This exhibition examines a unique and extraordinary flowering of contemporary art in Zimbabwe, post-2009, dominated by the strength of its painters.

Delving into Zimbabwe’s contemporary art scene is as difficult as understanding the continued political turmoil of the country. Its history is one of resilience, endurance and profound rejuvenation and reinvention of herself and its offspring, remarkable for their retained warmth and hardworking attitude.

While for decades, stone sculpture defined the silhouette and terrain of embodiments of the soft touch of the country’s creative identity, painting remained a potent undercurrent. The medium became a dominant force, post-2009 at the close of the turbulent period of hyperinflation and political instability, which marked the country not only domestically but also internationally. Painting’s capacity to communicate coded, symbolic messages about issues, one could not and ought not to discuss directly answered a pent up cultural need. Loading the visual with symbolic and metaphoric meaning with reference to contemporary politics while utilising the rich lore of Zimbabwean proverbs and densely figurative urban vernacular, found welcome among artists focused on other practices from sculpture to mixed media and printmaking and traverses racial and ethnic divides.

This exhibition tells the story of a movement begun by artists who came of age at that time and makes a thesis for an art historical movement in Zimbabwe making a crucial contribution to the story of contemporary art in Africa and globally.