Kudzanai-Violet Hwami
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About
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami’s paintings combine visual fragments from a myriad of sources, such as online and archival images, and personal photographs, which collapse past and present. Autobiographical in nature, her works address how in a digitised world of infinite images we construct a sense of self, or experience and try to understand one another in a complex social reality.
Hwami’s work often speaks to the fallibility of memory as images are produced and reproduced, impressing themselves upon us while becoming unmoored from their original sources. Through her process, the artist questions things that appear fixed, or possess apparent finality, opening up a space of imagination and discovery shaped in part by her years growing up in Zimbabwe and South Africa, her interest in metaphysics and spirituality, and expressions of contemporary Black and Queer identities. Here, the historical medium of painting is folded into a collage-like approach analogous with the layering of formats we associate with social media platforms today. ‘I think I am seeking freedom,’ Hwami has said. ‘Collage making, which is a process I use to create a picture, has given me absolute freedom as a strategy…’.
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Biography
Born in Gutu, Zimbabwe in 1993, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami currently lives and works in the UK. In 2016, the same year she graduated from Wimbledon College of Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, she was awarded the Clyde & Co. Award and the Young Achiever of the Year Award at the Zimbabwean International Women’s Awards, as well as being shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries. In 2019, Hwami presented work at the 58th Venice Biennale as part of the Zimbabwe Pavilion, the youngest artist to participate in the Biennale. In 2022 she returned to the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia as part of The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani. Hwami's first institutional solo exhibition, (15,952km) via Trans – Sahara Hwy N1, was held at Gasworks, London, in 2019. Recent institutional exhibitions include a solo presentation at Kunsthaus Pasquart, Switzerland, which was on view until 12 June 2022.
Other group exhibitions include Corps et Âmes (Body and Soul), Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, Paris, France (2025); The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA (2024); Indigo Waves & Other Stories: Re-navigating the Afrasian Sea and Notions of Diaspora at Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany (2023); Reframed: The Woman at the Window at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, UK (2022); When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, curated by Koyo Kouoh, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa (2022), travelling to Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2024) and Centre for Fine Arts, Bozar, Brussels (2025); Ubuntu, a lucid dream, curated by Mari-Ann Yemsi, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2021–2022); Mixing it Up: Painting in the UK, curated by Ralph Rugoff, Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2021); Citizens of Memory, curated by Aindrea Emelife, The Perimeter, London, UK (2021); The Power of My Hands, curated by Suzanna Sousa and Odile Burluraux, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, France (2021); Force Times Distance: On Labor and its Sonic Ecologies, Sonsbeek 20-24, Arnhem, Netherlands (2021).
Hwami’s work is held in public collections including Fondation Blachère, Apt, France; Government Art Collection, London, UK; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, USA; Jorge Perez Art Museum, Miami, USA; Kadist Foundation, Paris, France; Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa; Pinault Collection, Paris, France; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Tate Gallery, London, UK; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, USA; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, USA; Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa.
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News
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Kudzanai-Violet Hwami features in Corps et âmes at the Bourse de Commerce
March 5, 2025Drawn from the Pinault Collection, the exhibition (on view until 25 August 2025) explores representations of the body in contemporary art. Read more Image: Kudzanai-Violet...Read More -
When We See Us – A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, featuring Kudzanai-Violet Hwami and Chris Ofili, at Bozar, Brussels
February 3, 2025On view 7 February-10 August 2025, this exhibition of Black figurative painting from the 1920s to the present day features approximately 150 works by some...Read More -
The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, featuring Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Wangechi Mutu and Chris Ofili, travels to Philadelphia Museum of Art
November 5, 2024Curated by Ekow Eshun and organised by the National Portrait Gallery, London, the exhibition (on view in Philadelphia 9 November 2024-9 February 2025) showcases the...Read More -
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami and Chris Ofili feature in When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting
May 16, 2024On view from 25 May–27 October 2024, this exhibition at Kunstmuseum Basel brings together works by 120 artists.Read More -
Wallpaper* writes about Dreaming of Home, featuring Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art
December 13, 2023What is home – a concept, a physical space, a person, a feeling? It is a question preoccupying artists in New York, who consider the...Read More -
Works by Kudzanai Violet-Hwami, Chris Ofili, Paula Rego and Stephen Willats feature in Tate Britain’s rehang
May 23, 2023Tate Britain has just opened a complete rehang of its collection — the first time in 10 years that the the gallery's free displays have...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami: A Making of Ghosts is reviewed by Artforum
May 9, 2023In “A Making of Ghosts , ” Kudzanai-Violet Hwami plays with scale and perspective to collapse emotional states. In Murikishi (all works 2023), one image...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami: A Making of Ghosts is included This Week in Culture
April 10, 2023Kudzanai-Violet Hwami: A Making of Ghosts is featured in This Week in Culture by Cultured Magazine. Read in full here Image: Kudzanai-Violet Hwami Chiringiro ,...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami is interview by Cultured Magazine
August 9, 2022‘To me, painting is a practice that allows me to remain curious,’ she says, ‘and the act of using collage is helpful as a reminder...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami features in Reframed: The Woman in the Window at Dulwich Picture Gallery
May 4, 2022The exhibition (4 May–4 September 2022) is the first exhibition to explore the enigmatic motif of the ‘woman in the window’. Featuring artworks from ancient...Read More -
On view at La Biennale di Venezia 2022
April 18, 2022Stan Douglas: 2011 ≠ 1848 23 April–27 November 2022 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2022 Stan Douglas represents Canada at the...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami at Kunsthaus Pasquart
April 10, 2022The exhibition (10 April–12 June 2022) will be accompanied by a publication featuring texts by Osei Bonsu and curator Stefanie Gschwend. Using memories, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami talks to Frieze ahead of her inclusion in the Venice Biennale
April 6, 2022Barbara Casavecchia interviews the four finalists of Venice’s new College Arte programme Since its inception in 1895, the Venice Biennale has sought to cast this...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami is invited to participate in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia
February 2, 2022The 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, titled The Milk of Dreams , curated by Cecilia Alemani, will open to the public...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami features in Ubuntu, a lucid dream at Palais de Tokyo
November 26, 2021The exhibition (on view until 20 February 2022) invites us to enter Ubuntu, an as-yet undiscovered space within our imagination and our bodies of knowledge....Read More -
The Great Women Artists Podcast – Kudzanai-Violet Hwami
November 5, 2021In this new episode, Katy Hessel talks to the painter whose work was recently featured in a solo exhibition at Victoria Miro, and can be...Read More -
Works by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami on display across Saint- Denis, Paris
September 17, 2021Bringing contemporary African art to the streets of Saint-Denis, Paris, the Neuf 3 initiative has installed work on shop fronts, in the niches of historic...Read More -
Mixing It Up: Painting Today, featuring Kudzanai-Violet Hwami
September 9, 2021Titled Mixing It Up: Painting Today , the exhibition (9 September–12 December 2021) features 31 artists whose works entrance, transfix and challenge us. Approaching painting...Read More -
The Independent reviews Mixing It Up: Painting Today at the Hayward Gallery
September 8, 2021'Mixing It Up has great pace and energy and an unstoppably upbeat vibe.' Mark Hudson reviews Mixing It Up: Painting Today at the Hayward Gallery,...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami talks to Ben Luke for the Evening Standard’s Painting in Britain feature
September 2, 2021Meet the artists giving a new lease of life to this enduringly popular art form It only happens once in a while. And Ralph Rugoff,...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami collaborates with poet Belinda Zhawi for sonsbeek 20→24 force times distance
July 23, 2021Artist Kudzanai-Violet Hwami has collaborated with poet Belinda Zhawi to create an installation consisting of sound, paintings and film. It is centred around 'Zwarte Anna'...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami is interviewed by Wallpaper*
December 9, 2020The artist is interviewed by Amah-Rose Abrams for Wallpaper*, ahead of the announcement that she has joined Victoria Miro's roster. ‘Hwami’s paintings are figurative, colourful...Read More -
Announcing representation of Kudzanai-Violet Hwami
December 9, 2020Victoria Miro is delighted to announce the representation of Kudzanai-Violet Hwami . A new work by the painter will feature in Victoria Miro’s online exhibition...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami features in The Apollo 40 Under 40 Africa
September 28, 2020In focus: Kudzanai-Violet Hwami for The Apollo 40 Under 40 Africa. ‘With the collapsing of geography and time and space, no longer am I confined...Read More -
Afterall reviews Kudzanai-Violet Hwami at Gasworks
May 13, 2020In her first solo institutional show, London-based Zimbabwean-born painter Kudzanai-Violet Hwami presented a series of works reimagining her country of birth. Spread across two rooms...Read More -
Michael Armitage and Kudzanai-Violet Hwami on Painting
November 15, 2019In this edited transcript of the conversation between Armitage and Hwami at Gasworks, the two artists discuss how painting allows them to navigate their contexts,...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami talks to Studio International
November 9, 2019Kudzanai-Violet Hwami was born in Gutu, Zimbabwe in 1993. She lived in South Africa from the age of nine to 17 when she moved to...Read More -
Zimbabwe Pavilion announces participating artists and title for the 2019 Venice Biennale
February 21, 2019Zimbabwe to be represented by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Neville Starling, Georgina Maxim, and Cosmas Shiridzinomwa at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Read more by Contemporary And here...Read More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami to represent Zimbabwe at the 2019 Venice Biennale
February 19, 2019Kudzanai-Violet Hwami to represent Zimbabwe at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Read coverage by Artnews here Image: Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Hossanna, hosanna. 2018. Oil and acrylic on...Read More
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Books
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Gallery Exhibitions
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Kudzanai-Violet Hwami: A Making of Ghosts
14 Apr – 20 May 2023 London Gallery IVictoria Miro is delighted to present an exhibition of new work by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami. Comprising paintings in dialogue with large-scale wall-based and suspended photographic images, A Making of Ghosts reflects...Learn More -
Kudzanai-Violet Hwami: When You Need Letters for Your Skin
3 Sep – 6 Nov 2021 London Gallery IVictoria Miro is delighted to present When You Need Letters for Your Skin , the gallery’s first solo exhibition of new paintings by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami. Based in the UK, Kudzanai-Violet...Learn More
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Contact Form
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