For her solo exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Portia Zvavahera (b. 1985) has created Imba Yerumbidzo (2024), a painting that breaks new ground for the artist, through its monumental scale as well as its presentation. While the Zimbabwean painter is accustomed to large formats, she delivers here her most ambitious work to date: a 17-meter-long panorama comprising eight linen panels, each three meters high, which, liberated from traditional stretchers, unfold across a specially designed curved wall. As with all of Zvavahera’s paintings, Imba Yerumbidzo emerged from a dream. The artist recounts that during a period of physical and psychological distress, she dreamt of white-clad beings following her – angels, she believes, who came to accompany and protect her. Steeped in Christian doctrine and indigenous Zimbabwean beliefs, the artist has always regarded her nocturnal visions as prophecies and a means of ‘direct communication with God.’ Choosing to commit them to canvas stems primarily from her urgent need to understand their message and extract their teachings.

While visiting the foundation, Zvavahera was inspired by the lyrical sweep of Frank Gehry’s building and the distinctive architecture of Gallery 8 – with its rounded walls, impressive height, and skyward opening – and immediately knew which dream to choose. Back in Harare, Zimbabwe, she spent several months transposing onto canvas the benevolent presences that had appeared in her nocturnal vision. For the first time, she kept in mind the volumes of the space where the work would be shown.

Zvavahera works alone in a naturally lit studio, away from urban chaos, wrapped up in the silence of her thoughts. Listening to her inner voice, she explores her subconscious in order to revive the memory of her dreams and recover the sensations and feelings expressed within them. Recapturing the emotional intensity and rendering it in paint months later is not always straightforward. Her state of mind at the time of painting proves crucial. When inspiration is slow to come, the artist prays, meditates, reads the Bible, and waits until it returns. Nevertheless, her approach remains spontaneous; she prefers not to premeditate, but to allow the painting to evolve intuitively.

Everything is constructed in the moment: shapes, colors, and patterns emerge throughout the composition, though Zvavahera always begins by referring to a drawing of her dream, sketched upon waking, like all others, in a dedicated notebook. This is the approach chosen by someone who has practiced remembering dreams since childhood, encouraged by her mother and grandmother.

Emblematic of her phantasmagorical universe, multiple silhouettes with deformed and roughly sketched limbs appear to float on the surface of the canvas, where they dissolve into expressionistic brushwork. At the center, large white areas provide both contrast and reinforcement for the ghostly dimension of these presences. Typical of her style, is the amalgamation of a diverse array of techniques learned during her studies at Harare Polytechnic: oil paint applied with brush and stick, batik, and other printing processes such as linocut and stenciling. When combined, these give birth to flat areas, figures, and patterns whose juxtaposition and superimposition make up the whole.

Only once the painting is complete, does Zvavahera decide on the title. Imba Yerumbidzo, in Shona, translates to ‘House of Praise’. This meditative pictorial installation was conceived as ‘a kind of place of worship, to give thanks to God and sing His praises, testifying to what He brings to our lives’ – a personal exhortation with universal reach.