A painter from Sweden and a ceramic artist from South Africa. Both artists share an exuberance for dazzlingly rich and textured colour. These works sit comfortably together.
Clementina Van Der Walt
Clementina has been a significant force in South African ceramics for the last three decades. She comes to us fresh from exhibiting at Ceramic Art London (Royal College of Art), with a new collection of work. Here is an artist working with a unique purity and vibrancy, from outside the British ceramic tradition.
‘Clementina’s platters, bowls and cups serve as objects both for use and for contemplation… They are touched by hand and lip as well as the eye and mind… the smooth gloss interior of a plate where the food is to rest is set against the matt surface of the rim – sufficiently rough to speak of baked earth but not coarse enough to repel the hand… They are lyrical and light. They make reference to the African cultural and physical landscape in the play of colour – a dark brown of wet earth against the ochre of burnt veldt; the khaki of grass against the white of cloud, and always the grace note of that wonderful ox blood red.’
(Exhibition review by Wilma Cruise, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, 2005.)
Annica Neumuller
Annica has lived and worked in Monmouth since moving from her home in Sweden nine years ago. Stepping through the door of her house and into her studio, one is immediately aware that the rooms are an extension of her paintings – the decoration, contents and colour flow one into the other. Her surroundings are her visual vocabulary. Drawings in charcoal and pencil laid down in sequence are her starting point. Annica paints bold and colourful abstracts, large and small, but only in the sense that she abstracts; this is not mere pattern making, but a direct reference to her environment and experiences. Sometimes the objects disappear, only to reappear later on in the painting process. These paintings will entice the viewer with their rich, luscious and tactile qualities.