Artists

Wallen Mapondera is a multidisciplinary artist whose sculptural, painted, and installation-based works examine the social, political, and environmental conditions of contemporary Zimbabwe. He is best known for his intricately composed wall-based reliefs made from cardboard, textiles, and other discarded materials, which he arranges into densely tessellated abstract surfaces. These repurposed materials serve as visual metaphors for displacement, marginalization, and the precariousness of urban life, while his figurative drawings and paintings—often incorporating zoomorphic and anthropomorphic motifs—address themes of power, hierarchy, and corruption.

Mapondera received formal training at the National Gallery School of Visual Art and Design in Harare (2005–2007), participated in the National Gallery of Zimbabwe Artist-in-Residence Programme in 2007, and later completed his Master of Fine Art at Rhodes University in Makhanda, South Africa, in 2019. He has been awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center in the United States (2012) and Atelier Mondial in Basel, Switzerland (2018–2019). In recognition of his contributions to Zimbabwean contemporary art, he received the prestigious National Arts Merit Award from the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe in 2015.

Mapondera has presented numerous solo exhibitions internationally, including Chikokoko (Little Pleasures That Count) at Galerie Mitterrand, Paris (2022); multiple exhibitions at SMAC Gallery in Cape Town and Johannesburg (2017–2025); Emergency Exit at Tyburn Gallery, London (2018); Samusha Weiri Dongo at SMAC Gallery, Johannesburg (2018); Moving Target at SMAC Gallery, Cape Town (2019); Shungu Madanha at Atelier Mondial, Basel (2018); and Turning Tables at the Vermont Studio Center (2012). In 2023, he presented a solo booth in the Discoveries section at Art Basel Hong Kong, following earlier solo presentations at The Armory Show (2022) and Art Basel OVR: Miami Beach (2020).

His work has been included in significant group exhibitions such as Five Bhobh: Painting at the End of an Era at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town (2018–2019); Between Borders at Museum Arnhem, The Netherlands (2023); Mother Lode: Material and Memory at James Cohen Gallery/Galerie Mitterrand, New York (2024); Gather II at SMAC Gallery, Cape Town (2024); The Regional at CAC Cincinnati and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (2021–2022); Art Brussels (2022); 1–54 Contemporary African Art Fair (2019); and earlier presentations in Australia, Germany, France, and Zimbabwe. In 2022, Mapondera represented Zimbabwe at the 59th Venice Biennale in the exhibition I Did Not Leave a Sign?, curated by Fadzai Muchemwa.

Mapondera currently lives and works in Grahamstown (Makhanda), South Africa, continuing a practice that transforms ordinary materials into complex, layered meditations on memory, community, and the shifting structures of contemporary Zimbabwean life.