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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

Youngblood Africa

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Youngblood Africa

Youngblood Arts and Culture development started out as the CSI arm of UAL (Universal Africa Lines).
(507)

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.

21/05/2026

ZOLILE PETSHANE

ARTIST STATEMENT

ZOLILE PETSHANE (b. 1973) is an abstract artist who lives and works in Kathlehong, near Johannesburg. After studying printmaking at the renowned Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg, he obtained an Advanced Diploma in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2007, under the supervision of Prof. Karel Nel.

He is known for building richly layered surfaces on canvas, where colour operates like a language. Working across media such as pastel, acrylic, and mixed media, he constructs fields of colour into energetic, sometimes landscape-like compositions, then disrupts them with scratched textures, marks, fragments of text, numbers, and symbols. These additions act as visual “notes” that hint at lived experience-belief systems, consumer culture, politics, and memory-without becoming literal illustration. The work rewards close looking: beneath the vibrancy of colour lies a dense, deliberate structure and a restless, investigative intelligence.

Petshane has exhibited extensively both locally and internationally, and his work can be found in several corporate collections, as well as in the permanent collection of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG).

20/05/2026

DARIA BALUTA

ARTIST STATEMENT

This exhibition marks an important milestone, introducing a new body of work centred on her distinctive use of epoxy resin and pigment.

While resin has become a popular material in design and craft practices, very few contemporary painters have adopted it as a primary fine art medium. Daria has developed a technique in which layers of resin and colour interact to produce luminous, glass-like surfaces that appear to shift with changing light and perspective. Through this process, the works achieve an unusual sense of depth.

Pigment flows and merges beneath translucent layers, creating compositions in which colour, reflection, and movement become central elements of the image. The material itself plays an active role in the final outcome, allowing chance and fuidity to shape the work alongside the artist’s intention.

The exhibition title, What’s the Matter, reflects Daria’s interest in both the physical properties of her medium and the inner processes of thought and emotion. The layered structure of the works echoes the idea of transformation-how materials, like the mind, can evolve and take on new forms over time.

Born in Russia, Daria moved to South Africa in 2008, where she began refining her painting practice. Her work often draws inspiration from natural phenomena such as clouds, water, and light, resulting in images that balance abstraction with emotional presence.

As a WORLDARTIO winner, Daria represents a new generation of artists being introduced to collectors through the programme. Her debut solo exhibition signals the next step in what is shaping up to be a compelling artistic trajectory.

20/05/2026

TAFADZWA MASUDI

ARTIST STATEMENT

Tafadzwa Masudi (b. 1988) began painting at an early age in Harare, assisting a family friend who introduced him to the visual arts. In 2010, he moved to South Africa and worked in a clothing factory unfil 2020, when he was laid off. He used this as an opportunity to begin painting full-time, and his work soon featured in group exhibitions at galleries in Cape Town.

“Circumstances forced me to leave my country of birth. I relate to people who have had to travel elsewhere to create a better life, and this is what I currently paint-images that reflect their sense of self, their dreams, and their aspirations.”

The displaced migrant often experiences a sense of loss of identity when settling in a new country. Without an established presence or equal access to opportunities, they can become nameless and faceless. Masudi’s characters also represent moments of introspection, where individuals reconnect with their dreams and aspirations.

Masudi’s paintings remind us that people are more than the popular narratives associated with their places of origin. Through his lens, individuals are presented with dignity, pride, dreams, and optimism.

19/05/2026

NCUMISA SPELLING

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is an expression of what goes on in my head, as well as the world around me. If I had the ability to write, I would; instead, I paint. I have always been interested in philosophical ideas about existence, ever since I asked my mother as a child, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

For the past few years, I have had an ongoing theme, The Puppet Show, which pokes fun at the idea of free will. This particular series is a show of portraits and objects. The subjects are displayed with objects that point to each of their life’s work, a calling, or simply the continuous mastering of an individual talent.

It gets tricky when the object becomes the master of the subject, as life happens and mastery turns into a means of survival. When the show, or the puppet, controls the master, the fun is gone and the plot is lost. Life becomes a series of chasing the reins until we take a breath, disconnect, and reconnect again to the reason why we do what we do.

For now, I have resolved to let “The Calling” be the master. As much as I love the idea of free will, when you surrender to your calling, life is a ride-just like the puppet floating about on stage, every step pulled and taken for her until the story is complete.

19/05/2026

JULIAN HALL

Surface Studies

My work explores material, texture, and surface through a reduced visual language. I combine acrylic paint with unconventional elements such as sand, dirt, concrete, and charcoal to investigate how different substances behave on canvas.

The process is physical and open-ended. I work with simple tools and low-cost materials, building surfaces through layering, removal, and chance. In some cases, I use combinations like oil and acrylic to create subtle separations and fine traces.

Rather than following fixed compositions, the paintings develop through repetition and variation. Small shifts in texture, density, and form become central to the work.

18/05/2026

LAURA WENMAN

ARTIST STATEMENT

Portraits under the Sky

Painting portraits is symbolic of my ‘Let’s face it’ philosophy. I believe that when we confront the truth within ourselves, we become open to learning the lessons that life seeks to teach us.

My artwork bears testimony to my fascination with the human spirit. For me, this spirit reveals itself through portraits that communicate to the viewer the journey of the soul, mind, and emotion, with each portrait transposing a genetic blueprint into the present.

My preferred medium is oils, and I trust my palette as if it were a piano. Each colour is a key that creates notes and melodies of harmonious vibration as I play my way across the canvas. When the song is complete, three layers are present: transparent, translucent, and opaque-each symbolising the different levels at which the spirit is able to reveal itself.

07/05/2026

FIRST THURSDAY

—offering a “journey out of your head and into your heart and body,” something modern humans are seen need.

Poster Art by
Tribal Trance
Oil on canvas
90 x 60 cm

21/04/2026

JEAN-CLAUDE DESMERGÈS

ARTIST STATEMENT

Jean-Claude Desmerges’ work unfolds at the intersection of phenomenology, anthropology, and poetics, forming a practice grounded in lived experience. Trained as both an artist and a theorist, he initially developed a gestural abstract painting practice before stepping away from the art world to pursue academic research on perception.

This rupture proved foundational. Influenced by phenomenological thought, Desmergès gradually abandoned representation in favour of immersion, conceiving art as a process of entering the world rather than depicting it.

Since 2007, his expeditions-from Moroccan deserts to West and Central Africa-have redefined his artistic language. Drawing directly on the ground with charcoal, clay, and organic matter, he produces works that are inseparable from their context. These gestures function less as images than as traces: ritual acts that register presence, memory, and transformation.

Engaging with local practices without appropriation, Desmergès positions himself as a participant-observer. His encounters-whether with Vodun ceremonies in Benin, fishing communities in Senegal, or mining landscapes in South Africa and the Congo-inform a body of work that addresses ecological fragility, spiritual resonance, and the invisible structures of lived reality.

His art operates within a tension between chaos and form, material and immaterial. By embracing ephemerality and transformation, Desmergès proposes a poïetics of relation: an art that does not fix meaning but allows it to emerge through experience.

20/04/2026

PETER WEBBER

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Born in Johannesburg in 1931, Peter Graham Webber developed his practice through an international education that shaped his enduring engagement with abstraction. He studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art in London before continuing at the Toronto Art School in Canada, where he was exposed to post-war modernist approaches that would inform his visual language.

A period spent living in Spain proved influential, particularly in his sensitivity to light, landscape, and architectural form. On returning to South Africa in the 1960s, Webber established a mature style that moved between abstraction and landscape.

Working primarily in oil and mixed media, Webber incorporated texture and layering to create depth and surface complexity. Elements such as sand and collage were sometimes introduced, lending his compositions a tactile, material presence. His paintings balance formal clarity with an intuitive response to environment, resulting in works that feel both structured and atmospheric.

Webber gained early recognition with awards in the 1966 SA Breweries competition and the
1967 South African National Gallery exhibition, securing his place within South Africa’s evolving contemporary art scene. He has exhibited widely, both locally and internationally, including in Spain, Monaco, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, Australia, and Brazil, as well as across major South African cities. His work is held in significant public collections, including the South African National Gallery.

While not tied to a specific movement, Webber’s practice reflects a sustained exploration of abstraction as a means of interpreting landscape and experience. His work is distinguished by a quiet restraint and a refined sensitivity to colour, light, and space, positioning him among a generation of South African artists who forged independent paths within a global modernist context.

15/04/2026

HANLAZULI

ARTIST STATEMENT

I make messy, often uncomfortable pieces of art to help me process information and, ultimately, to keep myself less messed up.

I’ve lived with mental health issues and addiction for most of my adult life—perhaps even before then. The more I came to understand how mental health and addiction shaped who I was, the more I became aware of the scapegoat archetype and how it operates in society—and why it even exists.

The nature of addiction and illness can teach us a great deal about the world, though not always in the ways we might expect. My journey has afforded me the privilege of meeting all sorts of amazingly diverse, intricate, and complicated human beings—all of us experiencing various layers of reality in the hope of finding a “framework,” something to anchor our unique experience.

But boxes do not always welcome what they cannot contain—or understand. This is what makes the human experience so vulnerable. We are conditioned from day one, and if we are lucky, we sometimes gain a moment of clarity—where we can observe what is programming and what is Truth.

A story I hold close to my heart is about the jewel of truth, carried in the beak of a bird that flew over the globe and let it drop. It shattered into billions of pieces, scattering fragments of truth everywhere. Perspective then took on new meaning, along with a never-ending devotion to empathy.

The patchwork of society might look a little rough, but those stitches are strong and bind us in ways beyond our wildest dreams.

14/04/2026

SIBUSISO NGWAZI

ARTIST STATEMENT

Ngwazi is a self-taught South African artist renowned for his nonfigurative paintings. His practice reflects his desire to break free from the constraints of traditional representational art and explores the limitless possibilities of abstraction. Ngwazi’s work is characterized by bold, vibrant colours and fuid lines that create a sense of movement and energy. His sweeping brushstrokes, and use of non-representational shapes, are layered to form complex, multidimensional compositions.

A master of texture, his variety of techniques and paints results in rich, tactile surfaces.
Expressing a deep spirituality, Ngwazi’s paintings evoke a sense of transcendence. In the artist’s vision, colours and forms have inherent spiritual properties and can be employed to elicit an emotional response in the viewer, without relying on traditional representational imagery.

13/04/2026

TYRON APPOLIS

To Tyrone, the Artist

In the quiet hours,
your brush moves with intention,
each stroke a testament to your journey—
a dialogue between the canvas and your soul.

You navigate the chaos,
the weight of expectations,
the critics who linger,
their voices like shadows.
But you stand firm,
anchored in your truth.

Your art is a reflection,
a mirror of struggle and triumph,
raw and unfiltered—
a glimpse into the depths of your being.

With every piece,
you expose the layers:
the torment and the beauty,
the pain and the joy,
challenging the world to see,
to feel, to understand.

You are not just an artist,
but a warrior of expression,
fighting for your vision,
for the stories that need to be told.

In a realm that often feels
like a sea of indifference,
your passion burns bright—
a beacon for those who resonate,
who find solace in your brushstrokes.

So carry forward, Tyrone,
with no apologies.
Your voice is powerful,
your spirit unyielding.
In the tapestry of life,
your thread is vibrant—
a reminder that even in struggle,
there is artistry,
there is resilience,
there is you.

- Prof Ptika Ntuli

02/04/2026

FIRST THURSDAY

The Moment Is Now

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive. Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Keeping quiet
Poem by Pablo Neruda

Poster art by Tyron Appolis
Title: The soul of Cape Town
Acrylic on canvas
70 x 90 cm

24/03/2026

LAURA STÖCKL

ARTIST STATEMENT

1 am a German-Luxembourgish artist based in Amsterdam. My work moves between color, fashion, and storytelling.

With a background in high fashion - having worked with houses such as Louis Vuitton and Kar Lagerteld — I developed a deep sensitivity to crattsmanship, material tension, and visual precision. Today, I use that foundation to construct something more personal: a language of color that translates sensation into form.

1 am a synesthete. I experience sound, memory, and emotion as color. A song becomes a gradient. A conversation becomes saturation. An experience or feeling becomes colorful movement. My abstract color studies and large-scale gradient works are translations of these invisible frequencies — immersive fields of chromatic energy.

This new body of work explores vibrancy as a living force — the energy of a horse, the spirit of freedom it carries; I am painting atmospheres. I am interested in how light vibrates inside the body, how color can feel tidal, how saturation can hum.

Alongside my abstract practice, my mixed-media collages dissect pop culture, luxury, intimacy, and power. I layer personal notes, WhatsApp fragments, and newspaper clippings into dense visual narratives. Beauty acts as a lure — drawing the viewer inward before revealing reflections on identity, female agency, and the contradictions of modern visibility.
Beauty, for me, is never passive. It vibrates. It hums. It moves.

In Motion is about energy that cannot be stilled — only directed.

24/03/2026

SEPID

ARTIST STATEMENT

SECHI ART STUDIO

Before a book belongs to the world, it belongs to one pair of hands.
Before it is shared, it is whispered.
Before it is printed, it is pressed into paper by someone who needed to write it down.

Every book begins as a note. A margin. A loose page carried in a pocket.

This work follows the life of the written word, from its first quiet mark in a notebook to the moment it slips out of reach. What becomes of a book when no one opens it?
When its sentences fall silent? When it is passed along, shelved, or left behind?

Here, forgotten books are not waste. They are memory with weight.

Their pages are folded and gathered into sculptural forms.
The text is no longer read for meaning. It becomes texture, pulse, surface. Paragraphs turn into language.
Language loosens from its duty to explain and settle into the body of the paper itself.

Shadow boxes layered with fragments of printed pages hold handcrafted notebooks at their center. The beginning rests inside the remains of what might follow. Origin and afterlife share the same space, as if time has folded in on itself.
This installation is not separate from the notebooks. It exists to frame them. The surrounding books, once vessels of ideas, now become a physical context for where ideas start again. The sculptural elements and layered pages are both material and metaphor, drawing attention back to the object at the center, the notebook as a place of potential.

23/03/2026

MELANY ISMAIL

ARTIST STATEMENT

Coloured people are embedded in South Africa, spread out over the Western Cape. Indigenous to the land, every small town, village, farm, rural area, and beyond has a designated coloured community, designated because the communities exist in areas and conditions determined by South Africa’s previous apartheid government.

Besides being descended from the Khoisan people, due to the apartheid classification system, coloured people are inextricably intertwined with the colonisation of South Africa.

The Cape Coloured people are a blend of many ethnicities: African tribes, British, German, Malaysian, and Dutch. A melting pot of heritage and ethnicities, but they’ve taken it all and created a new thing —
“I love the inclusion and evolution of that, it speaks to the adapt-and-survive mentality of coloured people, the resilience.”

This work showcases the humanity of a people who were displaced during apartheid and, instead of condemning them for their unfortunate situation and conditions,

I use my lens to challenge societal stereotypes of coloured people and give an authentic portrayal of coloured people, celebrating our resilience, culture and humanity. Rather than focusing on the hardships imposed by apartheid, I challenge societal stereotypes, reclaiming dignity and pride for my people who have been too often overlooked.”

As with the nature of impoverished communities, coloured people are stuck in time. This beautifully complements their humble existence, using a mindful photographic aesthetic that strips the subjects of pretence and lends to the genuine insight that the photography offers. It gives an intimate look into the heart of Cape Town’s coloured communities and culture.

These photographs were taken on both an iPhone and film.

“I often use the phone as it never spooks or interrupts
because I wait for the moment I’m waiting for that
captures not just the environment but stirs an emotion.”

19/03/2026

ARTHUR DLAMINI

THE EVOLUTION of SOUTH AFRICAN JAZZ

The Jazz Legacy Collection

An exhibition by Siphiwe Mhlambi and Arthur Dlamini

18/03/2026

SIPHIWE MHLAMBI

THE EVOLUTION of SOUTH AFRICAN JAZZ

The Jazz Legacy Collection

An exhibition by Siphiwe Mhlambi and Arthur Dlamini

05/03/2026

FIRST THURSDAY

SACRED LANGUAGES

There are styles. The language is deeper - it’s how we phrase, articulate, interact, and tell stories... It’s in the call-and-response. The nuance.

Poster Art by
Siphiwe Mhlambi
Titled: Abdullah Ibrahim

05/03/2026

FIRST THURSDAY

SACRED LANGUAGES

There are styles. The language is deeper — it’s how we phrase, articulate, interact, and tell stories... It’s in the call-and-response. The nuance.

Poster Art by
Siphiwe Mhlambi
Titled: Abdullah Ibrahim

03/03/2026

CAPE TOWN CITY BALLET

FIRST THURSDAY PERFORMANCE

25/02/2026

ORY KATALAYI

ARTIST STATEMENT

Red and blue are the most common colours we encounter around the world. Usually, red represents danger, while blue is associated with calmness. My personal preference is red, because it represents both vitality and warning — energy and power, courage and dominance — often increasing heart rate and demanding attention. It has the power to influence emotion. Like love and pain, both can be expressed through the same colour.

Many times, anything red attracts my attention more quickly than other colours — like the girl in the red dress or your favourite fast-food restaurant. In this collection, I use red to strike a sense of self-assurance and love.

With the colour blue, I aim to express deep, honest emotions, such as depression and peace, and its ability to shift from negative states (sadness, aloofness) to positive ones (serenity, dependability), depending on context. Blue has the power to take you trom one place to another without physically moving.

24/02/2026

DION CUPIDO

ARTIST STATEMENT

This exhibition brings together a new body of paintings in which Cupido responds directly — and unapologetically - to the fractured realities of contemporary life.

Cupido’s starting point is the world as he encounters it: the art world, politics, religion, and lifestyle culture collide on his canvases. The works reflect a landscape where certainty has dissolved and positions are constantly questioned. Is art still in the eye of the beholder? Whose politics do we align with? Do moral absolutes exist, or has everything become negotiable?
“There is a sense that everyone is on a battlefield,” Cupido suggests, “but no one really knows who — or what — they are aiming at.” This atmosphere of confusion, noise, and contradiction is central to the exhibition. Rather than offering answers, Cupido exposes the tension itself, using painting as a space where ambiguity is not only allowed, but necessary.

Visually bold and conceptually direct, Let Me Tell You Something continues Cupido’s exploration of contemporary identity and belief systems, pushing beyond comfort zones without slipping into spectacle. The works are confrontational at times, ironic at others, but never neutral. Indifference, in this case, is not an option.

24/02/2026

DIYAE DAKIR

ARTIST STATEMENT

Diyae Dakir (b. 1988, Morocco) is a self-taught visual artist whose work explores transformation, identity, and value through the use of recontextualized organic materials. After more than twelve years in finance and consulting, she left the corporate world to fully commit to artistic practice.

Her work centers on fish scales - fragments once part of a living body, marked by time, movement, and survival. Each scale, unique in form and texture, creates unstable, ever-shifting surfaces that echo the shifting nature of human identity.

Both aesthetic and ethical, Diyae Dakir’s gesture consists in reclaiming a material set aside by the fishing process and revealing its symbolic weight. Through this transformation, her work questions hierarchies of value and opens a space of reflection on what we choose to regard as precious, and on the metamorphoses that become possible when matter — like the self — is llowed to be reimagined.

05/02/2026

FIRST THURSDAY

PUSH

“Some people are born with the privilege — as we call it — of having everything planned for them from birth. Growing up without such a plan, I gained a different kind of advantage: inward wealth, materialised through self-knowledge and freedom. Keep pushing yourself.”
- Ory Katalayi

Poster art by .arts
Push
Oil on canvas
134 x 74 cm

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

Website

http://www.youngblood-africa.com/

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