Born in 1986, to a seamstress mom and a dad in construction, Phumelele Nsele grew up in a home where creativity was always encouraged. Spending most of her childhood in Northern Kwa-Zulu Natal (Mandeni), she was always fascinated with art and culture as it relates to Zulu history.
In 2003 she matriculated from a technical high school in Umlazi (Umlazi Com-tech), that sort of lead to her pursuing a career as an engineering surveyor. Thirteen years into that career she met a beadwork artist who agreed to mentor her and she hasn’t looked back since. The technique of vertically hanging strings of beads, lined together forming a portrait has been her current medium of choice.
In 2022/2023 she has been focusing on portraits of women after seeing the lack of representation of women in spaces she wanted to be a woman that tells the stories of women, and most importantly she wanted women to feel seen and heard.
“Making beaded art is a healing process for me. I get to focus on the present moment, the colour and beauty of the medium. I am a woman, a sister, a daughter and a mother raising daughters. I want my contribution to be towards women feeling appreciated and supported. My work is of different women and it reflects my curiosity about how society sees and handles women and the conversations it has about women Art has always been part of my story, but some how my path lead me to a career as an Engineering surveyor. A career that I, 12 years later, left due to feeling unfulfilled. For a period after that I earned commission from sourcing artworks for new collectors. It wasn’t until a chance meeting with a beadwork artist, Mogarn Mohape, whose work I had previously seen at an exhibition the year before, he kindly agreed to teach me the craft. I have found that beads can heal and I have been on this journey of making beaded artworks since. My work focuses on women and highlighting their beauty, strength and divinity. I make pieces inspired by their roles in society from a vulnerable place in my own journey and the journeys of the women I’ve encountered.” – Phumelele Nsele
Disclaimer:
Actual colours may vary slightly from the images shown, due to lighting when photographed, and colour variations in monitors and on phone screens.
