Hylton Nel: Antwerp 1967

About the artist:

Hylton Nel (b.1941)
Hylton Nel was born in Zambia and grew up on the family farm in South Africa. He studied fine art and painting at Rhodes University, Grahamstown where he first began exploring ceramics going on to study painting and ceramics at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. For Nel the medium of clay is a means to give his ideas form.

Over the course of more than 50 years working with clay and glazes, he has invented a visual language that is distinctly his own. His idiosyncratic ceramics include plates, vases, bowls, plaques, figurines, and small sculptures, many decorated with line drawings and script referencing decorative arts, literature, art history, erotica, and social and political issues. 

As the artist says: “I like classical stuff from the past, but I’m fascinated by living traditions which have transcended dynastic change, political change, and that still persist.”