Buqaqawuli Nobakada paints Black women the way she wants to see them: relaxed, glamorous and fully at home in beautiful spaces. The South African artist, known as The Lace Lady, is now taking that vision to Paris for her first solo show.
Born in 2000, Nobakada spent her formative years in the rural Eastern Cape. She was introduced to fine art in Johannesburg at the start of her adolescence, then studied Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand after first exploring architecture.
Painting on lace
Her signature technique is her own. She prepares paper with lace fabric by hand, then paints acrylic scenes onto it, so the texture of the lace shows through the figures, clothing and imagined interiors and gives them a stippled effect. She also adds custom clay elements and gold jewellery accents to her pieces.
The material is deliberate. Speaking to The Herald in 2025, Nobakada said the delicacy of lace mirrors how Black women should be treated, with care and tenderness, rather than through stories of endurance and trauma.
Beauty, rest and joy
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Her paintings show Black women dancing together, sharing meals and lounging by the pool in imagined luxury spaces. The work is autobiographical, with the women often drawn from her own surroundings, and she has described the luxurious settings as a form of manifestation and a love letter to her younger self. She wants young Black girls to see images that show them spaces they can inhabit.
A fast rise
The recognition has come quickly. Nobakada won the 2023 Latitudes Audience Choice ANNA Award and the Tilga Art Prize. Her work has been shown in South Africa, the United States and Europe, including a group show at Affinity Art Gallery in Lagos. Her US debut was at the Albany Museum of Art in Georgia, which has bought her work for its collection, and her pieces have also been shown in London and Chicago.
Paris
Her first solo presentation, Our Dreams Began to Chase Us Back, opened on 19 October 2026 at Galerie Pierre Cornette de Saint Cyr in Paris and runs until 19 December 2026. Curated by Destinee Ross-Sutton, it features six new paintings.
