Bulelwa Madekurozwa

Bulelwa Madekurozwa (born 1972) is a Zambian-born Zimbabwean painter and printmaker.

Career Madekurozwa was born in 1972. She studied at Harare Polytechnic in Zimbabwe where she later joined the faculty. Madekurozwa has linked the frequency of docile women in Zimbabwean art to the interests of foreign buyers who often want and expect to buy stereotypical depictions of Africa, which local artists in turn feel pressured to produce. She explained in a 1998 interview with the Inter Press Service that: "If you don't sell, you don't live, you don't eat. A lot of the time you don't produce what you would like to. And that gives foreigners a lot of power over what Zimbabwean art is."

In 1997, Madekurozwa participated in a faculty exchange program with Virginia Commonwealth University. Two years later she held a residency at Gasworks Gallery in London where she created work that focused on the "relationship between men and women and between the private and the public."

Work Madekurozwa's work was described in The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts as "articulat[ing] the conflict between societal expectations, gender stereotyping, and personal needs." Of the same painting, Carol Magee notes that "broad brushstrokes helps to create emotional energy, dynamism and tension, as does her use of rich, dark colours."

Personal life In 1995, Madekurozwa publicly identified herself as a lesbian.

Exhibitions Contemporary art in Zimbabwe. Amsterdam: Artoteek Amsterdam Zuidoost, 1998.

Awards and nominations Painting Award at the 1st Biennial of Visual Arts by Women in Zimbabwe (1997) Mobil Overall Award of Distinction (1997)