South African artist Buqaqawuli Nobakada makes Paris debut
South African artist Buqaqawuli Thamani Nobakada opens her first solo presentation in France on 19 October, bringing six new paintings exploring Black women’s experiences of pleasure, beauty and abundance to Paris.
Our Dreams Began to Chase Us Back runs at Galerie Pierre Cornette de Saint Cyr until 19 December 2026. Curated by Destinee Ross-Sutton and presented in partnership with Pierre Cornette de Saint Cyr, the exhibition coincides with Art Basel Paris.
Nobakada’s subjects recline beside swimming pools, listen to records, move through gardens and gather around lavish tables. These scenes imagine spaces in which Black women can feel safe, unhurried and at home, without their lives being defined by struggle or the need to justify their pleasure.
Working in acrylic on hand-prepared lace, Nobakada draws on memories of the curtains in her maternal grandmother’s home, which women in her family cared for and repaired. In her paintings, the fabric becomes landscape, architecture, clothing and skin, connecting domestic memory with her imagined worlds.
image courtesy Buqaqawuli Nobakada / Destinee Ross-Sutton
Setting the Table
The Châtelaine
The exhibition’s title reflects the artist’s growing sense that the futures she has pictured are beginning to take shape in her own life. Her practice approaches painting as a form of manifestation, giving visual form to aspirations before they become reality.
The Paris presentation follows her first US solo exhibition, Her Ladyship, Countess of Cumakala, at Georgia’s Albany Museum of Art in 2025. In February 2026, the Iziko South African National Gallery acquired her painting Olympia (1863) – Giving Herself Flowers: A Reverence for Self Adoration, a reinterpretation of Édouard Manet’s Olympia.
Nobakada will also make her New York debut with a solo exhibition opening on 16 November 2026, in collaboration with Frevo NYC and curated by Destinee Ross-Sutton.
Our Dreams Began to Chase Us Back is on view at 29 Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, Paris. The opening reception takes place on 19 October, from 5pm to 9pm.
