Kudzanai-Violet Hwami
In episode 75 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews one of the most exciting young painters working today, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami !!!!\n\n[This episode is brought to you by Alighieri jewellery: www.alighieri.co.uk | use the code TGWA at checkout for 10% off!]\n\nBorn in Zimbabwe and raised between there, South Africa, and the UK, Hwami is fast becoming one of the leading artists of her generation. Having received her BA from Wimbledon College of Arts, where she was shortlisted for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries, among many other prizes; this year, Hwami completed an MFA at the Ruskin School of Art at Oxford University. \n\nIn 2019, she represented her country of birth at the 58th Venice Biennale alongside three artists, and in the same year had her first institutional solo show at Gasworks in London called (15,952km) via Trans \u2013 Sahara Highway N1. \n\nRich in colour, subject, and scale, Hwami\u2019s exuberant and vivid paintings of self-portraits and her extended family draw on the artist\u2019s autobiographical history. Sourced from images ranging from the internet to family photo albums, they explore representations of the black body, along with notions of sexuality, gender and spirituality.\n\nExperimenting with photography and digitally collaged images, and often incorporating other media such as silkscreen, pastel or charcoal, Hwami\u2019s bold painting\u2019s offer an insight into a deeply personal world, whilst also appearing universal and familiar; the artist has said, \u2018with 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\u2019m in the UK, but I carry those places with me everywhere I go.\u2019\n\nBut the reason why we are speaking with Kudzanai-Violet today is because she is currently the subject of and featured in two of my favourite exhibitions up in London right now: the Hayward Gallery\u2019s painting show \u201cMixing it Up\u201d and her solo exhibition, \u201cwhen you need letters for your skin\u201d at Victoria Miro Gallery, a show i found utterly spellbinding with its poignant, personal and raw paintings -- painting she describes as \u201cvisual letters\u201d.\n\nhttps://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/240-kudzanai-violet-hwami/\nhttps://www.gasworks.org.uk/exhibitions/kudzanai-violet-hwami-2019-09-19/\nhttps://www.instagram.com/mwana.wevhu/?hl=en\n\n\nLISTEN NOW\xa0+ ENJOY!!!\nFollow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel\nSound editing by\xa0Nada Smiljanic\nResearch assistant: Viva Ruggi\nArtwork by @thisisaliceskinner\nMusic by Ben Wetherfield\n\nhttps://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/