Virginia Chihota has created a special artist's edition for Whitechapel Gallery in support of the Whitechapel Gallery Errantry Fund.

Chihota's screenprint Chibereko Chakaramba Kuudzirwa/The Womb Refused To Be Told relates to a drawing; part of a recent series of the same name, contemplating the conditions influencing acts of personal refusal and resistance that come into force, in protection of selfhood, family and community.

The works that make up this series were largely produced using screenprinting, formed from multiple layers of drawn and photographed elements, resulting in densely layered compositions that weave together Chihota’s subconscious and lived reality. The series explores methods of finding the spiritual energy to break damaging psychological cycles, in a means to create hopeful and generative cycles to live and thrive by.

Introspective in nature, Virginia Chihota's work is deeply influenced by personal experiences. Reflecting on intimacy and the human figure, she addresses themes such as childbearing, parenting, marriage, kinship, bereavement and faith. Her works on canvas and paper are both expressionistic and graceful in their elaborate use of patterns, textures and layers and are rife with allusions to everyday life, and religious and folkloric symbolism. Having trained as a printmaker, Chihota’s use of screenprinting is confident and original, producing unique works of striking formal complexity. They often depict the female form, with her own body being the foundational reference, that blend into near abstraction. Chihota's work highlights the ways in which female agency can disrupt borders and activate concerns around different forms of belonging.