Mavis Tauzeni
Born 1982 in Mutoko, Zimbabwe. Lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe
Like many of my peers Harare I trained at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe Visual Art Studio, which I completed in 2009 specialising in printmaking and painting, and which continue to be my main media.
Working on canvas and on paper, my goal as an artist is to make work inviting viewers to be immersed in the unsettling stillness of introspection and waters that run deep. My work is deeply personal with imagery, which oscillates between the surreal, futuristic and dreamy. While figuration floats in and out of my work, I treat it conceptually rather than representationally. Despite intimacy and other worldliness, it is nonetheless a social commentary, speaking implicitly and explicitly to the difficulties of being a woman and a woman artist with an independent and individual journey. Although I am speaking to the realities of my life in Zimbabwe, I hope and believe that the sentiments engendered in my work are immediately empathetic, not only to women but to all of us yearning to break out of convention and social expectation. While I am deeply conscious of feminism and gender in my work, my practice is broader than the issues generally addressed in gender activist art. I firmly believe that the idea that being a contemporary artist means does not mean a break with all traditional values. In my practice I assert the right to be a woman on my own terms and those terms include respect for family and tradition, the right to demand intimacy, privacy where they are needed and to speak softly when I want to. And while it has in some ways meant sacrifices in the speed of career progression, it has unequivocally meant not sacrificing my integrity and personal values.
My work has been selected to take part in National Gallery of Zimbabwe Annual exhibition in 2014 and 2015, I have taken part in Women speak out group exhibition at Fondation Blachère Arts Centre Apt (Christine Eyene, curator), in 2017 my work was included Another Antipodes/urban axix, PS Art Space, Fremantle, Australia. In 2022 I presented a solo project as part of Tomorrow’s Today curated section at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair as well as a solo exhibition at Chinatown Taylor’s in Los Angeles. My work is in the Fondation Blachère as well as Rubell Family Collection among others.
Recent Exhibitions
2024: Only what is revealed can be known (Group Exhibition), National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
2023: Paper Weight (Group Exhibition), First Floor Gallery Harare, Harare, Zimbabwe
2023: Free Spirit (with Grace Nyahangare and Simhle Plaatjies), Oop Lagos, Milik, Lagos, Nigeria
2023: It is Reality! solo exhibition, First Floor Gallery Harare, Harare, Zimbabwe
2023: Messe Messe (Group Exhibition), First Floor Gallery Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
2022: Pachedu (Among Ourselves), Half Gallery, New York, United States
2022: Chinatown Taylor’s: Vaanhingirkii (You can’t remember but you won’t forget) , Los Angeles, United States
2022: Tomorrows/Today (solo), Investec Cape Town Art Fair, First Floor Gallery Harare, Cape Town, South Africa
Like many of my peers Harare I trained at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe Visual Art Studio, which I completed in 2009 specialising in printmaking and painting, and which continue to be my main media.
Working on canvas and on paper, my goal as an artist is to make work inviting viewers to be immersed in the unsettling stillness of introspection and waters that run deep. My work is deeply personal with imagery, which oscillates between the surreal, futuristic and dreamy. While figuration floats in and out of my work, I treat it conceptually rather than representationally. Despite intimacy and other worldliness, it is nonetheless a social commentary, speaking implicitly and explicitly to the difficulties of being a woman and a woman artist with an independent and individual journey. Although I am speaking to the realities of my life in Zimbabwe, I hope and believe that the sentiments engendered in my work are immediately empathetic, not only to women but to all of us yearning to break out of convention and social expectation. While I am deeply conscious of feminism and gender in my work, my practice is broader than the issues generally addressed in gender activist art. I firmly believe that the idea that being a contemporary artist means does not mean a break with all traditional values. In my practice I assert the right to be a woman on my own terms and those terms include respect for family and tradition, the right to demand intimacy, privacy where they are needed and to speak softly when I want to. And while it has in some ways meant sacrifices in the speed of career progression, it has unequivocally meant not sacrificing my integrity and personal values.
My work has been selected to take part in National Gallery of Zimbabwe Annual exhibition in 2014 and 2015, I have taken part in Women speak out group exhibition at Fondation Blachère Arts Centre Apt (Christine Eyene, curator), in 2017 my work was included Another Antipodes/urban axix, PS Art Space, Fremantle, Australia. In 2022 I presented a solo project as part of Tomorrow’s Today curated section at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair as well as a solo exhibition at Chinatown Taylor’s in Los Angeles. My work is in the Fondation Blachère as well as Rubell Family Collection among others.
Recent Exhibitions
2024: Only what is revealed can be known (Group Exhibition), National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
2023: Paper Weight (Group Exhibition), First Floor Gallery Harare, Harare, Zimbabwe
2023: Free Spirit (with Grace Nyahangare and Simhle Plaatjies), Oop Lagos, Milik, Lagos, Nigeria
2023: It is Reality! solo exhibition, First Floor Gallery Harare, Harare, Zimbabwe
2023: Messe Messe (Group Exhibition), First Floor Gallery Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
2022: Pachedu (Among Ourselves), Half Gallery, New York, United States
2022: Chinatown Taylor’s: Vaanhingirkii (You can’t remember but you won’t forget) , Los Angeles, United States
2022: Tomorrows/Today (solo), Investec Cape Town Art Fair, First Floor Gallery Harare, Cape Town, South Africa
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