Many of her paintings feature self-portraits and images of her immediate and extended family. Powerful nudes are another point of departure, boldly raising questions about the black body and its representation, as well as sexuality, gender and spirituality. Her influences include music, such as Zim Heavy and Afrobeats; and literature, including the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Carl Jung. Her process involves experimenting with photography and digitally collaged images, using these to create large works on paper or canvas in combination with intensely pigmented oil paint, and often incorporating other media and techniques, such as silkscreen, pastel or charcoal.

Speaking about her work the artist says, ‘With the collapsing of geography and time and space, no longer am I confined in a singular society but simultaneously I am experiencing Zimbabwe and South Africa and the UK, in my mind. I’m in the UK, but I carry those places with me everywhere I go.’

She was included in the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, her first solo institutional exhibition was held at Gasworks, London, also in 2019, and in 2020 she featured in the Victoria Miro group exhibition I See You.

About the artist

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 Dreaming of Home, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, New York, USA (2023); 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); 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; Kadist Foundation, Paris, France; Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa; Jorge Pérez Art Museum, Miami, USA; 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.

The artist's work is included in the touring exhibition When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting currently on view at Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland, until 27 October 2024.