2 new solo exhibitions by Portia Zvavahera and Penny Siopis, are currently running at Stevenson Gallery until 29 August 2015.
In I Can Feel It in My Eyes, Portia Zvavahera exhibits several new large-format paintings depicting young lovers in ecstatic embrace amongst the lush gardens of Harare’s Central Park. Screened by gigantic flowers that protect and seclude them in their private love, the couples seem lost in their feelings, oblivious to the gaze of the outside world. Like secret pictures that lie just beyond the visible, these scenes communicate an awareness of a deeply felt spiritual dimension drawn from the realm of love.
Portia Zvavahera, I Can Feel It In My Eyes (27)
Penny Siopis solo exhibition, Still and Moving, is her first following her critically acclaimed retrospective exhibition Time and Again. One of the images the artist draws on with this new body of work is Niobe of Greek mythology, a symbol of grief in western literature and philosophy.
Alongside the monumental triptych Late and Soon, where Siopis marks the grief of the individual alongside the collective body politic, is her new film Lay Bare Beside, in which we see the artist burying two unidentified human skulls that have been present in her private world for many years. She will also show works from her Notes series of works on paper that are akin to a diary, capturing the artist’s thoughts and emotions alongside the process of their making.
FEATURE IMAGE (at top): Late and Soon (work in progress)
Siopis in her studio at Michaelis School of Fine Art Cape Town, 2013
WHERE: Stevenson Gallery, Buchanan Building, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock Cape Town 7925
INFO: T +27 (0)21 462 1500Â EÂ info@stevenson.info
