Silk as medium: diving into creativity and motherhood through the art of Billie Zangewa

This month, contemporary artist Billie Zangewa takes center stage, captivating the eye with the depth and beauty of her work. With a unique sensibility, she creates delicate, textured portraits, revealing everyday black life in all its richness. Through her work, she interrogates essential themes such as gender, race and domestic intimacy, offering a personal and emotional vision of her creative experience.

Born in Malawi in 1973 and raised in Botswana, Billie Zangewa moved to South Africa to study Fine Art at Rhodes University, graduating in 1995. After a brief return to Botswana, she settled in Johannesburg, embarking on a remarkable artistic career. Her work has been shown in prestigious galleries in Johannesburg, Dakar, Marrakech, Paris, New York and other major cities. Through carefully crafted textile creations and raw silk collages, this contemporary artist explores with finesse the notions of femininity and identity. Embracing the mantra “the personal is political”, Billie Zangewa provokes reflection on gender and racial stereotypes, weaving a visual narrative of richly nuanced domestic life into her colorful tapestries.

Billie Zangewa, an artist with a diverse background, initially explored several mediums, such as fashion photography, the narrative approach and printmaking, as avenues for expressing her art. However, in the early 2000s, her work made a fascinating transition to the use of raw silk. For the Malawian artist, this captivating material represents a daring challenge in the design of unique, expressive works. The irregular cuts of this fabric, which initially hindered the realization of complete images, have now become symbolic marks, adding significant depth to his creations. In iconic pieces such as Temporary Reprieve (2007) and Swimming Lesson (2020), the voids and tears embedded in the fabric not only highlight the materiality of her art, but also evoke the imperfections and inner wounds that shape the human experience.

Billie Zangewa‘s adaptability to the use of silk is not limited to her earlier involvement in the fashion world, but also has its roots in her childhood, marked by her mother’s teachings on the art of sewing. She fondly recalls the times when her mother took part in sewing collectives with other women. For her, this space was both welcoming and liberating, enabling participants to share their struggles and forge bonds. The Malawian artist speaks of the “soft power” of sewing among African women, highlighting how this practice has the potential to create communities of support and solidarity.

In an exchange with Ocula contributor Jareh Das, Billie Zangewa shares her passion for sewing, declaring: “For me, sewing represents a means of emancipation. It’s a way for me to express myself, to use my voice and to express my identity as a woman. It’s also a form of therapy“. Today, Billie Zangewa’s main focus is on creating intricate collages from raw silk scraps, featuring figurative compositions that explore her cross-sectional identity in the contemporary context. Her work challenges historical stereotypes, as well as the objectification and exploitation of the black female body. Adopting a flat, colorful style, she weaves narratives that reflect both personal experiences and universal themes. Far from proposing explicit political messages, her works highlight banal domestic concerns, creating links between individuals thanks to their universal scope.

The Rebirth of Black Venus, completed in 2010, marks a significant turning point in the artist’s work. This tapestry depicts an urban landscape of Johannesburg, reduced to miniature proportions, while the graceful yet imposing figure of Billie Zangewa, naked except for a banner encircling her body, dominates the composition. This work was created at a pivotal moment in her life, when she was ending a marriage proposal, symbolizing a commitment to herself and to self-esteem, recurring themes in her work since then.

The artist’s early creations, such as That Day (2004), focused on her urban environment through landscapes, but over time her art evolved into a more personal exploration. In works such as Christmas at the Ritz (2006), she begins to take an introspective approach, illustrating her experience in London as a model. Her perspective evolves as she seeks to see herself through her own eyes, a deeper quest for self-criticism that manifests itself in The Rebirth of Black Venus (2010). In this work, the figure’s open pose reveals a confident woman, embodying a celebration of self and beauty in the diversity of her identity.

Billie Zangewa, often the protagonist of her works, embodies a heroine whose daily life is expressed through her intimate, personal scenes. Motherhood plays a central role in her work, as evidenced by her piece Temporary Reprieve, in which she presents her son, Mika. In Swimming Lesson (2020), the Malawian artist continues to explore the themes of love, motherhood and the growth of the child as an individual. Through these works, she challenges traditional ideals that dictate that a woman must choose between her role as a mother and her career as an artist, thus arguing for a more nuanced approach to femininity.

Billie Zangewa, who started out on the Johannesburg art scene, has gone on to become a world-renowned artist. Her work has been exhibited internationally in prestigious institutions, including the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Paris Museum of Modern Art, MACAAL in Marrakech and the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 2020, she had her first major solo gallery show in Paris, entitled “Soldier of Love”, at the Templon, a milestone in her career that further established her influence and reach in the contemporary art world.

Through her tapestries and collages, Billie Zangewa addresses universal themes through the prism of her personal experiences, offering an authentic representation of motherhood and female identity. She uses her artistic practice to celebrate and document moments of tenderness, struggle and resilience, affirming the value of intimate, everyday narratives in art.