Clementina Ceramics

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.

The spacious and light-filled studio, overlooking the harbour and mountains, is in an industrial building in Woodstock, Cape Town. Clementina and her two assistants, Adonis N’sele Mumpango and Euloge Think work in the ceramic section.

“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.”