This work has been kindly donated by the artist

Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude’s colour-rich, figurative paintings use comedy to reflect on identity, politics and🐼 consumer culture. He believes his comedic perspective is typical of being Zimbabwean, where proverbs, myths and slang help one survive in a place where the personal and political are painfully intertwined. Nyaude processes these inner and outer conflicts using various symbolic devices and bold, colourful gestures. His work is coded with references to Zimbabwe’s history of painting as well as its popular and political culture, an act of defiance in the context of a country often marginalised and misunderstood.

Strength of Character (2022) is a p༺ersonal response to Hamlet’s “To be or not to be?” As per the Shakespearean trope, the painting depicts a skull beside a bottle of poison, which a skeleton contemplates, raising the question of what it means to choose life (or death) in fragile or turbulent circumstances. The artwork also references the tradition of the memento mori from antiquity to the contemporary.