Portia Zvavahera (b. 1985, Harare, Zimbabwe) draws from dreams to create fantastical paintings that evoke moments of transition and transcendence. Zvavahera’s work merges painting and printmaking techniques with motifs and patterns from Zimbabwean textile designs into vibrant and layered compositions. For the artist, the act of painting is akin to an act of worship. Zvavahera was raised in the traditions of African Pentecostalism, and across her work she engages with her Christian faith in equal measure to animistic cosmologies. The scenes she paints conjure worlds glimpsed in her dreams. Her figures commune with spirits, animals, and angels, and protective comforts and nightmares collide in otherworldly, stirring unions. For the ICA, her first solo museum exhibition in the U.S., Zvavahera is presenting a selection of recent paintings centered on the theme of animals, considering how they populate her work as well as the collective imagination.