Nicholas Sithole is one of Africa’s most pioneering ceramic artists; a master of technique and an early innovator of traditional forms. His radical sculptures have inspired countless generations of ceramic artists in South Africa.
The hand-coiled terracotta sculptures of Siyabonga Fani draw inspiration from charred trees, rivers, and the voluptuous bodies of women. Fani is leading a new generation of smoke-fired ceramic practice in South Africa.
The monumental, hand-built ceramic sculptures of Martine Jackson resemble ancient, weathered landscapes with their undulating forms and textured surfaces.
Ludwe Mgoolombane’s process includes mixing clay with any organic combustible materials, such as leaves, straw and pine needles that burn away, leaving a grassy, gritty textural finish highlighted using oxides.
Junior’s work is largely inspired by historical sculpture from the Renaissance period and diverse indigenous ceramic traditions – which are integrated, re-interpreted and transformed into work that is specifically his own.
Clive Sithole positions himself within a lineage of artists who redefine objects as carriers of cosmological and ancestral meaning, in which every surface and incision constitutes a visual language, one that questions traditions around ritual and identity, rather than simply reflecting them.
Hennie Meyer is one of South Africa’s most versatile ceramic artists. His signature style exceeds allegiances to form and texture; a career-long commitment to experimentation gives rise to a body of work adept at shape-shifting.
Ralph Johnson is a leading figure in South African ceramics, known for his rough, often unglazed pottery surfaced with coloured slips and an experimental use of mixed media, including wire, mesh and gold leaf.
Sbonelo Luthuli’s innovation does not lie in abandoning tradition, but in working within its constraints — stretching, testing, and gently disrupting a long artistic heritage of cosmological Zulu vessels.
Hailing from one of the foremost families of Zulu ceramics, Jabulile Nala bears the memory of a line of female clay-workers that can be traced back to 1900; extending and re-inventing the work of her late mother, Nesta Nala.
Eva Obodo is a Nigerian artist and academic whose practice incorporates discarded jute fibre and charcoal as medium and concept, creating relief paintings that evoke Nigeria’s mining-ravaged and increasingly industrialised landscapes.
South African sculptor Ledelle Moe uses earth and concrete to explore the porousness of bodies, monuments, and belonging — in ancient, industrial and human-scale timelines.
Astrid Dahl’s work explores light, purity and symmetry in large botanically-inspired earthenware forms. Her white and black clayworks are heavy, but defy themselves with their appearance of lightness.
Johan Thom explores the performative relationship between the body and materials — generating corporeal visual forms that extend, question and animate the forces at stake in our material relationship to the surrounding world.
FIND OUT ABOUT OUR UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS AND PUBLICATIONS:
JOIN THE ART FORMES CLUB TO RECEIVE WRITE-UPS ON CONTEMPORARY SOUTH AFRICAN ARTISTS, EXHIBITION REVIEWS AND OTHER ART MUSINGS.