Helen Teede
ABOUT
I spent my childhood in the bush in Zimbabwe where I collected pebbles from dry river beds to build worlds, and gathered soil to make paintings. Pigments and soils have a living quality, allowing for a phenomenological visual language. I am interested in the ambivalence where image and material jostle for space in the eye of the viewer: that duck-rabbit moment in painting where sign continually collapses into material and then rebuilds itself as image. That vibration between entropy and reconstitution is what I'm after. The ability of paint as a medium to allow for contradictory meanings suits my interest in the body as a political subject. It is contained but also porous, has capacity for emotion and care but also violence. I begin with a magpie-gathering of texts, images and found objects. 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.