TROY MAKAZA
Troy Makaza is one of the most distinctive voices to emerge from the Zimbabwean art scene over the past decade.
A graduate of the National Gallery School of Visual Art and Design (NGSVAD), he studied both painting and sculpture and was mentored by leading Zimbabwean artists including Wycliffe Mundopa, Moffat Takadiwa, and Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude. In April 2024, he represented Zimbabwe at the 60th Venice Biennale.
To merge his passion for painting and sculpture, Makaza developed his own medium: pigment-infused silicone, which he pours, paints, weaves, and knots to create seductive and surreal wall-based works. This material resonates with craft traditions such as weaving and tapestry while allowing a contemporary, innovative visual language. His practice interrogates what contemporary African – and more specifically Zimbabwean – art can be: a paradigm that is globally compelling yet shaped by local realities.
Over the past nine years, Makaza’s work has evolved into a deeply personal mode of expression, both visceral and philosophical. It reflects his perspective as a young Zimbabwean engaged with the nation’s political realities and daily life, as well as his position as a millennial navigating a globalised world.
By defying conventional formal boundaries, Makaza’s sculptures conceptualise a reconciliation of divergent cultural, historical, and political ideologies, both within Zimbabwe and internationally. Despite their conceptual depth, the works retain a playful spirit, drawing on pop culture, traditional Zimbabwean symbolism, local cuisine, and global art history to form synthetic landscapes where colour, form, and texture serve aesthetic and symbolic purposes.
Makaza has become a leading figure in the contemporary art scenes of Zimbabwe and South Africa, with an increasingly international profile. He received the 2019 Investec Cape Town Art Fair Tomorrows/Today Prize, and his work has been shown in London, Milan, Marrakech (MACAAL), Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium (Norway), San Francisco (Evergold Projects), and at major fairs including Art Basel Miami Beach, Paris+ par Art Basel, Frieze (No. 9 Cork Street), Art Joburg, and ARCOmadrid.
In 2024, his work featured in the inaugural exhibition of the Museum of Sufi Art and Culture in the Paris region. That year he also completed a residency at La Ferme du Buisson (Noisiel) through the Institut français PAIR programme, following his earlier residency at the Fondation Blachère.
