Turn a Love Art piece over and the painter's name is written underneath, and more often than not it is Nene. Winnie, Jabu, Minenhle and Zinhle Nene paint for the studio, which began in one room of Zinhle's house, alongside Swelihle Khanyeza and Mandla Ngwenya. Nathi Msomi, Sfiso Mokoena, Sibusiso Ndaba and Motsamai Sello do the sculpting.
Parrots on the rim
Winnie Nene painted the bird bowl, a star of flowers almost a foot and a half across, and Sibusiso Ndaba perched parrots on its rim, two grey and two blue, all leaning in toward the middle as if something is about to be served.
Bird Bowl
Sculpted by Sibusiso Ndaba, painted by Winnie Nene
$3,500
A tureen, taken over
A tureen is a formal object, made to hold the soup at a long dinner. Nathi Msomi let the octopuses have this one: one sprawls across the lid, another wraps the body, a third climbs the side with its arms curled out where the handles would be. Jabu Nene painted them in coral and sea green with every sucker ringed in red. South Africa's kelp forests gave the world My Octopus Teacher; this is the version that stays for dinner.
Octopus Tureen
Sculpted by Nathi Msomi, painted by Jabu Nene
$4,800
For the comb, anything
The honey badger is famous in the bush for its nerve: it stands its ground against lions and puts up with a cloud of stings to reach a hive. On the bowl Sfiso Mokoena sculpted, two of them climb over the rim to the honeycomb, bees still at work, and inside Mandla Ngwenya painted a third stretched out among white lilies and red fruit. The same two made the hippo bowl.
Honey Badger Bowl
Sculpted by Sfiso Mokoena, painted by Mandla Ngwenya
$4,200
Hippo Bowl
Sculpted by Sfiso Mokoena, painted by Mandla Ngwenya
$4,500