‘Looking into this modern day time... young people are fused with so many cultures, within the urban spaces, so we tend to forget what moves us as people, as shona people, and Zimbabweans, so digging back is what I am really focused on.’

– OPTION DZIKAMAI NYAHUNZVI

Christie’s and the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) in Nigeria are collaborating to raise funds for MOWAA and its initiatives to create a cultural ecosystem in Benin City, based on the art of the past, present and future. A number of artists have generously agreed to donate original works of art to the auction, including Yinka Shonibare, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Lakwena Maciver and Victor Ehikhamenor. Proceeds from the sale of the works will go towards MOWAA initiatives including the presentation of the Nigeria Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, 2024—commissioned by the Governor of Edo State and also curated by Aindrea Emelife—and the 20-acre Creative Campus, including the Rainforest Gallery. Designed by the Dakar-based architecture firm Worofila, the Rainforest Gallery will be dedicated to showcasing Modern and Contemporary art, as well as historic exhibitions.

Option Dzikamai Nyahunzvi is a Zimbabwe-born artist whose works focus on themes of spirituality and ancestry, both central to his Shona culture. He has developed a distinct visual language: his works are recognisable for their layers of Fabriano paper, which Nyahunzvi pastes directly onto the canvas and removes in strips to make etching-like lines. Nyahunzvi picked up this technique when training in printmaking at the National Gallery School of Visual Arts in Zimbabwe, and it holds metaphorical significance in a practice he relates to ‘shaking or peeling off certain burdens and obstacles to progress in life’. A frequent feature in Nyahunzvi’s work is the zebra motif, which he considers a connecting totem between himself and his ancestors: the zebra is an ode to his culture and reinforces the importance of traditional story-telling and mythology. Many of his subjects are rendered on an unconventional scale, creating a flattened perspective that causes no line or object to be emphasised above another. This gives the viewer agency of focus: the choice of where to place their attention.

Nyahunzvi’s most recent body of work demonstrates his skill as both a painter and a printmaker. His dexterity with texture and contrasting colours give his works a characterful, layered quality which reveals itself slowly, and then all at once. Nyahunzvi’s work has been exhibited widely in his native Harare, as well as in Europe and America. He mounted his debut London solo exhibition in 2021.