Troy Makaza will represent Zimbabwe at the upcoming 60th International Venice Biennale in Italy from 20 April 2024 to 24 November 2024.
The other artists are Gillian Rosselli, Sekai Machache, Victor Nyakauru, Moffat Takadiwa and Kombo Chapfika.
This will be Zimbabwe’s seventh consecutive staging of the show, a successful streak for an African country at this world-renowned platform.
Having specialized in painting in art school, Troy Makaza has always been interested in form and texture, Makaza decided to develop his own hybrid medium which would enable him to unite his artistic goals.
Through experimentation, Makaza arrived at silicone a material which can be cast, painted with as well as woven and tied. Since joining First Floor Gallery Harare in 2015, Makaza’s works progressively developed as an opportunity to speak both viscerally and philosophically to the issues Makaza finds compelling as a young Zimbabwean concerned with politics, history and power and their impact on daily lives of ordinary people as well as a globally engaged millennial. Resonating with traditional modes like weaving and tapestry but unequivocally contemporary, Makaza’s works articulate the conversation of what African and uniquely Zimbabwean contemporary can be – a paradigm internationally engaging and locally compelling.
Makaza’s works has received early critical and collector acclaim, taking part in the 2018 survey of Zimbabwean contemporary art at Zeitz MoCAA, solo presentation in Art Basel Miami Beach, winning the Tomorrows/Today prize at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair in 2019, joining institutional collections such as Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden in Marrakech, Museo Fico Turin, Rollins College museum collection and noted private collections like Jorge Perez collection in Miami and Beth De Woody Rubin’s The Bunker in Palm Beach.
Moffat Takadiwa lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe. Part of the post-independence generation
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