Zandile Zondo is part of the UBUHLE beadwork artists' collective, whose spectacular beaded canvases are part of numerous museum collections in the United States and South Africa. UBUHLE means "beauty" in the Zulu and Xhosa languages. Beadwork is skill used by women in South Africa for centuries. Beadwork is traditionally used for adornment, to signify the passage from childhood to adulthood or to communicate social status. The women of UBUHLE are 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 the artists, reflections of their daily environment and their imagination. The delicacy of the designs, the dynamics of the compositions and the brilliance of the colours make you forget the months of work behind each beaded canvas. This portrait of a penguin was inspired by the artist's conviction that human couples should be more like penguin couples, where the male plays a more active role in raising the children.

Thando Ntobela is part of the UBUHLE beadwork artists' collective, whose spectacular beaded canvases are part of numerous museum collections in the United States and South Africa. UBUHLE means "beauty" in the Zulu and Xhosa languages. Beadwork is skill used by women in South Africa for centuries. Beadwork is traditionally used for adornment, to signify the passage from childhood to adulthood or to communicate social status. The women of UBUHLE are 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 the artists, reflections of their daily environment and their imagination. The delicacy of the designs, the dynamics of the compositions and the brilliance of the colours make you forget the months of work behind each beaded canvas.

Thando Ntobela is part of the UBUHLE beadwork artists' collective, whose spectacular beaded canvases are part of numerous museum collections in the United States and South Africa. UBUHLE means "beauty" in the Zulu and Xhosa languages. Beadwork is skill used by women in South Africa for centuries. Beadwork is traditionally used for adornment, to signify the passage from childhood to adulthood or to communicate social status. The women of UBUHLE are 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 the artists, reflections of their daily environment and their imagination. The delicacy of the designs, the dynamics of the compositions and the brilliance of the colours make you forget the months of work behind each beaded canvas. This particular work presents humans, human communities and the world as elements of nature such as petals, flowers and fields.

Zandile Ntobela is part of the UBUHLE beadwork artists' collective, whose spectacular beaded canvases are part of numerous museum collections in the United States and South Africa. UBUHLE means "beauty" in the Zulu and Xhosa languages.This particular work shows the journey of a woman from birth to childhood to adulthood to death. Beadwork is skill used by women in South Africa for centuries. Beadwork is traditionally used for adornment, to signify the passage from childhood to adulthood or to communicate social status. The women of UBUHLE are 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 the artists, reflections of their daily environment and their imagination. The delicacy of the designs, the dynamics of the compositions and the brilliance of the colours make you forget the months of work behind each beaded canvas.