African Billie Zangewa

Billie Zangewa creates silk tapestries. She was born in Malawi, raised in Botswana, studied in Grahamstown, South Africa, worked in Johannesburg and exhibited in New York.

I was introduced to her work at Art Paris Art Fair at the gallery MAGNIN-A.

Christmas at the Ritz, 2006
120 cm x 111 cm
embroidered silk
There are better images on the artist's and gallery website

She comes to textile art from a fashion background. Fabric was her medium then and it is now.

She sews together snippits from her life. She often places herself in the image- a self-portrait in a captured moment.

Artist is in the right hand corner
(sorry about the reflection in the glass)

A captured moment like a photograph.

I love the way she has bits missing in her background fabric choice. That seems to be in all her work.

Simple stitching, beautiful choices of colour and fabric. It's like painting with fabric.

(notice the absence of the word patchwork)