Masimba Hwati was born in 1982 in Harare, Zimbabwe. Hwati currently lives and works in Michigan, USA. Hwati graduated from the Harare Polytechnic in 2003, and has continued to live and work in the capital city. In 2017 he obtained a Certificate in Building Indigenous Knowledge Systems for Development at Coady International Institute, St Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Canada. Hwati recently completed his Master’s degree in Fine Art from the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, which culminated in a MFA thesis exhibition titled Dry Socks in a Submerged Canoe at Stamps Gallery in Ann Arbour, Michigan in 2019.

In 2016 Hwati was the winner of the Cape Town Art Fair’s curated Special Projects Section: Tomorrows/Today. In 2015 he participated in the Zimbabwean Cultural Centre of Detroit (ZCCD) Artist Exchange programme, partnered with the Witt Visiting Artist Program at the Stamp School of Art and Design in Michigan. Solo exhibitions include Sokunge / As if at SMAC Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2019; Instruments of Memory / Simbi dzeNdangariro at SMAC Gallery in Stellenbosch in 2016; don’t worry be happy, part of Tomorrows/Today for the Special Project Section at the Cape Town Art Fair in 2016; Quantumlogik at Gallery Delta in Zimbabwe in 2014 and Facsimiles of Energy in 2011, also at Gallery Delta in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Group exhibitions include: Matereality, a group exhibition at Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town in 2020; From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-Face Picasso, Past and Present at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art’s (MMFA) exhibition and Contemporary Art for Schools, at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, both in 2018; Pixels Of Ubuntu/Unhu, curated by Raphael Chikukwa for the Zimbabwean Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, in 2015; Trek – Following Journeys at SMAC Gallery in Cape Town in 2015; Between the Sheets: 2012 Artists’ Books Exhibition at Gallery East in North Freemantle, Australia in 2012; Colour Africa: Zeitgenössische Kunst Aus Simbabwe at the Kulturallmende in Munich, Germany; and Food for Thought at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, both in 2011. In 2017, Hwati was the featured artist for SMAC Gallery’s presentation at Art Brussels in Brussels, Belgium.