Misheck Masamvu, 1980
Biography

Misheck Masamvu was born in 1980 in Penhalonga, Zimbabwe, part of the country's first generation to come of age after independence. He studied under Helen Lieros at Gallery Delta in Harare before training at the Kunstakademie in Munich, where he initially worked in a realist style.

Masamvu's mature practice moved toward an expressionist mode of bold, gestural brushwork and vivid colour, oscillating between abstraction and figuration. His paintings, drawings and sculptures address the political and economic turmoil of post-independence Zimbabwe, using discomfort as a tool to hold his audience close to his subjects' lived experience.

He represented Zimbabwe at the 54th Venice Biennale and has exhibited at the Dakar Biennale, the São Tomé and Príncipe Biennale, Zeitz MOCAA and the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, with work held in major institutional and private collections internationally.