How Dyalvane revives African spirituality

IT’S BEEN years since I last felt the throb of a headache.

- UNATHI KONDILE

Many many years ago. But this Saturday it hit me with the brute force of Mandoza's Nkalakatha, during the opening of Majolandile “Andile” Dyalvane’s iNgqweji exhibition at the V&A Waterfront's Southern Guild art gallery.INgqweji is Xhosa for a bird's nest and the works on show teem with biomorphic earthenware forms, vivid colour and tactile materials such as free-blown glass and hand-forged copper. In some way or the other they all mimic large nests, which the artist observed while on a pilgrimage to the late Credo Mutwa's home in Kuruman.

The exhibition is an impressive body of work, complete with preliminary sketches and a video documenting the making process. Andile Dyalvane is one of the continent's top ceramicists and the co-founder of IMISO Ceramics in Woodstock. He has exhibited all over the world including at the Met in New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Pérez Museum, Denver Art Museum and Iziko South African National Gallery, to name just a few.

Dyalvane has been at this thing for over two decades and attributes his enduring success to his wife, Nkuthazo, who was present at the opening and stood by his side as he spoke about his work and how they met years ago on a train to Woodstock.

I am more a fan of Dyalvane's abstract figurative sculptures than of his vase-form pieces. I am a sucker for fluid, geometric, aesthetically pleasing work but recognise there's a strong market and real enthusiasm for his broader body of work. You could hear it in the crowd’s delighted 'oohs' and ‘aahs'. With some wanting to touch even.