Helen Teede
ABOUT
I grew up in Zimbabwe collecting plants, pebbles and soil for paintings. Now I use raw pigment and plant dyes in my work, applied in fluid washes to make dream-like, expansive paintings. I am interested in colour and materiality as languages specific to painting. Pigment has a living quality that lends itself well to my phenomenological approach, rooted in observation of the world around me. My canvases shift between abstraction and figuration in search of that duck-rabbit moment where sign collapses into material and then rebuilds itself as image. My research is two-fold: on on hand, I am interested in the body and landscape as political, culturally produced subjects. On the other hand, I am committed to the chthonic narrative quality of painting that eschews any kind of linguistic explanation. Throughout my practice, I pursue a conversation with the present through materiality, the past through art history, and the conscious and unconscious threads that connect painting with life.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026
— Relics, First Floor Gallery: Harare, Zimbabwe
2023
— Cocoon, First Floor Gallery: Harare, Zimbabwe
2022
— Ce la Faremo, Tong Advisory Soho Salon: New York, USA
2021
— Artemisia, First Floor Gallery Harare: Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
2019
— Bare Limbs, First Floor Gallery Harare: Harare, Zimbabwe
2018
— Without Breaking Anything, Matter Gallery: Toronto, Canada
2017
— Unhomed, Showcase Gallery: Dubai, U.A.E
2016
— It is the Without, First Floor Gallery Harare: Harare, Zimbabwe
2015
— The Material Presence of the Past, Showcase Gallery: Dubai, U.A.E.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
— Taona, 3-person show, First Floor Gallery and Schwartzman & Projects: New York, USA
2024
— Kuvhunura: l’Ecole d’Harare, Fondation Blachere, Bonniex, France
— 58, PM/AM Gallery, London, UK
— TEARS: The Final Show, the Tracey Emin Foundation, TKE Studios: Margate, United Kingdom
— Landscape, Alice Folker Gallery: Copenhagen, Denmark
2023
— TEARS Summer Show, the Tracey Emin Foundation, TKE Studios: Margate, United Kingdom
2022
— See You Through It, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, Worcester, MA, USA
— In the Zone, Alice Folker Gallery: Copenhagen, Denmark
— If you Will it, It is not a Dream: Zimbabwean Women Artists in Focus, Artemisia Art Advisory: Harare, Zimbabwe
— The Norval Sovereign African Art Prize finalist exhibition, The Norval Foundation: Cape Town, South Africa
2021
— Running – The New Contemporary, Qingdao Art Museum: Shanghai, PRC.
— Ubuntu: I Am Because We Are, with the Africana Foundation at the World Trade Centre: Geneva, Switzerland
— Paris Internationale, Artemisia Nova, solo presentation with First Floor Gallery Harare: Paris, France
— I Draw Therefore I Think, South South and First Floor Gallery Harare, Online and in Harare, Zimbabwe
— House Parté, Carlye Packer: Palm Springs, Los Angeles, USA
— Mundopa, Makaza, Rizhi, Teede, Tong Advisory Soho Salon: New York, USA
— Allegory and Intent, three person show, Nomad Gallery: Brussels, Belgium
2020
— Body Language, two-person show, Nomad Gallery: Brussels, Belgium
— Level: Mosi-oa-Tunya, First Floor Gallery Harare: Victoria Falls, Zimbabw
2019
— Interceptions, Matter Galery: Toronto, Canada
2018
— Five Bobh, survey of contemporary Zimbabwean art, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art: Cape Town, South Africa
2017
— Another Antipodes: Urban Axis, First Floor Gallery Harare and Another Antipodes Inc., PS Art Space: Perth, Australia
2016
— Harare: Mwandiambira + Tuazeni + Teede, three-person show, Hazard Gallery: Johannesburg, South Africa
2014
— Modern Painting, Kalk Bay Modern: Cape Town, South Africa
— Scripts of our Unspoken Words, Showcase Gallery: Dubai, U.A.E.
2013
— Greatest Hits of 2012, AVA Gallery: Cape Town, South Africa
RESIDENCIES AND GRANTS
2024
— Arts Council England Grant: Developing your creative practice, UK
2023/4
— Tracey Emin Art Residency, Margate, UK.
2018
— Africa First Residency, Tel Aviv, Israel.