Janet Mbirimi

Janet Mbirimi lives in Cape Town with her two daughters and husband. She grew up in the rural village Wedza (or Hwedza) in Zimbabwe. Wedza is in the province of Mashonaland East, located south of Harare.

Mbirimi works as a printer at the print studio, Warren Editions. Her exposure and intense involvement in printmaking at the print studio led her to explore her own ‘language’ in etchings, woodcuts and monotypes. Her childhood geographic landscape is inextricably linked to her landscape of memories.

Her etching Mtukwa is of the mountainous range in the province of Mashonaland East. In the summer months, as a child she will walk on the gravel road with her sister, Florence, to Mtukwa about two hours away from their home; there they will primarily pick plum sugar fruit – in Shona named ‘mazhanje’.