Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told): Virginia Chihota

17 January - 11 February 2023
  • Virginia Chihota, Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, 17 January - 11 February 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Virginia Chihota, Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, 17 January - 11 February 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Virginia Chihota, Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, 17 January - 11 February 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Virginia Chihota, Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, 17 January - 11 February 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Virginia Chihota, Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, 17 January - 11 February 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Virginia Chihota, Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, 17 January - 11 February 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Virginia Chihota, Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, 17 January - 11 February 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Virginia Chihota, Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, 17 January - 11 February 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Virginia Chihota, Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, 17 January - 11 February 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).

    Virginia Chihota,  Chibereko chakaramba kuudzirwa (The womb refused to be told), Tiwani Contemporary, London, 17 January - 11 February 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.

  •  Tiwani Contemporary is pleased to open its 2023 London exhibition programme with Chibereko Chakaramba Kuudzirwa (The Womb Refused To Be Told), the fifth solo presentation by gallery artist Virigina Chihota. 

     

    The series emerges from an intense cycle of creative production for Chihota in which she has developed and birthed several bodies of work, each one contemplating the acts of refusal and resistance that come into play in protection of selfhood, family and community. Chibereko chakaramba Kuudzirwa (2022), centres on the realm of the womb, its intuition and capacity to support and yield life but also its deliverance of uncomfortable truths, including death.

     

    Deeply personal, the series is drawn from periods of intense introspection while also reflecting the quotidian reality of maintaining a studio practice. Each individual work is rigorously completed and lived with by Chihota until the moment comes for it to be made ready  to leave the studio, a situation which provokes a melancholic ‘empty nest’ emotional response in the artist. 

     

     Introspective in nature, Virginia Chihota’s practice is profoundly influenced by personal experiences and addresses themes such as childbearing, child rearing, marriage, kinship, and bereavement. Trained as a printmaker in Harare, Zimbabwe, Chihota’s use of screen-printing is as confident as it is original, mixing printing techniques with drawing to produce unique works of striking formal complexity. Chihota’s works often depicts the female form blending into near abstraction, highlighting the disruptive power of female agency. 

     

    These unique mural-eque serigraphic works are a palimpsest of drawn, printed and densely layered compositions. Weaving together the realms of her subconscious and lived reality, the works express how one might find the spiritual energy to break damaging psychological cycles to create, instead, hopeful and generative ones to live and thrive by. 

     

    Gallery 6, Cromwell Place, permits us to present four of the edition of nine works in this series, which is available to view in its entirety online.   The following works are on display in the gallery: 

     

    Virginia Chihota, Ndoda kutarisa kumusoro kwete ikoko ( I want to look up not there), 2022

    Serigraphy on canvas, 280 x 300 cm, 110 1/4 x 118 1/8 in

     

    VC: In a space that carries pressure and tension I can endure to a certain point, then it becomes clear from within that it’s time to move from a certain state of being to a desired state, maybe among the fish in water. My spirit knows where I desire to be yet another reality wants me to accept and not pursue change. But the battle within cannot be quenched, I just need to be in that space and it doesn’t not have to make sense to the world.

  • Virginia Chihota, Miganhu yodimbuka (Boundary lines have started breaking), 2022

    Serigraph on linen canvas, 245 x 300 cm, 96 1/2 x 118 1/8 in

     

    VC: In acknowledging boundaries, deep within arises a fight against rules that tend to control and limit the self. I don’t want boundaries around me and unfortunately I sense them and in the process I find myself battling and dismissing their limitations.

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  • Virginia Chihota, Nditsigirei nomweya unoda (Uphold me with a willing spirit), 2022

    Serigraph on linen canvas, 245 x 300 cm, 96 1/2 x 118 1/8 in

     

    VC: In moments of confusion or not knowing, I ask for an unconditional presence, help from someone who knows me inside out.

  • Virginia Chihota, Sarai ndaenda (So long I am leaving), 2022

    Serigraphy on canvas, 265 x 300 cm, 104 3/8 x 118 1/8 in

     

    VC: In a space that carries pressure and tension, I can endure to a certain point until it becomes clear from within that it’s time to move…to a desired state symbolised by the fish in water. My spirit knows where I desire to be, yet another reality wants me to accept and not pursue change. The battle within cannot be quenched. I just need to be in that space and it doesn’t need to make sense to the exterior world.

  • Virginia Chihota, Chivimbiso (The promise), 2022

    Serigraphy on cotton archival paper, 100 x 70 cm, 39 3/8 x 27 1/2 in

     

    VC: The promise comes as an encouragement that, regardless how the picture looks, beautiful or ugly, the promise is I will be with you in all the circumstances life brings. Of all the characters from the bible, only Jesus said I will be with you.

  • About the artist

     

    Virginia Chihota was born in 1983 in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe and currently lives and works in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 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: Chibereko Chakaramba Kuudzirwa (The Womb Refused To Be Told), Tiwani Contem- porary, London, UK (solo - 2022); I See You, Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos, Nigeria (group - 2022); The Norval Sov- ereign 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); Ul- trasanity. 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).

     

     

    About Tiwani Contemporary

     

    Founded in London in 2011 by Maria Varnava, Tiwani Contemporary represents internationally significant con- temporary artists from Africa and its diaspora. To celebrate its 10-year anniversary, in February 2022 Tiwani Con- temporary launched a purpose-built 2,000sq ft space on Victoria Island, Lagos. Today, Tiwani has a year-round programme of solo and group exhibitions in each location.

     

     

    Alongside its programme of 10-12 exhibitions per year (across both sites), Tiwani Contemporary collaborates with G.A.S, Yinka Shonibare’s Foundation to offer residencies in Lagos to artists from Tiwani’s roster of represented, associated and exhibited artists. The gallery aims to contribute to the arts ecosystem in Lagos through its pro- gramme of exhibitions, talks and publications. Internationally, Tiwani Contemporary participates in the world’s most exciting international art fairs from Frieze London to The Armory Show (NYC) and Art Basel, Miami, as well as presenting a lively viewing room programme at these fairs, at Cromwell Place, London, and online.