Billie Zangewa
(born in 1973 in Blantyre, Malawi)
is a Malawian artist who hand sews silk fabrics to create collage tapestries, and who now lives in Johannesburg. Since 2004, her art has been featured in international exhibitions including the Paris Art Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Since 2004, her art has been featured in international exhibitions including the Paris Art Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris. _ photo Billie Zangewa in her studio. Photo by Andrew Berry Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London
Zangewa’s work is autobiographical and centralizes Black femininity and everyday domesticity and motherhood. She calls this “daily feminism”. Her artistic approach is indicative of the artist’s expressing resistance to the oppression she faces through self-love. via Wikipedia
Zangewa was born in Malawi and raised in Botswana. After graduating in Fine Art Rhodes University (South Africa) in 1995, she returned to Botswana where she began to experiment with textiles. In 1997 she relocated permanently to Johannesburg, working in the fashion and advertising industries, while developing her artistic practice alongside. Via Tate
Billie Zangewa is a half Malawian half South African artist who works on silk fabrics. She lives in Johannesburg. Since 2004, her art has featured in international exhibitions including at the Paris Art Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris. Via Wikipedia
Hand-stitched silk collage, 31.89 x 46.06 inches, 81 x 117 cm
Hand-stitched silk collage, 38.58 x 12.09 inches
98 x 30.7 cm
Hand-stitched silk collage, 53.94 x 55.51 inches, 137 x 141 cm
Hand-stitched silk collage, 53.15 x 43.31 inches, 135 x 110 cm
When Art meets Fashion: Fashion meets Art
In this behind-the-scenes video from our ‘Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams’ series, Billie Zangewa, a South Africa-based visual artist specializing in textiles, discusses the concept behind her collage portrait of Monsieur Dior which features in the show now on at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, hand-stitched from swatches of colored silk. via YT
Join artist Billie Zangewa and Hirshhorn curator Anne Reeve to explore how simply experiencing the motions of daily life can be transformed into a political act. Born in Malawi and now based in South Africa, Billie Zangewa uses silk to create collaged portraits of scenes from her daily life, describing a kind of “everyday feminism” in the sharing of intimate moments that women usually experience at home. She began making these works after the birth of her son, and she leverages the tremendous power of representing and giving form to her own experiences of daily life as a Black woman. As these works are linked to her personal experience, they nod to larger sociopolitical questions around gender and racial prejudices. Zangewa’s textile collage A Vivid Imagination (2021) is on view in Put It This Way: (Re)Visions of the Hirshhorn Collection at the Museum through Fall 2023.
cover photo: Billie Zangewa at the seven-foot table in her kitchen, photography Jurie Potgieter
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Art by Women - Women in Arts #PalianShow 
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