From 17 to 22 October 2025, PIASA’s elegant 18th-century mansion at 118 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris will host Quiet Grounds: Tyburn Foundation Residencies 2025, a landmark group exhibition presented by the Tyburn Foundation during Art Basel Paris week. This inaugural showcase celebrates the achievements of four African artists—Primrose Panashe Chingandu, Driaan Claassen, Michele Mathison, and Mbali Tshabalala—whose practices were nurtured through residencies in Italy and Zimbabwe earlier this year.
Founded in early 2025 by collector and former gallerist Emma Menell, the Tyburn Foundation builds on the legacy of Tyburn Gallery, which established itself as a vital platform for African art between 2015 and 2019. The Foundation continues this legacy with a not-for-profit model, emphasizing tailored, long-term support over the fast pace of the commercial art market. Its mission is to create opportunities for early and mid-career artists from Africa to grow, experiment, and find visibility on a global stage.
Residencies as Catalysts for Creative Growth
The works in Quiet Grounds emerge from two distinct residency frameworks. In Italy, artists were hosted at La Foce in Umbria’s Niccone Valley and at Civitella Ranieri, a 15th-century castle that brings together visual artists, composers, and writers in a historic setting. In Zimbabwe, the Foundation partnered with Animal Farm Artist Residency in Chitungwiza, founded in 2013 by artist Admire Kamudzengerere, to provide a community-focused environment where collaboration and experimentation thrive.
These residencies served as catalysts for artistic growth, offering the artists both solitude and dialogue. They allowed participants to test new mediums, reconnect with cultural roots, and respond to landscapes that carried their own layered histories. The resulting works demonstrate how residency contexts can transform artistic practices, leading to discoveries that might not emerge in traditional studio settings.
Michele Mathison: Symbolism and Ecological Narratives
Michele Mathison, a South African artist raised in Zimbabwe and now based in Cape Town, used his time at La Foce to explore the layered meanings of place and ecology. His bronze sculpture Perch reimagines the African fish eagle, a bird that carries rich symbolic weight across Southern Africa. Found on national emblems of Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Sudan, the eagle stands as a messenger between realms, embodying both endurance and ecological harmony.
By reworking this form, Mathison continues his broader practice of transforming everyday and iconic objects into meditative sculptures that disrupt Eurocentric narratives. He pairs this work with Verso il Cielo, a large-scale public installation inspired by Umbria’s stillness and connection to the sky. Mathison’s trajectory has been marked by international recognition: he represented Zimbabwe at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 and has exhibited at Frieze Sculpture, WHATIFTHEWORLD in Cape Town, and Tyburn Gallery in London. His works reside in collections including the Norval Foundation and Zeitz MOCAA.
Driaan Claassen: Exploring Consciousness Through New Mediums
At Civitella Ranieri, Driaan Claassen—a South African sculptor based in Cape Town—pushed his practice into new territory. Known for his explorations of consciousness and the psyche through sculpture, Claassen embraced painting for the first time during his fellowship. The resulting works combine layered expanses of color with sketch-like lines and dripping pigment, creating a dialogue between movement and stillness, abstraction and form.
These paintings resonate with Claassen’s sculptural sensibility, echoing his fascination with materiality and emotional depth. They also mark a bold expansion of his visual language, connecting his past works—such as Complex Systems(THK Gallery, 2023) and Forms of Silence (AIYA Bureau, 2022)—to a new horizon of expression. His residency underscores the Foundation’s commitment to offering artists space for risk-taking and transformation.
Primrose Panashe Chingandu: Weaving Identity and Presence
In Zimbabwe, Primrose Panashe Chingandu experienced a period of renewal at Animal Farm. Surrounded by peers and mentors, she immersed herself in printmaking while exploring the interplay between personal narrative and cultural symbolism. Her layered compositions reflect her ongoing inquiry into identity, purpose, and presence, each piece carrying the spiritual resonance of her immediate context.
Chingandu, born in Harare in 1998, has already established herself as a promising talent. A graduate of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe School of Visual Arts (2023–24), she was awarded first place in the 2024 Printmaking Competition for Emerging Artists and has exhibited at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and the U.S. Embassy in Harare. Her contributions to Quiet Grounds highlight her position as a rising voice in Zimbabwe’s dynamic contemporary art scene.
Mbali Tshabalala: A Multidisciplinary Response to Place
Johannesburg-based Mbali Tshabalala also deepened her practice at Animal Farm, where she began with printmaking and quickly expanded into multiple disciplines. Her new works incorporate clay pigment painting, woodblock, collage, photography, and ink, drawing inspiration from Zimbabwe’s vibrant markets, sunsets, and social rhythms. Her palette shifted toward earthy tones, reflecting the environment’s textures while addressing themes of taboo, ritual, and resilience.
Tshabalala’s body of work resonates with her longstanding engagement with African womanhood, memory, and urban identity in postcolonial contexts. A graduate of Tshwane University of Technology, she has curated and exhibited widely, with works in collections such as JPMorgan Chase, the National Art Bank, and the Nando’s Collection. Through her residency, Tshabalala adds new dimensions to her practice, creating works that embody both ancestral invocation and contemporary urban resilience.
PIASA: A Prestigious Venue for a New Foundation
The decision to debut the Foundation’s first exhibition at PIASA underscores its ambition to position African artists at the center of global dialogues. Since its founding in 1996, PIASA has built a reputation for forward-thinking presentations of modern and contemporary art. Its location in Paris’s Golden Triangle, a district synonymous with luxury and cultural sophistication, provides a symbolic stage for Tyburn’s vision.
Quiet Grounds will be open daily from 10h to 18h, with a special late-night opening on Monday, 20 October, from 18h to 22h. Visitors are invited to join the celebration at 19h, where the participating artists and Foundation team will gather to mark the occasion.
Tyburn Foundation’s Vision
The Tyburn Foundation’s mission extends beyond exhibitions. By investing in residencies and long-term artist relationships, it seeks to foster a nurturing ecosystem where experimentation and dialogue can flourish. Partnerships with institutions such as Civitella Ranieri and Animal Farm allow the Foundation to offer diverse residency experiences, each grounded in context and community.
As founder Emma Menell has emphasized, the Foundation’s goal is to create sustained opportunities for artists to grow outside commercial pressures, while ensuring their work contributes meaningfully to society. Quiet Grounds thus represents not only the culmination of a year of residencies but also the beginning of a broader journey toward building an international community of mutual support for African artists.
For inquiries, contact Sophie Campos at sophie@sophiecampos.com or +44 (0)7917115678. Visit www.tyburnfoundation.org or follow @tyburnfoundation on social media for updates.
Quiet Grounds: Tyburn Foundation Residencies 2025 promises to be a landmark exhibition, marking the arrival of a new foundation dedicated to shaping the future of African art on a global stage.
