Kufa Makwavarara

Kufa Makwavarara is a Zimbabwean-born contemporary artist based in Cape Town, known for large-scale oil paintings that examine politics, power and everyday African life through satire, symbolism and vivid storytelling.

His densely populated compositions unfold like scenes from an imagined theatre. Political figures, workers, religious leaders and ordinary citizens appear alongside fantastical machines, ceremonial clothing and symbolic objects. Bright colour initially draws the viewer in, but beneath the visual energy lie pointed observations about corruption, inequality, migration, debt, religion and personal freedom.

Makwavarara finds many of his stories by listening to people. Conversations overheard on Cape Town trains—particularly among Zimbabweans discussing life at home and in South Africa—often become the starting point for a painting. He combines these real experiences with an imaginative world developed since childhood, creating contemporary parables that move between humour and unease.

Each scene contains multiple narratives. Figures compete for attention, actions unfold simultaneously and familiar symbols take on unexpected meanings. This visual complexity reflects the social and political systems Makwavarara portrays: systems in which individuals are connected, yet not always equally served.

For Makwavarara, painting is also a way of recording the present. His work gives visibility to people whose experiences may otherwise go unheard and preserves something of contemporary life for future generations.

View original paintings by Kufa Makwavarara for sale through StateoftheART, with worldwide delivery available.

Kufa Makwavarara was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1983 and grew up in the Glen Norah township. His interest in art began early, first experimenting with powder paint at home alongside his brother and later drawing on classroom blackboards. Rather than discouraging him, his teachers recognised his ability and encouraged him to continue. In 1999, Makwavarara won first place for the Zimbabwe–Africa region in the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network art competition on the theme of Olympism, sport and peace. He began exhibiting in 2000 with Gallery Delta and the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. From 2001 to 2003, he studied at the National Gallery School of Visual Art and Design in Harare. At Gallery Delta, he was mentored by influential Zimbabwean artist Helen Lieros, whose support helped him develop his technique and strengthen his commitment to painting.

Makwavarara works primarily in oil on canvas, valuing the medium for its slow drying time and its capacity for building richly detailed surfaces. His compositions are often large and complex, bringing together caricature, traditional symbolism, imagined machinery and elements drawn from contemporary public life. Storytelling is fundamental to his practice. As a child, Makwavarara was fascinated by expansive fictional worlds and epic narratives. He later began combining this imaginative impulse with real stories gathered from the people and circumstances around him. The result is a distinctive form of visual commentary in which recognisable social issues are recast as theatrical, sometimes surreal scenes. His paintings address political and social conditions in both Zimbabwe and South Africa. Subjects include economic hardship, gambling, abuse of power, migration, public health, religious authority and the struggle for individual freedom. Although the work can be sharply critical, humour and visual invention prevent it from becoming purely confrontational. Community and education have also remained important to Makwavarara. Between 2005 and 2008, he volunteered as an art teacher at the Mabvuku Roman Catholic Youth Centre in Zimbabwe under the auspices of the French Embassy. His early achievements include first prize in the German Embassy’s 2009 exhibition Walls for his painting Tarisiro (Looking Forward To) and second prize in a 2012 exhibition organised by the European Union Delegation to Zimbabwe. Two of his paintings are held in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, while other works have entered international private and diplomatic collections.

After moving to Cape Town, Makwavarara continued to build an international exhibition profile. In 2018, he participated in an artist residency connected to Five Bhobh: Painting at the End of an Era at Zeitz MOCAA. The exhibition brought together leading voices in contemporary Zimbabwean painting and ran from 2018 into 2019. His work has also been presented at AKAA – Also Known As Africa in Paris, the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, That Art Fair and galleries in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Germany. In 2022, his paintings were shown alongside those of Richard Mudariki in Observer & Commentator at ARTCO Gallery in Berlin.

Through his paintings, Makwavarara continues to create a visual record of contemporary society—giving form to political debate, lived experience and stories that deserve to be remembered.

Selected Exhibitions/Awards:

How did you start painting?
I started to paint at home. My father bought us some powder paints and me and my brother started to paint, playing with the powder paints. Then in primary school, the teacher gave us paints – watercolours – and I did a painting of a giraffe using watercolours. That is in my memory – that first painting of the giraffe!  Then later she gave us oil paints in high school. I am still using oil now - I fell in love with oil paints. They are easy to paint, they dry slowly. So I started to develop from there.

How do you come up with the ideas and stories of what to paint?
I like to paint and create my own world. Galleries in Zimbabwe in the past told me it is too much my own world - that I'm stuck in my own shell. It is wonderful that I have created this world, but it doesn't relate with other people. The stories were my own stories - kind of like a storybook for children (I have always loved the stories of The Lord of the Rings - those epic ones!)
The other thing helping me with inspiration for my paintings is on the train: hearing stories, listening to groups of people seated on the train and discussing, sometimes it can be social chatting, sometimes it is about their countries. I just listen. People from Zimbabwe get very engaged to talk about the current situation in Zimbabwe and what it is like living in South Africa. Those are stories that inspire me again and again.
My focus is social: the stories I overhear - people are always talking and there are so many stories. It becomes something I use for my art, it inspires me. The people talk about their country, their situation, out in public, on the train. So then when I'm home that story that I heard, that storyline, that inspiration now makes my work. As an artist, I like to meet with real people, real things, real experiences.
In absence of other stories, it just becomes inspiration and sometimes it becomes emotional. I think that art must also be a recording of this current time - for generations to come. So that we can reflect on and think about how do we solve these problems? There are events, things and debates of the current times that need to be recorded.

Do you think art should influence society?
I cannot change people with my art, but I can motivate people to liberate themselves - I would love people to actually liberate themselves in terms of being in the system. To change in a good way, to have more freedom. Or maybe there are only some parts of life where they don't have that freedom - so I want to tell them that they can free themselves in whatsoever they want to be. Freedom in what you want to do in life - in school, in sport - but in a way that is actually good for you and the society and it doesn't harm other people. Be you - if you feel like you just want to wear something colourful, do that. We are all different in a way - we are all creative - but we are different.

Do you have a favourite or most meaningful work of your own?
A long time back, it was the firstborn of this style of work and it was called 'The Visitor'. It was so long ago, in Zimbabwe and it is still one of my favourites. It was about a dwarf coming through from a faraway land. He was also a storyteller - he came as a visitor and then he became a storyteller. That is my favourite work.

What do you do for fun?
As a hobby, I modify small toys - planes or cars and I add on missiles, wheels and other stuff. I take parts from other toys, look for wires to use, putty. Then I paint it so it becomes something new. I get inspiration for my paintings, in terms of shapes, from these toys and changing them.
I also do love to play car games on the TV, sometimes when I’m done with work, or during the night, it is fun.
 
What are your plans and dreams for the future?
I would love to have a studio and art studios for others too. I like working with others in a community, so I would love to develop a place for other artists that don't have a place to work. If they want to work in a place like a studio, they can come there and have their own studio, with accommodation too, because sometimes artists find it difficult to find a place to work. If they could have that place for free – that’s what I want.
My art has always been more for me and my world, but now I feel like I must give back, I must do it for people who don't have freedom, especially like those in Zimbabwe. Also I want to spread the message for them - the oppressed ones, the voiceless... My art is for them; I am doing it for them. So that visually, people can see the other side. I want my art to visually spread the message and stories of people.

 

Read more and watch a short film with Kufa in studio here