Lizette Chirrime Mozambique, b. 1973

Biography

“These abstract forms evoke the human body and my identity-responsive practice where I refashion my self-image and transcend a painful upbringing that left me shattered and broken. I literally ‘re-stitched’ myself together. These liberated ‘souls’ are depicted ‘dancing’ on the canvas, bringing to mind, well-dressed African women celebrating.”

Lizette Chirrime was born in 1973 in Angoche (Nampula), Mozambique and grew up in Maputo. She currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.

She attended commercial school until the age of seventeen but creating artworks using paint and sewing has always been her passion. In 2004 she was invited to host her first solo exhibition in Mozambique and in 2005 she accepted a three-month residency at Greatmore Studios in Cape Town, South Africa.

She creates large-scale textile-driven works on canvas with abstract forms rendered in a collage of printed fabrics from Tshwe-tshwe to other so-called African prints associated with dress on the continent. The interplay between textiles, abstraction, and art as a therapeutic and spiritual tool, make Chirrime’s art unique and distinctively African.

In 2021, one of Lizette's artworks became part of the permanent collection of the American Embassy in Maputo, Mozambique.

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