Youngblood Africa

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Youngblood Africa Youngblood Arts and Culture development started out as the CSI arm of UAL (Universal Africa Lines).
(501)

Youngblood is an arts and culture organization (NPO) that aims to be platform for artists from all genres to start off from or to continue from. We are based in a three storey gallery in the hip and happening Bree Street.

JUSTIN DINGWALLARTIST STATEMENTRoots9 Lives Five Left is a personal reflection on my journey through life and the experi...
21/10/2026

JUSTIN DINGWALL

ARTIST STATEMENT

Roots

9 Lives Five Left is a personal reflection on my journey through life and the experiences that have shaped the way I see the world. The work explores the idea that life is a continuous process of experiencing, learning, adapting and growing.

Throughout the work, I have incorporated well-known sayings and phrases that have influenced me personally and have become part of the way I understand and navigate life.
Each represents a lesson, belief or experience that has stayed with me.

The title, 9 Lives Five Left, refers to the lives we seem to live within a single lifetime, the versions of ourselves we leave behind as we learn from our experiences and move forward. It is a reflection on resilience, change and the understanding that every experience, both positive and difficult, becomes part of who we are.

NATASJA DE WETARTIST STATEMENTRootsIn this small body of work titled *Vulnerability Rooted in the Possibility of Healing...
21/10/2026

NATASJA DE WET

ARTIST STATEMENT

Roots

In this small body of work titled *Vulnerability Rooted in the Possibility of Healing*, an intuitive exploration of materiality and making is employed. The metaphor of gauze is healing; the materials, threads and stitching may resemble roots. The vulnerability of healing is embedded in the numerous layers of delicate gauze and may be understood as fine roots, growth or undergrowth beneath the surface. “Black Root” is a metaphor for undealt-with memories to be processed or discarded for renewal, enabling a sense of release, relief and new growth, similar to the aftermath of a veldfire. In addition, the term Black Root may also refer to a medicinal plant.

For me, the meaning of the work titled *Uproot” is about the uprooting of an emotional inner experience or old roots. Germination and roots may form after the transformation of abject decay or hurt that may have been dealt with. “Reroute” steers one towards a generative new direction or an ability to thrive after the vulnerable process of healing.

Roots grow in soil, hidden beneath the surface; therefore, I chose a monochrome palette. The work is embedded in the frame. Three-dimensional roots protrude and spill from the box frame, suggesting exposed roots searching for soil in which to grow. The front and back of the frame, along with the canvas, are part of the artwork itself.

MONIQUE DAY-WILDEARTIST STATEMENT RootsImmersed in my surroundings, I explore the treasures and details of nature, often...
20/10/2026

MONIQUE DAY-WILDE

ARTIST STATEMENT

Roots

Immersed in my surroundings, I explore the treasures and details of nature, often collecting found objects that provide a tangible link to the landscape in which I live. I observe the essence of nature — the colours, lines, textures, shapes and patterns of my environment — drawing on them constantly in my creative process.

Most of my art begins with monotypes using physical specimens of different plants (mostly fynbos), seaweed and other natural finds to create prints on various papers, including teabags. Led by the materials at hand, l use a variety of additional techniques, like drawing, stitching, collage and assemblage, creating an intimate response to my surroundings.

I explore the details of nature, juxtaposed with the blur in which we perceive things around us.
Each image represents a moment of stillness within the constant motion of creation and life in general - fragile, beautiful and ephemeral, as is our human experience.

BERDINE VAN DER MESCHTARTIST STATEMENTRootsWE ARE EARTHLINGSOur roots are in the earthCulture and Nature: A representati...
19/10/2026

BERDINE VAN DER MESCHT

ARTIST STATEMENT

Roots

WE ARE EARTHLINGS

Our roots are in the earth
Culture and Nature: A representation of a christening dress, knitted from grass found in my garden. Traditionally a precious garment, carefully made, worn for a brief ceremonial moment and often preserved as an heirloom. I bring the sense of permanence and preservation into tension with a material that is fragile, organic and temporary. A christening marks a beginning, while the dried grass quietly carries an awareness of decay and return to the earth. A meditation on how briefly we inhabit our bodies. We are earthlings; we return to the earth.

Earthlings: Earthlings re-imagines the traditional gleaners, after a painting by Jean-François Millet. No longer gathering wheat left after harvest, these figures scrounge through textile waste and pollution — the rubbish we discard. Made as a collage of discarded waste and fabric fragments embroidered onto the reverse of a found tapestry, the work asks what sustenance is left when our roots, the earth, are buried under what we mindlessly discard.

KATHRYN HARMER FOXARTIST STATEMENT RootsI am a visual thinker.Drawing is at the heart of my work and the language throug...
19/10/2026

KATHRYN HARMER FOX

ARTIST STATEMENT

Roots

I am a visual thinker.

Drawing is at the heart of my work and the language through which I make sense of the world.
Over the years, my pencil has been joined by fabric, thread, paint, and my sewing machine (which I think of as another kind of pencil).

I am drawn to the natural world, particularly wild Africa’s splendid fauna and flora, as well as the expressive qualities of the human face and body. I work intuitively, allowing the character of a subject to guide the marks I make and the textures and materials I use.

Fabric and thread are central to my work. Their innate tactility heightens the vitality of whatever I’m drawing, painting or stitching.

I combine traditional textile techniques like free-motion machine embroidery, fibre embedment using scribble stitch, and ragged cord construction) with unconventional materials (like used tea bags, the aluminium inner lining of a long-life milk carton, and driftwood).

I strive to develop each of my artworks through its own process of experimentation and discovery. The making of the piece is as significant to me as the finished work may become to the viewer.

I hope my work conveys this connection and invites my audience to pause, look and discover.

LINDA RADEMANARTIST STATEMENT Roots“For Most of History, Anonymous Was a Woman” - Virginia Woolf In this body of work, I...
14/10/2026

LINDA RADEMAN

ARTIST STATEMENT

Roots

“For Most of History, Anonymous Was a Woman” - Virginia Woolf
In this body of work, I draw on a narrative of identity and memory of my roots within the patriarchal confines of the previous century, where girls were seen and not heard.

GERDA MÖHRARTIST STATEMENT RootsMy work explores the ways in which we are shaped by where we come from — by family, lan...
14/10/2026

GERDA MÖHR

ARTIST STATEMENT

Roots
My work explores the ways in which we are shaped by where we come from — by family, language, memory, migration, landscape and the traces left by those who walked before us. I work with fibre, felt, stitching, layered surfaces and found or inherited visual references because these materials themselves carry a sense of touch, labour and continuity.

In “Roots”, I am interested not only in ancestry, but in what happens after arrival: how people, languages and traditions change when they are transplanted into new soil. Footprints, shoes, maps, pathways, roots and fragments of language become symbols of movement and belonging - of what we carry with us and what we leave behind.

Some roots hold us firmly to the past; others give us the strength from which to move forward.
For me, identity is not a single origin, but something continually formed through many journeys, many influences and many generations. We inherit our roots, but we also add our own.

Language is also part of this exploration. In several works, text from Hans du Plessis’s Griekwa-Psalms (2001) in Griekwa-Afrikaans is placed in dialogue with Dutch. The relationship between the two languages becomes a visible root: recognisable across distance and generations, yet changed by the people and places through which it has travelled.

ORY KATALAYI BWENSARTIST STATEMENT Suits & Ties part IlSuits & Ties is a realistic painting collection exploring the rel...
13/10/2026

ORY KATALAYI BWENS

ARTIST STATEMENT

Suits & Ties part Il
Suits & Ties is a realistic painting collection exploring the relationship between traditional menswear and contemporary identity.

Inspired by the structure, detail, and symbolism of tailored suits, the collection examines how clothing carries stories of heritage, ambition, confidence, and personal expression.

Each portrait invites the viewer to look beyond the fabric and discover the individual within it.
Classic tailoring becomes a starting point for new ideas, reinterpreting timeless forms through a contemporary artistic perspective.

New ideas do not always require abandoning the old. Sometimes, they begin with a new way of seeing tradition.

TAILORED IDENTITIES: A collection about the people behind the suits and the stories they carry.

This collection stems from two central themes: personality and humanity. Personality involves embracing individuality while also finding common ground with others; it is the unique gift of being yourself, undeterred by life’s challenges or hardships.

With this collection, I use ties, shapes and forms, emotions, and behaviours to transport you from one world to another, inviting you to explore the stories of culture, resilience, and expression woven into each piece.

FIRST THURSDAYTAILORED IDENTITIESThis collection stems from two central themes: personality and humanity.Personality inv...
01/10/2026

FIRST THURSDAY

TAILORED IDENTITIES

This collection stems from two central themes: personality and humanity.
Personality involves embracing individuality while also finding common ground with others; it is the unique gift of being yourself, undeterred by life’s challenges or hardships. With this collection, I use ties, shapes and forms, emotions, and behaviours to transport you from one world to another, inviting you to explore the stories of culture, resilience, and expression woven into each piece. - Ory Katalayi Bwens

Poster art:
Unbuttoned
Mixed media on canvas
141 x 88 cm

FAYE DUBINSKIARTIST STATEMENTGold FeverHumanity’s longing for success often begins as a bright ambition, a glimmering pr...
23/09/2026

FAYE DUBINSKI

ARTIST STATEMENT

Gold Fever

Humanity’s longing for success often begins as a bright ambition, a glimmering promise of possibility and progress. Yet, when left unchecked, this desire can darken into a restless and consuming hunger.

We reach endlessly for more, drawn toward the shine of what remains just beyond us. Desire begins to eclipse gratitude, until what we lack appears brighter and more powerful than what we already hold.

Across generations and societies, gold fever spread like a promise, carrying dreams of abundance while leaving scars where hope once lived. It transformed landscapes, relationships, and bodies, revealing how easily aspiration can become extraction.

In the pursuit of wealth, families were left behind, people were exploited for their dreams of success, and bodies wore down beneath the weight of want. What was imagined as treasure often became emptiness, a reminder of the cost hidden beneath the surface of desire.

NATASJA DAVIDSONARTIST STATEMENTNatasja has an instinct for giving forgotten materials a second life. She recycles, resu...
22/09/2026

NATASJA DAVIDSON

ARTIST STATEMENT

Natasja has an instinct for giving forgotten materials a second life. She recycles, resurrects and repurposes whatever captures her imagination, transforming the overlooked into something unexpected. When inspiration strikes, traditional linen and stretched canvas are abandoned in favour of discarded rolls of paper, which become processions of anonymous women, each quietly carrying their own story.

Working across mixed media, Natasja creates layered narratives through the interplay of texture, material and form. By blending and juxtaposing found objects with more traditional media, her work explores memory, transformation and the beauty of reinvention.

SIBUSISO NGWAZIARTIST STATEMENT Praying Mantis*Praying Mantis* is a body of work deeply rooted in the cultural, spiritua...
21/09/2026

SIBUSISO NGWAZI

ARTIST STATEMENT

Praying Mantis
*Praying Mantis* is a body of work deeply rooted in the cultural, spiritual, and physical landscape of the Bo-Kaap. Created within the rhythmic pulse of this historic neighbourhood, the collection explores the delicate threshold where sacred reverence meets fluid, physical movement.

The title itself serves as a linguistic and conceptual bridge. In the Arabic language, the praying mantis is poetically known as the “prophet’s horse” (*faras al-nabi*). This evocative framing transforms the insect from a simple creature of nature into a vessel of spiritual journey and divine alignment—a guiding presence that carries a quiet, deliberate grace.

Living and working in the Bo-Kaap, the sensory environment heavily bled into the canvas. The daily echoes of prayer, the rich heritage, and the communal warmth of the area translated into a distinct kinetic energy, inspiring a feeling of dance and fid momentum within the paintings. This sense of sacred motion was crystallised by a striking visual encounter in a local Muslim butcher, as captured in the images in the appendix. The image of the Nalayn Shareef, the beautifully stylised silhouette of the Prophet’s blessed sandal, represents not just a sacred emblem of protection and presence, but also a profound symbol of a spiritual journey on foot.

Blended with the expressive, marbled calligraphy seen in the second image, these visual textures directly informed the brushstrokes of this collection. The resulting paintings are a choreographic dialogue between tradition and abstraction. Through sweeping gestures and rhythmic compositions, *praying Mantis* captures the essence of standing in a space where history is danced, devotion is felt, and everyday corners hold a quiet, soaring divinity.

JOHN ADAMSARTIST STATEMENTThis body of work is an inquiry into one question: Where does Africa’s positive future live?My...
17/09/2026

JOHN ADAMS

ARTIST STATEMENT

This body of work is an inquiry into one question: Where does Africa’s positive future live?

My answer is consistent across every canvas: It lives in the heart of its women.

This collection is not about women as a subject. It is about women as the foundation. The builders. The architects who were never credited as such.

I paint the women who have actually built this continent with their bare hands. The gogo who, long after she should be resting, is raising her grandchildren as her own. The single mother who performs the daily miracle of keeping a household together with little and making it look like more than enough. The intercessors, the prayer warriors, whose quiet prayers in kitchens and on taxis and in early morning darkness have been the unseen infrastructure holding our communities together.

Each portrait in this series places her within Africa, and Africa within her. The map is not just a symbol-it is a veil, a scar, a mantle. She carries the continent because the continent has been carried by her.

My process mirrors her story. Underneath is a classical, reverent, oil-painted portrait-dignified, timeless, sacred. Over it, I layer interruption: spray paint, stencils, graffiti, raw texture. Words like JOY, HOPE, STILL. These layers represent the noise, the abuse on many levels-physical, systemic, verbal-and the marginalisation within a masculine society that has tried to overwrite her, define her, degrade her.

But in every piece, she is not erased. She emerges *through* the degradation. The oil still glows beneath the spray. The prayer still holds. The gaze, even when her eyes are closed, remains unbroken.

She did not just survive the breaking-she forged a way through it.

This collection is my act of witness and my act of honour. It is to say: If Africa has a future worth believing in, it is because her women never stopped believing in it for us.

AYOLA GOXOARTIST STATEMENT AYOLA GOXO (b. 1999) is an artist whose practice spans surrealist compositions, geometric pai...
16/09/2026

AYOLA GOXO

ARTIST STATEMENT

AYOLA GOXO (b. 1999) is an artist whose practice spans surrealist compositions, geometric painting, and a range of visual languages. Through painting, he explores the complexities of composition, translating his scattered inner thoughts into visceral, carefully constructed images.

In 2017, he attended the Belgravia Art Centre in East London, where he was introduced to oil painting, participated in his first group exhibition, and received a double gold award. In 2024, he completed a residency with the South African Foundation for Contemporary Art (SAFFCA). and in 2025, he was selected as a winner of the WORLDART1O competition.

LONA NDZIMANDEARTIST STATEMENT Lona Ndzimande (b. 2000) lives and works in Cape Town. In 2023, she obtained a Diploma in...
15/09/2026

LONA NDZIMANDE

ARTIST STATEMENT

Lona Ndzimande (b. 2000) lives and works in Cape Town. In 2023, she obtained a Diploma in Fine Arts from The Ruth Prowse School of Art in Cape Town.

Lona Ndzimande’s practice explores Black womanhood through the lens of her Zulu upbringing. Using mixed media-including acrylic, Zulu glass beads, fabric, pearls, papier mâché, and paper collage-she creates layered portraits that celebrate Blackness, femininity, and self-expression while interrogating societal expectations and purity culture.

Ndzimande’s work balances intimacy, defiance, and joy, incorporating textures, draped beads, and sculptural elements to highlight resilience, sensuality, and the complexity of identity. Through her bold visual language, she builds archives of Black femininity that honour tradition while engaging critically with contemporary life.

In her recent solo exhibition, What I Meant to Say, Ndzimande reflected on the silences imposed on Black women by tradition, purity culture, and society at large. Through portraiture and collage, she explored themes of vulnerability, resistance, autonomy, sensuality, and self-definition. The works reclaim agency within spaces that have historically sought to define and contain Black women, transforming what was restrained, softened, or left unspoken into bold declarations of identity and self-expression.

GAVIN KENDOARTIST STATEMENTMy artistic practice sits at the intersection of painting, illustration, and visual storytell...
14/09/2026

GAVIN KENDO

ARTIST STATEMENT

My artistic practice sits at the intersection of painting, illustration, and visual storytelling. I explore themes of identity, intimacy, emotional growth, rest, and our relationship with nature, using surreal and dreamlike imagery as my core language. I came to art and culture as a way to express myself and to protect my inner child. I was never particularly comfortable with words, yet I always had a lot to say. Making images became my way of communicating feelings and ideas that felt too complex or fragile to explain verbally.

My choice of medium is deeply connected to how I experience the world internally. From a young age, I have had vivid dreams, daydreams, and meditative visions. These internal images are often clear, symbolic, and emotionally charged, and painting allows me to translate them into a tangible reality.

A recurring element in my work is the depiction of human-like figures made from foliage, flowers, and organic forms. Through this, I explore the idea that humans are not separate from nature but an extension of it. Through my art, I yearn for a time when we lived in harmony with nature. These figures function as emotional landscapes, reflecting growth, fragility, and renewal. I often begin with a feeling rather than a fixed concept, allowing images to emerge organically through reflection, dreaming, and observation.

Much of my recent work responds to questions around rest, self-worth, and inherited urgency, particularly within a Nairobi context shaped by both contemporary pressures and postcolonial histories.

Through quiet compositions, open skies, and moments of stillness, I aim to create spaces that encourage reflection and emotional clarity. My practice ultimately seeks to offer viewers a pause, a mirror, and an invitation to reconnect with themselves and the world around them.

FIRST THURSDAYEMOTIONAL GROWTH“My artistic practice sits at the intersection of painting, illustration, and visual story...
03/09/2026

FIRST THURSDAY

EMOTIONAL GROWTH

“My artistic practice sits at the intersection of painting, illustration, and visual storytelling. I explore themes of identity, intimacy, emotional growth, rest, and our relationship with nature, using surreal and dreamlike imagery as my core language. I came to art and culture as a way to express myself and to protect my inner child. I was never particularly comfortable with words, yet I always had a lot to say. Making images became my way of communicating feelings and ideas that felt too complex or fragile to explain verbally.”

- Gavin Kendo

Poster art by gavin kendo
The Boy and The Peach Elephant
Acrylic on canvas
87x64 cm

NATASJA DAVIDSONARTIST STATEMENTNatasja has an instinct for giving forgotten materials a second life. She recycles, resu...
24/08/2026

NATASJA DAVIDSON

ARTIST STATEMENT

Natasja has an instinct for giving forgotten materials a second life. She recycles, resurrects and repurposes whatever captures her imagination, transforming the overlooked into something unexpected. When inspiration strikes, traditional linen and stretched canvas are abandoned in favour of discarded rolls of paper, which become processions of anonymous women, each quietly carrying her own story.

Working across mixed media, Natasja creates layered narratives through the interplay of texture, material and form. By blending and juxtaposing found objects with more traditional media, her work explores memory, transformation and the beauty of reinvention.

Address

BeautifuLL Life, 70/74 Bree Street
Cape Town
8001

Opening Hours

Monday 09:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 09:00 - 17:00
Thursday 09:00 - 17:00
Friday 09:00 - 17:00
Saturday 10:00 - 14:00

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