Portia Zvavahera at Fondazione Memmo: faith, memory and painting

Portia Zvavahera at Fondazione Memmo

Like Flowers We Fade is the first institutional exhibition in Italy by Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera (Harare, 1985), hosted at Fondazione Memmo in Rome and curated by Alessio Antoniolli. The show brings together paintings, prints and a newly commissioned site-specific installation in maiolica created during the artist’s residency in the city.

What to see

• A group of recent paintings that combine drawing, gestural painting and woodcut print techniques, characterized by layered color, repeated patterns and handmade stencils.
• An original maiolica tile installation conceived for the foundation’s space.
• Works that merge barely-there figures and floral motifs into dreamlike, spiritual imagery.

Themes and approach

The exhibition explores connections between earthly life, dreams and transcendence: the death of the artist’s grandmother — a devout woman — provides the emotional core, informing images of prayer, ascent and transformation. Materials such as terracotta and maiolica underscore a relationship with the material world that, through artistic processes, becomes a vehicle for expressing inner experience.

Visitor information

• Venue: Fondazione Memmo, Rome.
• Curator: Alessio Antoniolli.
• Dates: on view until 1 November 2026.
• Exhibition character: introspective, designed to create a space of revelation and contemplative engagement.

The show merges autobiographical elements with broader reflections on loss and transcendence, showing how painting can translate memory and devotion into images that hover between the tangible and the spiritual.