I see You: Tiwani Contemporary

Portia Zvavahera

Excerpt taken from Tiwani Contemporary

In a departure from her works to date, Portia Zvavahera uses materials sourced in Lagos, such as bees wax and primed linen, to continue her exploration of painting and print-making.  With an interest in adire, a popular technique in Nigeria of dying fabric that was traditionally done with indigo and at times incorporates repeated stenciled motifs, Zvavahera continues to interpret her dreams in her exhibited works. These compositions merge abstract and figural forms that seem to depict connections, isolation and fear through gestural contours. Zvavahera leaves the viewer to connected fragmented narratives, perhaps as an invitation to imagine how her unique encounter with Lagos, briefly living and working in this city as an artist-in-residence at Guest Artist Space (G.A.S. Foundation), informs this body of work.

Gideon Gomo

Excerpt taken from Tiwani Contemporary

Gideon Gomo’s stoneworks are contemporary inflections of Zimbabwean springstone carving, a cornerstone of modern art in that region.  Bringing this technique into conversation with contemporary modes of making, Gomo combines this granite with other materials such as brass cymbals, appropriated as headgear, halos or adornment. Each head is emotive, a contrast with the relatively inanimate Shona stone carvings earlier referenced. Gomo began these sculptures in Harare, and completed them in Lagos, also while an artist-in-residence at G.A.S. Foundation.