Zimbabwean artist Tamary Kudita explores the representation of African identity through photography. Her sophisticated portraits are full of symbolic references, bringing to life a world between reality and imagination through the use of a visual language that borrows from both Africa and the West.
Duality is at the heart of Tamary Kudita‘s identity, as she is descended from the Shona people of Zimbabwe as well as from a white ancestor, a commissioner of the Anglo-Boer war. This dual heritage provides nourishment for her reflection on the identity and contemporary lives of Zimbabweans cast by the shadow of the colonial past. It also has a profound impact on the visual language that she continues to develop.
African Victorian, her first series, has its origins in Rembrandt’s painting “Saskia as Flora”, depicting the painter’s wife as the goddess Flora. By recontextualising the subject in Africa, the artist questions “the image of the black woman in Western art and what it means to place an African woman in the realm of art history”.
To design the dresses worn by the models, Tamary Kudita worked with designer Angeline Dlamini on the idea of introducing a Victorian silhouette into the African context. The opulent garments born of this collaboration, which appropriate a Western visual canon by recontextualising it with textiles from African culture, give hyper-visibility to bodies that have been invisible. They convey an image of the assertive, independent African woman, anchored in her cultural roots.
The artist considers herself “a visual activist who uses the camera as a tool” to combat conventional and stereotypical representations of black people, particularly those stemming from colonial photography. Her portraits pay tribute to the creativity and resilience of the Zimbabwean people, bringing to light stories that have been forgotten, erased or rendered invisible by the official narrative.
Tamary Kudita refines her portraits down to the smallest details, seeking to convey the character of her subjects through each of the elements that go to make up her composition, including the clothes and hairstyles of her models, the objects that surround them and, in the case of outdoor shots, the choice of environment. All of these ‘signifiers’ reinforce the narrative aspect of her images and imbue them with a strong symbolic value.
Her most recent series, Birds of Paradise, continues this exploration. Conceived as a tribute to the men and women of Zimbabwe, these portraits of ordinary people honour their stories and seek to give them a voice through art.
Tamary Kudita
Tamary Kudita, born in 1994 in Zimbabwe, graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art (University of Cape Town) in 2017. She won the Open Photographer of the Year 2021 at the Sony World Photography Awards and exhibits internationally (Art Basel Miami, Royal Photographic Society), and also features in prestigious collections such as the Fitchburg Art Museum, attracting international media attention.
For more information:
View Tamary Kudita’s biography, video interview and portfolio on the Artistics website.
