Kudzanai-Violet Hwami was born in Gutu, Zimbabwe in 1993, moving to Manchester, England in 2010. She graduated from Wimbledon College of Arts with a BFA in 2016. Her artistic practice involves experimentation with photography and digital collage techniques and her paintings draw inspiration from her experiences of geographical displacement and dislocation, combining visual elements from a variety of sources, including personal photographs and online images.
Mixed media artist Kudzanai-Violet Hwami was born in Gutu, Zimbabwe in 1993. As a result of political unrest, she relocated with her family to South Africa when she was nine years old. Hwami then moved to Manchester, England in 2010. She graduated from Wimbledon College of Arts with a BFA in 2016, the year she was awarded the Clyde & Co. Award and the Young Achiever of the Year Award at the Zimbabwean International Women’s Awards, as well as being shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries. Hwami's work reflects a deeply personal and evocative vision of life in Southern Africa. Her paintings draw inspiration from her experiences of geographical displacement and dislocation, combining imagery from various sources, including personal photographs and online images, to create a unique visual narrative that blends past and present. Reflecting upon her identity, Hwami has said that ‘With the collapsing of geography and time and space, no longer am I confined in a singular society but simultaneously I am experiencing Zimbabwe and South Africa and the UK, in my mind. I’m in the UK, but I carry those places with me everywhere I go’ (Victoria Miro). Many of Hwami's works include self-portraits and depictions of her immediate and extended family, while others feature nudes that boldly explore themes of black identity, sexuality, gender, and spirituality. Hwami's creative influences range from music genres, such as Zim Heavy and Afrobeats, to literature, including the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Carl Jung.
Her practice involves experimentation with photography and digital collage techniques, using many sources, including online archival images, family photos and vintage pornographic photographs, which she then translates into large works on paper or canvas using intensely pigmented oil paint. She also employs digital editing and layering techniques to combine her selected elements with additional motifs, resulting in compositions that break away from the meanings and assumptions associated with their original context, to create new narratives. Hwami became interested in collage after seeing Robert Rauschenberg’s landmark exhibition at Tate in 2016. She later declared that ‘Looking at his paintings made sense to me. […] I don’t think in a linear way – I often have images and random words running through my mind, which makes it difficult to connect each thought into a coherent paragraph when writing, but in paintings it’s possible’ (Studio International interview). Hwami also incorporates other media and techniques, such as silkscreen, pastel, and charcoal, to create multi-layered compositions that invite the viewer to explore the intricate details and textures of her work. Some of her works directly reference the impact of the internet on the ways individuals interact with information and one another. Using a format reminiscent of the Zoom interface, these pieces feature multiple screens and a range of personalities and voices within a single image. Typically centered around a nude figure, this visual framework explores the topic of conversations that occur around the naked body in today's society. Specifically, these works explore how the body is presented, observed, perceived, received, and judged, as well as how people engage in self-censorship and editing as they navigate new discussions surrounding the concepts of freedom, repression, and self-expression.
Hwami’s first solo exhibition, If You Keep Going South You’ll Meet Yourself was mounted at Tyburn Gallery, London, in 2017, followed by (15,952km) via Trans – Sahara Hwy N1 at Gasworks, London (2019), which explored ‘the distance between places and people geographically, but also psychologically’ (Avant Arte). More recently, When You Need Letters for Your Skin was held at Victoria Miro Gallery, London (2021). Hwami participated in the 58th Venice Biennale within the Zimbabwe Pavilion (2019), the youngest artist to show in the exhibition, returning to the 59th Biennale with her installation The Milk of Dreams in 2022. This work comprised a room filled with floor-to-ceiling black-and-white vinyl photographs, each featuring a single painting accompanied by an audio track. The installation drew inspiration from Zimbabwean sculptor Henry Munyaradzi's masterpiece, The Wedding of the Astronauts (1983–94), a stunning three-sided sculpture carved in soapstone depicting a Shona wedding ceremony. Hwami's paintings represented the scenes depicted in Munyaradzi's work, reflecting her recent travels to Zimbabwe and South Africa, and her recordings of a Bira, a funeral procession ceremony in Zimbabwe. The installation expressed Hwami's interest in magical realism and Afro-Futurism, seamlessly balancing Shona cosmology and Christianity, individuality and community, as well as nature and humanity. Hwami’s series Speaking in Tongues (2019) was a direct reference to Instagram's layout and the concept of shaping one's identity through social media. The imagery for this project was sourced from photographs taken during Hwami's trip to Zimbabwe, including pages copied from Celia Winter-Irving's book, Stone Sculpture in Zimbabwe (1991). Hwami is currently completing an MFA at the Ruskin School of Art at Oxford University. Her work is not currently represented in UK public collections.