Who is Nina?

Nina Lumi in her New York studio beside the velvet tapestry Woman on the Land

Artist · Image Architect

I’m Nina Lumi, an artist and Image Architect living between New York and Cape Town.

For years I worked as an Image Architect: for a magazine, doing hundreds of makeovers, choosing hair colour, finding the right outfit and explaining what each colour means. I built my own signature courses, and at home in South Africa I became a top entrepreneur with a chain of clothing shops. Over and over I watched the same thing happen: when a woman sees herself clearly, she stands differently.

Then life got busy, and for almost twenty years I put my own designing aside. In 2023 I picked it up again. Creativity has always been my life thread, the thing I return to in every hard season. Art is a universal language, and it’s how I speak.

Today I create art that tells a story, and it becomes velvet tapestries, clothing and experiences like the Hidden Rainbow. Every piece carries a message: take up your space, be unmistakably you, grow where you are planted.

As a child I was a cheerleader, and in a way I still am. What I love most is standing next to a woman and telling her what I can see in her. I hope something here does that for you.

With love, Nina

See the velvet tapestries