CLEMENTINA VAN DER WALT
Clementina van der Walt is a well-known South African studio potter, based in Cape Town, who has in the past four decades lectured, run a production studio and held many one-person shows. Her work is represented in several South African national and international collections.
Together with her partner Albie Bailey, they run Clementina Ceramics Studio and a separate store in Woodstock Cape Town, South Africa. They also run a small Kraaldoring Studio and Gallery (appointment only) outside Calitzdorp in the Klein Karoo.
“My intention is to ‘seek the sacred in the ordinary’.
In the 21st century, we are increasingly being catapulted into this cyber age of information overload. Making contemplative and utilitarian objects by hand forms a necessary antidote to the above. The ceramic discipline, with cultural and historical links to rituals of everyday life, encompasses society, religion and philosophy. The archetypal significance of the home, as a point where our spiritual and earthy lives interconnect is where I have attempted to explore these ideas.
My aesthetic inspiration is drawn from the patterns, colours and textures in the urban African and rural landscapes.
Applying techniques of press moulding, casting and throwing I use earthenware clays, slips and underglazes.”