Zandile Ntobela

Zandile Ntobela is part of the Ubuhle women's collective which creates spectacular beaded light paintings. Beadwork is a skill practiced by women in South Africa for centuries. Used for adornment, to signify the passage from childhood to adulthood or to communicate social status, beadwork became with apartheid a modest income supplement for families torn apart by migration and even a symbol of political opposition to apartheid.

The Ubuhle women's collective is giving new life to this traditional art. Often figurative, these light paintings carry with them a multitude of abstract symbols. Meditative and artistic works, they are the personal and cultural memory of artists, reflections of their daily environment and their imagination.

The delicacy of the design, the dynamics of the compositions and the brilliance of  red and pink make you forget the months of work behind each beaded canvas.