Virginia Chihota
Introspective in nature, Virginia Chihota's work is deeply influenced by personal experiences - landmark and everyday. In a reflection on intimacy and the human figure, she has addressed themes such as childbearing, childrearing, marriage, kinship, bereavement and faith. At once mundane and transcendental, rife with allusions to everyday life, and religious and folkloric symbolism, her large works on paper display a raw, expressionist verve and a striking grace in the elaborate use of patterns, textures and layers. Having trained as a printmaker, Chihota’s use of screen-printing is as confident as it is original. She mixes printing techniques with drawing to produce unique works of striking formal complexity. They often depict the female form blending into near abstraction, and bodies caught in strange embraces evoking a figural union; along with an iconographic repertoire which points towards the domestic whilst emphasising connectedness and collectivity. Chihota's work highlights the ways in which the female agency disrupts borders and activates concerns around different forms of belonging. Subjectivity emerges as a concept embedded in notions of interrelatedness.
Virginia Chihota was born in 1983 in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe and currently lives and works in New York, USA. She graduated in Fine Arts from the National Art Gallery Studios in Harare, Zimbabwe in 2006. Chihota represented Zimbabwe at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 and was awarded the Prix Canson in the same year. In 2021, her works were commissioned by the Opéra National de Paris, France for Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida.
Recent exhibitions include: As Feeling Births Idea, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (group - 2024); Chibereko Chakaramba Kuudzirwa (The Womb Refused To Be Told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (solo - 2023); 35th Ljubljana Biennale, Ljubljana, Slovenia (group - 2023); I See You, Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos, Nigeria (group - 2022); The Norval Sovereign African Art Prize Finalists Exhibition, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa (group - 2022); Whose Am I? I Am Not My Own (Ndiri Waani? Handisi Muridi Wangu), Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (solo - 2021); Uri Mwana Wani? (Whose Child Are you?), National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare (solo - 2019); Virginia Chihota, ULUCG Artists’ Pavilion, Montenegro (solo - 2019); Mhamha, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (solo - 2019); Ultrasanity. On Madness, Sanitation, Antipsychiatry And Resistance, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany (group - 2019); Close: Drawn Portraits, The Drawing Room, London, UK (group - 2018); The E-qualities of Women, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe (group - 2018).
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Chivimbiso (The promise), 2023
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Ndakabvaruka asi ndakabva ndapora (I was torn but healed), 2023
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Chivimbiso (The promise), 2022
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Sarai ndaenda (So long I am leaving), 2022
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Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), 2021
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Nharo Dzakanyarara (a quiet resistance), 2021
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Zvandakabara ndinoda (what i gave birth to i love), 2021
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Kana kuterera kuchikuda chibairo ndiani achagamuchira chibairo”When obedience is better than sacrifice who will accept the the sacrifice , 2019
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Ndiri Mwana Wa... (I am a child of...), 2018
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Ndiri Mwana Wa...(I am a child of...), 2018
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Ndiri Mwana Wa.... (I am a child of ....), 2018
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Kumira Mutariro (Waiting in Faith), 2017
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NGZ executive director Raphael Chikukwa graces 35th edition of the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts in Slovenia
Zimbabwe Independent, October 19, 2023 -
Celeberating 20 years of Frieze London with 20 Frieze London and Frieze Masters picks
Paul Laster, White Hot Magazine, October 17, 2023 -
Author Morgan Christie Explores the Act of Kneeling in New Poetry Chapbook ' genoux
Big News Network, May 5, 2023 -
Exhibition Honours Women
Nyadzombe Nyampendza, Zimbabwe Independent, March 21, 2023 -
Tiwani Contemporary, I See You
ArtForum, December 14, 2022 -
The Boom in West African Art Enlivened Nigeria’s Art X Lagos Fair—But Economic Worries Ran Below the Surface
Jo Lawson-Tancred, Artnet News, November 9, 2022 -
I See You, Tiwani Contemporary connects, Lagos, Harare
Gregory Austin Nwakunor, The Guardian Nigeria, November 6, 2022 -
I See You – Group Show
Contemporaryand, November 4, 2022 -
5 Exceptional Booths with Female Artists to See at The Armory Show 2022
Morgan Everhart, A Women's Thing, September 9, 2022 -
For Artists Representing Zimbabwe, the Venice Biennale Carries Different Stakes
Ayanna Dozier, Artsy, June 10, 2022 -
A New ‘Aida’ Lands in the Middle of France’s Culture Wars
Joshua Barone, The New York Times, March 10, 2021 -
Virginia Chihota Questions the Bonds of Family in Her Silk-Screen Works
Elephant, February 15, 2021 -
Thirteen artists not to miss at The Armory Show
The Art Newspaper, March 6, 2019 -
These African Female Artists Are Hitting the International Stage
Percy Mabandu, Departures, May 29, 2018 -
Carnivorous Politics, Defiant Bodies: Harare Painting in Turbulent Times
SEAN O'TOOLE, Frieze, May 26, 2018 -
#TheLIST: Up-and-Coming Artists You Need to Know
CATINCA TABACARU, Harper's Bazaar, February 15, 2018
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In the Blood
Rita Alaoui, Virginia Chihota, Miranda Forrester, Heloisa Hariadne, Joy Labinjo, Claude Lawrence, Tessa Mars, Amanda Mushate, Emma Prempeh 27 Jun - 14 Sep 2024Our group show, In the Blood, features represented, and associate artists inspired and committed to painting. This exhibition is a review of their approaches defining their representations of life and...Read more -
As Feeling Births Idea
Virginia Chihota, Rita Alaoui, Ranti Bam, Euridice Kala, Paula Do Prado and Wura-Natasha Ogunji 22 Feb - 6 Apr 2024Tiwani Contemporary proudly presents, As Feeling Births Idea a group show featuring: Virginia Chihota, Rita Alaoui, Ranti Bam, Euridice Zaituna Kala, Paula Do Prado, and Wura-Natasha Ogunji. The exhibition gathers...Read more -
Virginia Chihota
Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told) 17 Jan - 11 Feb 2023FORTHCOMING CROMWELL PLACE Gallery 6 4 Cromwell Pl. London, SW7 2JE Opening Event: Tuesday 17 January | 5pm - 7.30pm We open our 2023 London exhibition programme with gallery artist...Read more -
I See You
Virginia Chihota, Gideon Gomo, Masimba Hwati, Gareth Nyandoro and Portia Zvavahera 4 Nov 2022 - 14 Jan 2023Tiwani Contemporary is very pleased to present the group exhibition, I See You featuring new and recent works by artists Virginia Chihota, Gideon Gomo, Masimba Hwati, Gareth Nyandoro and Portia...Read more -
Virginia Chihota
Whose Am I? I Am Not My Own (Ndiri Waani? Handisi Muridzi Wangu) 14 Jan - 27 Feb 2021Tiwani Contemporary is pleased to present Whose Am I? I Am Not My Own (Ndiri Waani? Handisi Muridzi Wangu) by Virginia Chihota. At the centre of the exhibition is a...Read more