Sculpted and formed by the earth

Olivia Barrell's gallery and book reclaim clay's place in art history, grounded in care and curation

- Thembeka Heidi Sincuba

At the periphery of Joza township in Makhanda, just before its core unfolds, cliff faces rise in majesty — striations of ochre, rust and gold glowing with a celestial intensity.

Clay appears to form itself there, as though the earth is recalling its own shape. And yet the nearby institution insisted (at least during my tenure) on importing clay for its sculpture department, the material on its very doorstep dismissed. Clay can symbolise this paradox: abundant yet overlooked, persistent yet devalued.

The book, Clay Formes: Contemporary Clay From South Africa (2023), is something of a response to this limitation. It has a compelling survey of artists, many rooted in that very region, working with the earth beneath their feet.

Clay Formes emerged from this ethos as a result of extensive travel, door-to-door conversations and nearly 100 interviews. I spoke to Olivia Barrell, whose path was destined to lead to this publication, about how she came to map the contemporary landscape of local clay and ceramic practice.

"I was born in Johannesburg, but I went to Paris at 18 because I got into Sorbonne University, where I studied history of art with a specialisation in ceramics. I stayed for 10 years and did my postgraduate degrees in Chinese and 17th-century ceramics," she says.

"When I moved back to South Africa eight or nine years ago, I became aware of the ceramic artists here; the level of the work was world class. I have a background across the art world; I've worked as a writer, academic, in auction houses, the secondary market, market analysis and with collectors. I decided to build something that filled a gap I saw in the contemporary African art space."