Artist Database

Andile Dyalvane is one of South Africa’s foremost ceramic artists. Guided by a deep spiritual connection to his isiXhosa ancestors, Dyalvane’s complex, large-scale ceramic artworks are a metaphorical vessel through which he seeks to honour his cultural traditions and share his journey of healing.

Born in 1978 in the small village of Ngobozana in the rural Eastern Cape of South Africa, Dyalvane grew up farming and looking after his father’s cattle herd – sewing a deep connection to the land that resonates powerfully through his work today. He has held solo exhibitions at Southern Guild in Cape Town and Friedman Benda in New York – the most recent of which was the critically acclaimed iThongo (Ancestral Dreamscape) in 2020 and 2021 – and has exhibited widely, lectured, and held artist residencies all over the world.

His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum, Vitra Design Museum, New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum and Iziko South African National Gallery. A member of the International Academy of Ceramics, he completed a National Diploma in Ceramic Design at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2003 and co-founded Imiso Ceramics with Zizipho Poswa in 2005. Southern Guild has shown his work at international fairs such as Design Miami, Design Miami/ Basel, The Salon Art + Design, NY Now, and Design Days Dubai.