Virginia Chihota (b. 1983, Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe)

Virginia Chihota grew up in an environment where creativity was not encouraged.  Art was absent from her schooling, forgone for more academic subjects.  It was only in studying art at the National Art Gallery studios in Harare, Zimbabwe, that she fully embraced her talent as an artist, and came to fully understand fine art as a potential career.  As her creativity blossomed, however, she was fraught with feelings of isolation, new to the capital city and the art world alike.

As her artistic pursuit led her to isolation, her isolation fed her creativity.  The creative process became a therapeutic act—a space for Chihota to work through her questions in a productive manner.  The artist honed her craft as a screen-printer, focusing on the subjects of womanhood and the search for the self.  Her figurative paintings touch on issues of domesticity, motherhood, and marriage; the subjective experiences of women; and her own experiences with isolation. Combining religious imagery with a twisted and re-imagined female form, she weaves a folkloric image of the physical female body.  Oftentimes, the artist recreates the womb in her works—an image of creation, of attachment, and of solitude.

Virginia Chihota’s work has shown at Saatchi Gallery in London, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in Berlin, Goodman Gallery in Cape Town, Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe, and the 2011 Lyon Biennale, as well as the 55^th Venice Biennale in 2013, wherein she was awarded the Prix Canson for International Emerging paper artists.

SF