Contemporary African pottery is distinguished by an eloquence of form and a fineness of finish that one does not often anticipate in a utilitarian vessel.
Andile Dyalvane
Dyalvane was born in 1978 in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, Majolandile and graduated with a Cum Laude in Ceramic Design from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2003. He remains faithful to his roots by employing scarification as a technique, similar to the Xhosa cultural practice of ukuqatshulwa – body scarification.
His art is elemental, and his use of color is frequently metaphorical, reflecting his cultural traditions.
Since then, this ceramic artist has made waves in Denmark, Taipei, California, France, and New York City. He has gone from strength to strength in recent years as a co-founder of Imiso Ceramics in Cape Town, SA, with exhibitions in the UK and the USA and his work being collected globally.
His containers here have a harsh aspect that reminiscence of Picasso.
He has progressed from surface decorating to replicating the Master’s 3D form and angular, jagged outlines in his own outsized, sculptural vessels.
In 2019, Dyalvane completed a residency at Leach Pottery (founded in 1920) in St Ives, Cornwall, UK. Here, he embraced his local environment by creating brutish containers and open plates with coarse surface textures suggestive of both the washed out ravines of his boyhood surroundings and the thick muck of the nearby river.
He worked furiously, producing experimental pieces with a new dynamic, employing new techniques learned from his host, such as new glazes and vivid hues.
A few pieces were shown in London, and the most were returned to South Africa and displayed at the Southern Guild in Connecticut.
Dyalvane created iThongo, a collection of works inspired by his own heritage. This exhibition of 18 terra-cotta chairs and stools, described by the artist as an ancestral dreamscape, was first shown in his home territory of the Eastern Cape, then in Cape Town at Southern Guild, and most recently in New York at the Friedman Benda Gallery.
The stools and chairs are a powerful cultural interpretation that draw influence from collective and personal memories, as well as African artifacts.
They are low, close to the ground, and designed to be put in a circle around a fire hearth and herbal offerings.
Each sculpture, created in 2020, is the personification of an imagined symbol. The symbols began as drawings before taking shape in clay. The symbols, or portions of them, are etched onto the seats themselves. Dyalvane devised around 200 symbols to represent major phrases in Xhosa culture, such as igubu (drum) and izilo (totem animals).
