January/February 2020
Andile Dyalvane is a storyteller who revels in the texture of a tale – for him, specicity is the soul of the narrative. These stories, which shape the forms and richly patterned surfaces of his ceramic sculptures and vessels, are profound and complex, and he is generous with them. In a café close to his studio in Salt River, Cape Town, they pour out of him and I drink them in. Many of those that Dyalvane – one of South Africa’s leading ceramic artists – shares with me are about acts of giving, communal gathering and healing, which are central to his work. They stem from his experiences in Ngobozana, the small village in the Eastern Cape where he was born but later le. to study in Cape Town.
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