Billie Zangewa’s work focuses on emancipated human relations and the urban. Her chosen material for creative expression is textile. She recycles strips and scraps of silk to make her sewn and embroidered artworks which can be compared to contemporary tapestry. The quasi-cinematographic narratives are figurative and inspired from the fashion and graphic design industries. Rather like episodes from a private journal with all the immediacy that implies, fragments of manuscript texts are woven into asymmetrical surfaces. These works are strident determined advocates for freedom of action and thought.

In 2004, she was awarded the prestigious Gerard Sekoto Prize on the strength of a triptych of handbags depicting cityscapes of Johannesburg titled “Faith, Love and Hope”.

Billie Zangewa has a monograph published by Les Carnets de la Création. Afrique du Sud, Les Editions de l’œil, Paris, 2009.

Text by Pierre Jaccaud.