Like Flowers We Fade: Portia Zvavahera’s first institutional show in

Like Flowers We Fade: Portia Zvavahera’s first institutional show in Italy

Fondazione Memmo in Rome presents Like Flowers We Fade, the first institutional exhibition in Italy by Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera. The project features a site-specific installation conceived for the foundation’s spaces and a body of new paintings developed after a residency in the city.

Zvavahera’s work intertwines autobiographical elements with broader reflections on memory, mourning and transcendence. She constructs images through dense, layered surfaces combining expressive brushwork, vivid colour passages and printmaking techniques, including woodcut, to create complex visual fields.

Central to the show is the artist’s meditation on the loss of her grandmother, a subject that emerges in dreamlike sequences and informs her pictorial imagination, blending spiritual iconography with psychological inquiry.

• Curator: Alessio Antoniolli
• Venue: Fondazione Memmo, via della Fontanella di Borghese 56/B, 00186 Rome
• Dates: from April 30 to November 1, 2026
• Opening hours: Monday–Sunday 11:00 - 18:00 (closed on Tuesday)
• Admission: free
• Info: +39 0668136598 - [email protected] - www.fondazionememmo.it

Born in Harare in 1985, Zvavahera is recognised for her ornamental patterns, textured surfaces and a visual language that merges religious imagery with personal and cultural memory rooted in the Shona tradition. Her international exhibitions and institutional appearances reflect a practice attentive to both material process and emotional resonance.

The Rome presentation offers a clear view of how contemporary painting and print methodologies can narrate intimate experiences and transform them into shared visual narratives.