claws and leering red eyes. In the Shona tradition, owls are a bad omen and often a sign of death. In “Hondo yakatarisana naambuya” a trinity of figures (another recurring symbol) faces down a large, menacing snake. The central figure is Zvavahera’s grandmother.
Portia Zvavahera, Hondo yakatarisana naambuya, 2025. Oil based printing ink and oil bar on linen. 93 3/4 x 116 1/2 inches (238.2 x 295.8 cm). Courtesy the artist, Stevenson, and David Zwirner. Photo by Kerry McFate. © Portia Zvavahera
The paintings are entrancing and unsettling. Like in many nightmares, the viewer feels a lack of control over the circumstances.
“Ndirikumabvisa” depicts a recurring nightmare the artist had during pregnancy. A prone figure lies on a field of vivid, violent red. The figure grasps at a nest of rats, perhaps in an attempt to eradicate them. The only comfort is the protective, feathery layer covering the figure. Zvavahera makes this texture, repeated throughout the exhibition, by painting over palm leaves from her garden.
For the viewer, there is no resolution. But for Zvavahera, the act of painting out the dreams is how she resolves them.
“Transferring the energy of my dreams into my paintings has helped me heal myself,” she notes in the exhibition wall text. “And remove the negative energy from my nightmares.”
“Portia Zvavahera: Hidden Battles / Hondo dzakavanzika” runs at the ICA Boston, located in the Seaport District, through Jan. 19, 2026. Adult admission is $20, student admission is $15 and the museum is free to everyone Thursday evenings after 5 p.m.
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